Michaelmas term has been a controversial one for student theatre reviewers. Reviews for Teahouse in particular invoked certain incensed rebuttals from disgruntled students, admonishing their critics on the grounds of poor research and contextual knowledge, unfair scrutiny of the show “solely for its flaws” and a fundamental cultural insensitivity. These ripostes let their reviewers know, in no uncertain terms, that perhaps they ought to be doing their jobs properly.

Quite right too. It is particularly bad form to misspell an actor’s name or to confuse them for another mixed race character in a show. It is certainly not the job of the reviewer to critique a minority student merely on the grounds of their accent. It isn’t constructive, nor is it beneficial to either the audience or the cast. Such feckless criticism has had me questioning the point of student reviews altogether.

But, the role of the critic is one often misunderstood. Much hostility is directed in the way of the hyper-critical theatre reviewer, who tries vehemently to assert his intellectual faculties. Or the more tentative student-critic who, in an attempt to offer a ‘fair’ assessment of a production (but more importantly, avoid alienating an all too familiar crew of cast and creatives), rather says nothing at all.

Even Mark Twain had it in for critics: “I believe the trade of critic, in literature, music, and drama, is the most degraded of all trades, and has no real value.” He added: “However, let it go. It is the will of God that we must have critics and missionaries and Congressmen and humorists. We must bear the burden.” 

In part, I agree with Twain: criticism is inevitable. But, I’ve come to suspect that things are not as burdensome as he suggests. In an ideal world, a reviewer should guide their audience in the ways of quality. Particularly at Cambridge, where workloads are heavy and both time and money are of the essence, theatregoers may want to choose their shows discerningly. And so, there is a certain responsibility placed upon reviewers to provide both an intellectual and critical honesty in their assessments. 

“It is very difficult to operate within the Cambridge bubble as a critic without consequence.”

Yet, in such a close-knit theatre community where everybody knows everybody, this is problematic and such critical honesty can be hard to come by. It is very difficult to operate within the Cambridge bubble as a critic without consequence. Student reviewers are often overwhelmingly aware of the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into a production – and rightly so. But, these same reviewers are also equally aware that they are more than likely to find themselves meeting eyes with the actor that just ‘failed to deliver a convincing performance on the night’ across the ADC bar, or sitting next to them at a lecture on Renaissance drama. As a result, there seems almost an overabundance of reviews for ‘middling’ performances, where a reviewer has, with careful thought, slapped three-stars (or, God forbid, three-point-five) on a show, on the off-chance that they might offend, mumbling something incoherently about how the actors were ‘talented’ but the production ‘just didn’t quite come together’. 

“We do ourselves a disservice when we yield to nepotism and are knowingly dishonest.”

I have friends that even write their reviews under pen-names for fear of falling to this fate, only still to shy away from speaking plainly when it comes to the quality of the show in question. Though intentions may be well-meaning, we do ourselves a disservice when we yield to nepotism and are knowingly dishonest – we dispense altogether with the point of a review, which is to provoke thought and discussion and to offer an independent assessment of an evanescent experience.

Notes from the stage door

This is not to say that we should stride into the territory of another species of critic: the hyper-critical reviewer. While both student and professional reviewers alike should uphold high standards, student-reviewers in particular should align their evermore lofty expectations with the fact that these are productions, executed and performed with thrifty budgets and time-constraints by students still in the process of forging their stage personae. Reviewers should, therefore, avoid offering up vacant remarks lamenting the ‘worst two hours’ of their lives. Although this can make for some entertaining reading, to spout vitriol for the sake of doing so is just as pointless as saying nothing at all. Granted, while the aspects of a production that are lacking certainly warrant comment, it just isn’t useful or constructive to be unrelenting.

But, at the end of the day, just as the over-zealous amateur actor stumbling over his lines may miss the mark occasionally, reviewers won’t always get it right. Student newspapers allow their aspiring theatre pundits the opportunity to flex their critical muscle in the same way that the ADC provides budding actors with a platform to flourish. So long as we use honesty as our maxim and manage to strike a middle ground between an unremitting malice and bumbling sycophancy, this is no bad thing at all.