Reading Reviews

Every artist knows there’s an art to reading reviews.

(Or maybe not an art. Maybe there’s a wine list. Or should be.)

But as a writer about theatre, I have a confession: I enjoy reading reviews of plays after I’ve seen them.

I know this makes nonsense of the idea that reviews are consumer advice. (My attending of theatre is rather like drinking from some random bottle I find under the sink – and then reading the label.)

I avoid reviews before seeing the play because everything feels like a spoiler.

I like to sit down to Hamlet and be surprised. “Oh, it’s in Swahili this time.”

I like to read reviews after I’ve seen the play because I don’t particularly want to know about the play. (I’ve seen it.) I want to know about the reviewer.

Or more precisely, I want to know about another person. I want to know what they value.

Because we do value different things. In aesthetics. In morality. In politics.

There is a danger to living in a pluralistic society that openly acknowledges this: we can forget to be truly amazed at how varied is the human experience. We can reduce the idea we value different things into a mere truism. But each one of us gazes through a different window. To……….. where?  I want a peek.

Reviewers say ‘Have a look through this window.’ And I want to thank them for that.

And to mix imagery, and to return to artists, let me conclude with this:

Putting on a production is like firing up a particle accelerator.  You get a small number of very excited particles and send them hurtling at a larger, more inert mass. Then, after the collision, you know more about the universe.

Veronica Kaye

Note: The image is Paul Gilchrist reading a review to an interested friend.