By Frank Moher
The sudden news that the Vancouver Playhouse is closing after 49 seasons comes as a shock, of course. We assume these venerable civic institutions will somehow always manage to lumber along, despite economic downturns and hostile governments and digital depredations. This, after all, was the company that gave Canadian theatre its seminal play, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, that launched numerous Canadian theatre luminaries (including playwright Sharon Pollock), that was the redoubt of the city’s grey hairs and monied class. Those theatres don’t just die, do they?
But, in some ways, its shuttering is no surprise at all. Vancouver has a distinctly pallid theatre scene, as compared with those of similar-sized Canadian cities (Toronto, Montreal) or even smaller ones (Edmonton, Calgary). It is notoriously a theatrical tough-sell. Various reasons are given for this: the weather, weak provincial funding, the vigorous local film and TV industry, which tends to tie people up in projects involving a lot of sci-fi gibberish. To these, I’d add another: a hostile and/or uninformed local media, including and particularly the city’s flagship paper, The Vancouver Sun.
For many years, the Sun was home to a critic who used theatre as an excuse for his witticisms (one problem being that the witticisms were not all that witty; we’re not talking Kenneth Tynan here). This set the tone for various media acolytes, who grew up believing what he wrote constituted good criticism. (I’m not naming the critic, by the way, because he passed away recently and, if I must speak ill of the dead, I can at least make them immune to a Google search.) It also set the tone for his successor, Peter Birnie (not dead) — one of the most flagrant examples of a theatre critic learning on the job in recent history. Birnie has now been around long enough — 15 years — that he seems to have come to know something about his beat, but his basic attitude of disdain for it, pretty neatly encapsulated here, remains. (Apparently he doesn’t much care for the audience, either.)
Like his predecessor, Birnie — whatever his opinion of a particular show, and despite his occasional resort to boilerplateisms like “a rollicking riot of fun” — is congenitally incapable of creating enthusiasm for the idea of theatre, of going to the theatre. He just doesn’t have it in him. Contrast this with, for example, Liz Nichols in The Edmonton Journal, who, though she is hardly a mindless cheerleader for anything that comes along, manages to write with an enthusiasm for her subject and, even in attack mode, an energy that suggests to her readers that theatre is something worth their while.
Theatre people tend to underestimate the impact of good or bad theatre criticism on its healthy development in any given community. They understand that a negative review will hurt the box-office for whatever show they have on at that moment, but not so much the long-term effect of a dolorous reviewer. And the critics themselves will almost always underestimate their clout, because they’re uncomfortable with the idea that they have power over artists’ careers and livelihoods. The more powerful their position, the more likely they are to claim that they have no effect. But, even in these days of fracturing media, a theatre critic on a major paper who, on the whole, would rather be elsewhere, or who regards himself as the main event, or who is simply uninteresting and without insight, can do major harm over the years.
Make that a few decades and you have Vancouver. I’m not saying lousy theatre coverage in the Sun is what killed the Playhouse. But it’s a factor among many that shouldn’t be ignored.
As a non writer, former actor and current Vancouver Film industry professional I find this post good example of why theatre in Vancouver is having such a hard go. (Let’s not even discuss the lack of government and corporate funding which is sorely lacking in BC). I strongly believe that elitism and pretentiousness is what is killing theatre audiences (but that’s whole different discussion).
Back to your post –
To say that a theatre critic has the power to make or break a show or be responsible for the closing of a Theatre company with a rich history of 49 years is not only excessive but very untrue. I remember the reviews of Lloyd Dyck and looked forward to reading his reviews as well as the other reviewers mentioned below. Who will they praise or demolish today? What did they find entertaining or boring? That’s why I read the reviews. I wanted to hear an opinion to compare to mine. Sometimes I agreed, sometimes I disagreed, but the one thing that was always constant, was that it made me discuss the play with my peers. Reviews encourage discussion and when consumers are talking about plays (in a good or bad light) they are one step closer to buying a ticket to go see that show. I can respect someone’s opinion but I don’t have to agree with it. I praise the Vancouver Sun for still having a theatre critic. Where did the theatre reviewers in the Vancouver Province newspaper go? Maybe we should blame that paper for not having a full time reviewer anymore?
That being said Frank – though I totally disagree with your post, I thank you for sharing your opinion. Maybe this will also garner discussion and get more people talking about Theatre in Vancouver.
Because critics play an important role in the discussion of art, I think it’s a good idea to pay attention to the level of criticism that’s being dished out.
That said, ranting on about Lloyd Dykk—and let’s stop being coy and name him—strikes me as ridiculous. Lloyd hasn’t reviewed theatre for so long that there’s a whole generation of artists who don’t know he ever did it. Peter is not Lloyd’s immediate successor as your post might imply; we had years of Barbara Crook in between the two.
And where on earth did you get the notion that Lloyd was a big influence on Peter Birnie? Personally, I liked Lloyd and I like Peter, but these two guys could hardly be more dissimilar in their writing styles, attitudes, and tastes. My beef with Peter has always been that he’s a bit of a booster, that he doesn’t apply sufficiently high standards, so your talk of Peter’s disdain makes little sense to me.
Speaking of disdain, what makes you think that Vancouver critics are so provincial that we are so powerfully influenced by one another. What? You’ve read Kenneth Tynan but we haven’t?
I also think it’s lazy of you to refer to Vancouver’s theatre scene as “distinctly pallid”. I’ve been working in it for about 30 years—lots of that time as the theatre critic at the Georgia Straight—and it’s not pallid to me. Despite appalling levels of provincial funding, Vancouver companies, especially the smaller companies, continue to produce exciting work. I think we’ve got a couple of institutions—Studio 58 and SFU”s School for the Contemporary Arts—to thank for that.
Back in the olden days, when I was an actor, I sometimes bought into the notion that Lloyd was a hard-ass. But that depended on what he’d said about me in my most recent review. Then I became a critic myself and I realized just how good Lloyd was, what an excellent stylist and effective provocateur.
I’d like to kick in my 2 bits worth of thoughts here and I am in total agreement with John Lazarus on this one. Theatre critics are people and like the rest of us, they have their opinions. Opinions that may not be all that popular whereas others have opinions that find all the good and sunshine in a production. Who is right? Well, as long as you are using human beings to write reviews, about theatre productions, which are all subjective, you can get as many different opinions about the same production as there are reviewers.
What these reviewers have written, and their different styles of writing, have been nothing short of amazing. The reviewer, who we aren’t naming out of respect for his recent passing, was one of a kind. Not many understood his humour, which was extremely dry and very intellectual. Actors/Directors/Designers, etc hated him if, in his review he mention them and their work in a negative light. You could hear the grumblings and the put downs of what a horrible reviewer he was and what a nasty person he was to be negative about their work/their show. But when he liked a show and wrote about why the show was good or why an actor what’s so phenomenal, well then the tables turned and he was the best reviewer in town. Why couldn’t all reviewers be more like him? He is the only reviewer whose reviews were so intellectual and sophisticated. In reality, he was a very nice, gentle and even shy, man. He was not comfortable in a crowded social situation, but one on one, he was fascinating and had so many stories to tell. He has not been doing theatre reviews for years, so no, his reviews whether you liked them or not had nothing to do with the Playhouse closing their doors.
As for Peter, I’m not sure where that reputation comes from. I sort of call Peter Vancouver’s part-time reviewer. The Vancouver Sun was probably one of the first to cut out more and more Arts coverage. They have so many rules and policies of what can and can’t be covered, it’s hard to keep up with them. Any big touring production seems to get priority. Your Wickeds, Cats, etc, they are all going to get covered before local theatre. Likewise, the Arts Club and Playhouse will get 2nd priority after the touring companies at the Queen E. But this isn’t necessary Peter picking and choosing which shows he’ll review… he does have to follow his employer’s policies. The reviews he does do are usually very fair and supportive. But if there’s something he feels is wrong about the show or the direction, etc, he has no problem pointing this out and where to place the blame.
Then last but not least of the newspapers, Jo Ledingham of the Courier. Jo is super supportive of local theatre. You will see Jo at almost every opening night. Again, the Courier has some policies and rules, but Jo is out 4-5 nights a week at productions. So very supportive. Maybe it’s because of this support but we in the theatre community were very sorry to hear that the Courier has decided to cutback and the first cutback is to the Arts coverage. Jo will no longer be able to cover the number of productions she has until now.
And there you have 2 of Vancouver’s mainstream theatre critics. The third would be Colin Thomas of the Georgia Straight and he has a totally different writing style again. He has those who love him and think he’s brilliant and there are those who hate him…especially those who have been burned by him.
Vancouver needs more than 3 mainstream reviewers, but with the media cutting back on its Arts coverage, chances are we aren’t going to see this happening. But more and more of the online papers/sites are becoming involved. That’s bringing up a whole new form of arts coverage. One of my favorites is Mark Robins of GayVancouver.net. He is very fair with his reviews and if he does have something he just can’t ignore, then he does call a spade a spade, but there’s nothing personal in the critique… whether the actors agree or not. More and more theatre a f the Arts will be seeing digital reviews that will also be shared on all forms of social media. You reviewer who is techie-savvy is posting their review, then tweeting the link, sharing it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.
But no matter if the theatre critic is of the old school and newsprint, or of the new school using all digital technology, the critics are offering their opinions and it’s pretty hard to judge an opinion because that is all it is… an opinion. And opinions do not close down theatre companies that had survived 49 years of theatre critics.
Frank, with all due respect (and I do admire and respect you and your work), I strongly disagree on this one. True, I haven’t lived in Vancouver in some years, but I continue to read the Vancouver theatre critics, and I`ve always found Birnie to be thoughtful and fair. You can disagree with this, of course, but I would add that Peter covers every theatre company in town, and it seems hard to believe that he`s made a major contribution to the Playhouse`s going under, when other companies that he reviews are surviving. As you may know, I`m a playwright and teacher, now living in Kingston, but I lived in Vancouver for 30 yeras where I was also a theatre critic, and — well — would that we HAD the kind of power you`re attributing to Birnie. Vancouver has had some terrible critics. In my opinion, Birnie is not one of them, and the theatre thrived while they were doing their terrible work. I don`t think it was criticism, good, bad or indifferent, that killed the Playhouse. Warmest wishes to you, Frank, and to the community.