How to be a caring critic
Reviewers are being urged to be mindful of mental health
Earlier this month Adelaide Critics Circle received a request from South Australia’s Mental Health Commissioner, Taimi Allen, to be inoffensive during the Adelaide Fringe. The Fringe opens in late February and is among the biggest events in the world inspired by the Edinburgh Fringe.
The Commissioner has invited critics to a forum where we can "explore the impact of reviews on artists’ mental health and provide guidance on delivering constructive feedback without being detrimental to artist wellbeing”
It does suggest a new world order has arrived in the tradition of theatre criticism.
Do you remember that Dorothy Parker shot, when she described one actor: “she ran the gamut of human emotions all the way from A to B”?
I’m sure the Mental Health Commissioner’s advice would have been like water off a duck’s back.
At last year’s 2024 Fringe an actor presented a show exploring the life and put-downs of Dorothy Parker.
Her performance was, shall we say – nicely – capable of improving as the season continued.
Of course the reviews didn’t stop audiences who went along to gain a perspective on one of the great names in the theatre reviewing trade. Such is showbiz.
The Mental Health Commissioner’s forum will include insights from mental health professionals on the psychological effects of reviews.
There will be advice on writing reviews that are fair, honest and mindful.
There will be an open conversation about the intersection of critique and artist wellbeing.
These notions do split the reviewer’s loyalties, which are usually aimed at their readers rather than the performers.
The critic is there to provide information, sometimes very colourful, witty, or caustic information, about the show they have witnessed to inform readers. Quite separately, the critic is going to have to be smart enough and engaging enough to attract readers to their reviews. Only in special circumstances are they there to address the performers.
As a long time reviewer I have been contacted occasionally about the upset I have caused performers or others among the many people bringing a show to the stage.
These are especially difficult when made into part of a perspective about the performer’s recent ill-health, bad luck, family tragedy and such like. Similarly, the criticism of my own reviews, not always unjustified, has had to borne with a kind of stoicism on my part.
These are all the results of what is known in newspapers as “fair comment”. Reviews are delivered under the rules of “fair comment” where the reviewer, by right of expressing their own authentic views and by being accurate with any information, has licence to voice opinion.
It makes mockery of any suggestion that reviews are objective. They are opinion, backed by experience and expertise in the field and from life.
I did once meet a contingent of theatre critics from the then USSR who explained they all had a university education in theatre criticism. That did make me struggle to be inoffensive. Can you criticise a collective of critics?
As a long time arts editor, dealing with a stable of reviewers, I have witnessed the gamut – this time from A to Z – of complaints and threats ranging up to defamation cases, that eventuate from reviews in newspapers. We have even had newspaper headlines when performers have stopped major shows – Richard Harris in Camelot as I recall was one such case – to abuse the reviewer from the stage.
Honest opinion, well-expressed by critics, can have among the most important roles in news media. Unlike news reporting, the best present a picture of the culture of a community. They might be of a local dramatic or church society, or a blockbuster mainstage musical.
The loss of reviewers’ columns in mainstream media in Australia has been a tragedy for the arts and for reviewers. Fortunately, reviewing has found a place online and you can only hope that critics can continue to find audiences and shape the narrative about culture.