On blogging theater reviews
Oct. 24th, 2006 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasOther papers and stuff are now getting their reviews of Hamlet up, and we've been reading them, partially to see what they say, but more to see how they say it. We're self-taught reviewers, and I, at least, am a little uncertain if I'm doing reviews, criticism, or something in between.
Lis and I would like to learn how one is supposed to write reviews. I'm not sure that we would write stuff that way, but we'd like to at least know what standard practice is, so that, if we do something different, we can do it from a position of knowledge.
It seems to me that blogging a review, or a criticism -- whatever it is that we are doing -- has a couple advantages, and a big disadvantage, over writing a review for a newspaper. The disadvantage, of course, is audience. A newspaper review is in the homes of thousands upon thousands of people, it's accessible, it reaches a larger audience, and it reaches people who aren't specifically searching for reviews and criticism. You can't, really, come across Lis or my reviews by accident -- you have to be looking for them. And that's a big downside.
But we do have some major advantages, too. One is that we're faster -- the Herald's review got out today, the Globe's probably won't be out until Thursday -- papers tend to have at LEAST a two-day lead time, while Lis and I can often write it the next day, and get it up by the day after that, which is a day faster than the papers. And we theoretically could go home, write it up immediately, and then post it that night, although we never do, because we like to have a night to talk about it, then sleep on it, and then figure out what we want to say, and how. So, even though we're not on deadline pressure, we're still faster.
But, since we're NOT on deadline pressure, we can spend more time thinking about things.
And we can do things with that time, because of our biggest advantage: online, there are no column length limits. I don't have to keep myself to 5000 words, or 10 column inches, or whatever. I can keep blathering on as long as I like. This is why this is also a disadvantage, obviously -- but I still feel that it's more of an advantage than a disadvantage.
The fact that Lis and I aren't answerable to anybody but ourselves goes along with this. We can write whatever we want, at whatever length we want, and, as long as we're doing a good enough job that the theater companies consider us to be useful members of the press, we get press tickets. Again -- that's an advantage and a disadvantage: no matter how crappy a job the Globe or Herald reviewer does (hypothetically -- their reviews are usually pretty good) -- they're going to continue to get tickets. We're only going to get tickets as long as we produce competent work. " Competent" does not mean necessarily "positive" -- we could slam a production and still get tickets, so long as the people getting slammed believed that we were doing so fairly and not stupidly. Anyway, the most negative reviews we've given so far have been "mediocre."
So, the biggest positive thing about writing on blogs instead of newspapers is that we can say whatever we want to say at whatever length we feel it ought to be said. And the biggest negative thing is that the only people who are going to see it are people who are looking for it.
Lis and I would like to learn how one is supposed to write reviews. I'm not sure that we would write stuff that way, but we'd like to at least know what standard practice is, so that, if we do something different, we can do it from a position of knowledge.
It seems to me that blogging a review, or a criticism -- whatever it is that we are doing -- has a couple advantages, and a big disadvantage, over writing a review for a newspaper. The disadvantage, of course, is audience. A newspaper review is in the homes of thousands upon thousands of people, it's accessible, it reaches a larger audience, and it reaches people who aren't specifically searching for reviews and criticism. You can't, really, come across Lis or my reviews by accident -- you have to be looking for them. And that's a big downside.
But we do have some major advantages, too. One is that we're faster -- the Herald's review got out today, the Globe's probably won't be out until Thursday -- papers tend to have at LEAST a two-day lead time, while Lis and I can often write it the next day, and get it up by the day after that, which is a day faster than the papers. And we theoretically could go home, write it up immediately, and then post it that night, although we never do, because we like to have a night to talk about it, then sleep on it, and then figure out what we want to say, and how. So, even though we're not on deadline pressure, we're still faster.
But, since we're NOT on deadline pressure, we can spend more time thinking about things.
And we can do things with that time, because of our biggest advantage: online, there are no column length limits. I don't have to keep myself to 5000 words, or 10 column inches, or whatever. I can keep blathering on as long as I like. This is why this is also a disadvantage, obviously -- but I still feel that it's more of an advantage than a disadvantage.
The fact that Lis and I aren't answerable to anybody but ourselves goes along with this. We can write whatever we want, at whatever length we want, and, as long as we're doing a good enough job that the theater companies consider us to be useful members of the press, we get press tickets. Again -- that's an advantage and a disadvantage: no matter how crappy a job the Globe or Herald reviewer does (hypothetically -- their reviews are usually pretty good) -- they're going to continue to get tickets. We're only going to get tickets as long as we produce competent work. " Competent" does not mean necessarily "positive" -- we could slam a production and still get tickets, so long as the people getting slammed believed that we were doing so fairly and not stupidly. Anyway, the most negative reviews we've given so far have been "mediocre."
So, the biggest positive thing about writing on blogs instead of newspapers is that we can say whatever we want to say at whatever length we feel it ought to be said. And the biggest negative thing is that the only people who are going to see it are people who are looking for it.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 03:51 pm (UTC)Oh really?
• King Lear: @ 10/21/2005 19:30; your review @ 10/22/2005 00:22
• Merry Wives of Windsor: @ 11/12/2005 20:00; your review @ 11/13/2005 02:13
• Twelfth Night: @ 12/17/2005 19:30; your review @ 12/18/2005 00:49
• Love's Labour's Lost: @ 5/17/2006 19:30; your review @ 05/17/2006 23:58
reviews
http://www.aislesay.com/CHI-HAMLET.html
The firsdt one is one my step-mom did awhile back. The second link is a current item on the site that she normally reviews for. I am not sure if these are really any use for you a sa guideline or for a place to post a review, but I figured I would suggest (pimp) the places that the theatre types I am related to go to.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 04:25 pm (UTC)I loathe reviewers who think they're being clever by showing of what they learned in some Theater 101 class, or who approach the job as literary criticism, or who get personal and mean about particular actors' failings.
I find it interesting that review tickets are available, and that the major papers use them. When I was in the news business, it was considered unethical to accept free tickets (or free anything else); the paper always paid.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 06:15 pm (UTC)I think that "reviewing" and "criticizing" are two different things, and I try to kinda do both.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 07:31 pm (UTC)You may intend your reviews as literary criticism, but they don't read like Literary Criticism, if you get the difference. Not pretentious enough by half. (-:
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 07:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 05:10 pm (UTC)As for how one is "supposed" to write a review, there's no single way. My baseline is to figure out my audience and provide information that's useful to them. I try to raise at least one question about something I think isn't fully addressed, and compare the work to others that are related to it by subject, style, or authorship. Beyond that, do whatever you like.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-24 06:01 pm (UTC)Re: On blogging theater reviews
Date: 2006-10-24 08:27 pm (UTC)why? certainly not for your current readers, or the level of discourse. i think some increase would be good for the latter, but not to the level of globe readership. i hate the comment sections on most big-name blogs; making light is a shining exception; one in a thousand.
i can see how it's a disadvantage if one's primary interest is to be a big name reviever/critic, and the discourse doesn't actually matter. if that's what you want, start a separate blog for the reviews -- not on LJ, sorry to say -- and beat your own drum wherever it's appropriate, and get other people to beat it too. it would probably not be too difficult to increase local readership; there are bound to be (free or cheap) advertising venues for that.
Re: On blogging theater reviews
Date: 2006-10-24 10:23 pm (UTC)How much benefit does the Actors' Shakespeare Project get by being plugged by me, as opposed to the Globe? How many people are going to find out about a production from me, rather than from the Herald? I mean, I know for a fact that I personally got about a half-dozen tickets to the New York production of Lear, what with
Re: On blogging theater reviews
Date: 2006-10-24 11:50 pm (UTC)i think that the more reviews, the better (within reason, but i don't think we have to worry about over-saturating the market here) -- the more reviewers, the more encompassing an assessment one gets before choosing to go to the theatre, the more different viewpoints, the more likely one of them might match well with one's own. i admit to mostly not caring for reviews at all, but on the rare occasions where i do, i'll read a whole swath of them because no single one is likely to touch on all (if any) of my personal interests.
i think the advice stands though, because whatever the motivation, if you think your reviews provide a service to people out there (as opposed to additional insight into your psyche by the people on your flist), you want to gain wider readership.
Re: On blogging theater reviews
Date: 2006-10-25 02:57 am (UTC)Which I can think of counterarguments to -- if what I'm saying is useful, than saying it to more people is more useful, so increasing my popularity increases my usefulness -- and that's true, I suppose. Yet I can't help but feel that that would be a dangerous path for me, personally, to go down: popularity is a really attractive concept for me, and I fear that if I were to deliberately seek it out, I'd start making that a goal in itself, at the expense of being, y'know, honest, or useful, or thoughtful, or kind, or any of the other things which I think are important to be.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 03:06 am (UTC)I found it an interesting contrast to the kinds of reviews you and I write...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 03:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-26 02:46 am (UTC)This is from my old site and I think I will be selling the domain in the next couple weeks as I've had a good offer and haven't been using it in a few years, so look quick. I'll keep the data, but the site won't be up any more after that.
I became a self taught reviewer and I got free passes to a lot of shows that way. If you have a place to publish the reviews you can then say you are reviewers and usually get comped. Eventually you get on the list for comps and they just get sent to you. It's kind of neat!