{"id":326,"date":"2016-04-08T17:33:11","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T17:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/?p=326"},"modified":"2022-05-22T09:47:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-22T09:47:40","slug":"refereeing-the-muses-a-theater-criticismarts-journalism-primer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/refereeing-the-muses-a-theater-criticismarts-journalism-primer\/","title":{"rendered":"Refereeing the Muses: A Theater Criticism\/Arts Journalism Primer"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bob Abelman and Cheryl Kushner<\/strong>
\n 271 pp. New York and Frankfurt: Peter Lang<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Don Rubin<\/strong>[1]<\/sup><\/a> (Canada)<\/p>\n

\"Referreeing-Cover-1-8x6\"<\/p>\n

It is somewhat ironic that one of the most useful little books on the art of writing criticism and on the history of anglophone theatre criticism should appear at a time when courses on the subject in universities and positions for working theatre critics in the media are disappearing daily.<\/p>\n

In the English-speaking world generally and in North America specifically, newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations are daily doing everything they can to divest themselves of full-time critics and reviewers for economic reasons. In my own country, Canada, for example, there are probably not more than a dozen positions that even come close to full-time anymore in the media. The U.S., at ten times the size of Canada, probably does not have more than a hundred or so such positions, maybe nowhere near that many.<\/p>\n

Yet theatre criticism, like the theatre itself, does survive, sometimes in traditional forms, sometimes in not so traditional guises, sometimes in forms still emerging from the ether. I keep hearing about theatres with special sections for those who cannot resist the urge to \u201ctweet\u201d while viewing whatever is in front of them. Is this the future of criticism?<\/p>\n

This new book, Refereeing the Muses: A Theatre Criticism\/Arts Journalism Primer <\/i>is for all of those still maintaining an interest in and hope for the traditional forms as well as for those who retain an historical and\/or academic interest in what can be called the anglophone approach to criticism.<\/p>\n

Cleverly put together by two journalistic veterans, Bob Abelman (a professor of arts and media criticism at Cleveland State University) and Cheryl Kushner (a teacher at Kent State University\u2019s School of Journalism and former entertainment editor at the Cleveland Plain-Dealer <\/i>and New York\u2019s Newsday<\/i>), the book runs a careful line between basic academic theory, anglophone theatre history and applied journalistic practice.<\/p>\n

To begin, we are offered a useful general historical overview of criticism and journalism which touches on Socrates, Plato and Aristotle before moving on, very briefly, to Aquinas and the Renaissance with Erasmus, Thomas More and Francis Bacon making cameo appearances. From there, the subjects flow into the nature of critical thinking, the how-tos of contemporary anglophone journalistic practice and the elements involved in writing and structuring a review for a newspaper.<\/p>\n

More academically, we are offered definitions of several \u201cisms\u2019 including of genre criticism, auteur criticism and anthropological criticism. From there we move on to such things as high and low culture, the Broadway musical and even the arts in academia.<\/p>\n

<\/i>On the latter subject, we are told\u2014accurately I think\u2014that the Academy in the last decade or so has increasingly mirrored market-based models of measuring success. How many long-time jobs does theatre training produce? How many people are working in their field five or ten years after graduation?<\/p>\n

To which Abelman and Kushner respond: \u201chow does one quantify the impact of music, theatre, dance, philosophy, and other pursuits in the arts and humanities on the individual? On the community? On our culture? As colleges and universities become more allied with the profit goals of government and corporations, the esoteric pursuit of the arts is increasingly seen as intangible and, therefore, tangential\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given this situation, the authors suggest that what is needed is not fewer critics but more and better ones. Everyone, in fact, should be encouraged to engage in real critical thinking and this book, we are told, \u201cprovides the necessary information to do so\u2026. It is written to offer insight and useful information for those casual critics thinking about starting a blog or looking to become more thoughtful critical consumers of the arts, those university newspaper arts writers and editors hoping to improve their craft, or aspiring critics\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

In discussing critics and criticism generally, we are told early on that the word \u201ccritic\u201d itself comes from the Greek kritikos, <\/i>which means \u201cable to discuss,\u201d as well as from the Greek word kritos, <\/i>which means \u201ca judge\u201d and that \u201cthe primary function and, perhaps, greatest contribution of arts critics is to incite or instigate discussion\u201d and \u201cto recognize art in places beyond the proscenium arch and gallery\u2014the boardroom, the picket line, and the political arena, for example\u2014and consider its ramifications\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCritics,\u201d we are told at another point, \u201care the designated drivers of the arts\u2014the ones who remain sober enough to reflect on, describe, explain and analyze the entertainment, the vortex, the mechanics\u2026 This, in turn, facilitates the audience\u2019s subsequent reflection on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still later, British scholar Ronan McDonald is quoted as saying that \u201cthe era of the experts, the informed cognoscenti whose judgments and tastes operated as a lodestar for the public has seemingly been swept aside by a public that has laid claim to its capacity to evaluate its own cultural consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n

What will happen to the theatre if real critics with real expertise really do disappear? Critic David Cote warns us of the dangers of this, with a colourful biological metaphor saying, \u201cWe critics\u2026are the dung beetles of culture. We consume excrement, enriching the soil and protecting livestock from bacterial infection in the process. We are intrinsic to the theatre ecology. Eliminate us at your peril.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are also scattered throughout the book a series of boxed sections called \u201cIn Profile.\u201d Among them are pithy quotations by a range of American critical voices including Eric Bentley (the first winner of IATC\u2019s own Thalia Award for Critical Writing), Jeffrey Eric Jenkins (current President of the American section of the IATC), Stark Young, Alexander Woolcott and Ben Brantley of the New York<\/i> Times<\/i> and such critical thinkers as Harold Clurman.<\/p>\n

<\/i>Even the IATC\u2019s own \u201cCode of Practice,\u201d reproduced from the IATC website, is an \u201cIn Profile.\u201d Unfortunately, it is never dealt with in the body of the book but it\u2019s nice to know that the authors found it interesting enough to include somewhere.<\/p>\n

A few small complaints. I am not sure why an \u201cabstract\u201d is needed before each chapter as well as a \u201csummary\u201d after. Having both clogs the book\u2019s through-line, as does a far too basic chapter on the nature of theatre art which also has little to do with the ostensible subject of the book: theatre criticism.<\/p>\n

Because there are so few books on the nature and practice of theatre criticism published, this book takes on immediate value in the field. Its ultimate importance, however, will most likely be as a useful course text for anyone trying to teach criticism at the high school or university level or for anyone seeking to pick up the art on his or her own. Even for those already established in the field, it will prove a good read and well worth a look.<\/p>\n

\n

\"1359543089\"<\/p>\n

<\/a>[1] Don Rubin<\/strong> is the General Editor of Routledge\u2019s six-volume World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre<\/i> and was for many years the theatre critic for the New Haven (Conn.) Register<\/i>, the Toronto Star<\/i>and CBC Radio. Founding Editor of the Canadian Theatre Review<\/i>, he is President of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association and is former Director of the Graduate Program in Theatre and Performance Studies at Toronto\u2019s York University where he continues to teach numerous courses including Applied Theatre Criticism.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2014 Don Rubin
\nCritical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This work is licensed under the
\nCreative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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