Another Arts Monday Review Is Unfair To Performers

To the editors:

A theater review that does not address at all the production of a show, except to psychoanalyze it, is no review at all (“Playful ‘Princess’ Strikes Misogynistic Chord,” Arts, Apr. 11). As a member of the arts community, I’m completely exasperated by the repeated lack of substance in Crimson theater reviews. Today’s review by David F. Hill of Princess Ida is no exception to what I have generally found to be a cadre of uninformed and uninterested reviewers. While at the performance that Hill “reviewed,” I noticed that he brought and listened to his compact disc player—he was not exactly attentive. I suggest that the Arts board give a checklist to its reviewers of elements necessary for a theater review. It should include:

—a discussion of the performances of individual actors, not merely a statement of their names and roles

—some comment on the set and costumes and how they relate to the performance and enhance or detract from the production, not merely a comment on their “genderedness,” a concept entirely contrived by the reviewer

—if the show is a musical, a discussion of the music and its performance by the orchestra

While this review is particularly bad (and I am particularly annoyed because I am on staff for this show), I know it is possible for The Crimson to do good work: Patrick D. Blanchfield regularly reviews theater well. Please get more reviewers like him, who actually know what they’re talking about, and let reviewers like Hill psychoanalyze something else.

MARGARET D. MALONEY ’06

April 11, 2005