The following is an adaptation of Albert Williams’s keynote speech to the annual conference of the American Theatre Critics Association, given June 13 at the Goodman Theatre.
I can’t define the “role of the critic.” No one can, though many will try. Everyone has an opinion about that role, and those opinions often clash. Well, there can be no drama without conflict–why should drama criticism be any different? I think each critic defines his or her role by the way we each do our jobs. Obviously we’re influenced by outside factors: the expectations of our editors, the nature of the media outlet we write for or speak through, the art we cover, and the cultural and civic identity of the communities we serve. And I do believe that both theater and criticism–indeed, all the arts and media–are performing a community service and have a responsibility to recognize that. But ultimately the role of the critic–as theorist or consumer guide, reporter or interpreter, booster or skeptic, writer of literary essays or purveyor of quickly digested info bites, aloof commentator or from-the-trenches correspondent–is highly personal. It’s whatever each of us makes it.
During the summers I went to the Evanston-based Harand Camp of the Theatre Arts, where musical theater was (and still is) integrated into standard summer-camp activities such as sports and arts and crafts. The place was run by two sisters, Sulie and Pearl Harand, actresses who preached the gospel that every kid should have a chance to be a star but also to be in the chorus. They achieved this goal through an unusual system of multiple casting: during any given performance of, say, Annie Get Your Gun, there would be six Annies. Or six Dorothys in The Wizard of Oz. Each kid got her own scene and song before she rejoined the chorus.
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Harand was practicing ensemble theater and nontraditional casting long before those notions were politically correct–and believe me, a lot of the casting was really nontraditional. Harand taught me to put aside preconceptions about how a role should be played and to look for the special qualities each individual might bring to a role, a perspective that has served me well. Harand nurtured talent–among its alumni are Jeremy Piven, Billy Zane, action-film director Andrew Davis, and a host of movie and TV producers and writers. More important, it bred lifelong friendships. One of my teachers there, Estelle Spector, is now my teaching partner at Columbia College; another was David Rush, a playwright well-known in regional theater. Todd London, former editor of the American Theatre magazine and artistic director of New Dramatists in New York, was one of my campers when I was a junior counselor. Thirty-five years later we’re still close friends, and at the risk of bragging, I think we’re the only camper-counselor team ever to have both won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
Looking back on those days helps me keep in mind how important any review is to theaters–how hungry they are for literate feedback, positive or negative. It’s like what Georges Seurat says to his art-patron friend in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George: he doesn’t want his approval, but he does want his opinion.
