Turnabout Is Fair Play: On Reviewing and Being Reviewed

Here's the basic formula of reviewing: a bunch of people, frequently talented, sometimes brilliant, strive for weeks, months, or years, often at great sacrifice, and then I show up and judge them. It doesn't seem fair.

And yet I don't plan to stop. I believe that reviewers can make a contribution. Minimally, we offer publicity; maximally, we add something valuable to the conversation. At least we try (many of us, anyway).

The thing is, I know what it feels like to get bad reviews. I know how easy it is to remember the negatives and forget the positives. So, in the interest of full disclosure, I think it's time to share some of the bad reviews my book, The Lesbian Sex Book (later updated as The New Lesbian Sex Book) received.

"Necessary but dull."

"The humor is somewhat simplistic, even embarrassing at times."

"Disappointing."

"If you have ever had lesbian sex, there will be little for you to learn from Wendy Caster's book."

"Unintentionally funny in places [with] a distinct lack of irony."

"Full of . . . useless quirky hints to spice up your love life. It's American--need I say more." (From Dublin.)

(I love that last one--not only can't I write, but I disgraced my entire country.)

The book also received some good reviews and sold pretty well. Yet it's the bad reviews I remember, nearly 20 years later. (And, sigh, I don't think the bad reviews are particularly unfair.)

I would love to hear what other people have to say about the role of reviewers. Comments welcome!

Frankenstein Upstairs

In Frankenstein Upstairs, Mac Rogers once again uses science fiction as his delivery system to present us with his unique combination of insight, humor, wisdom, and compassion. The plot is seemingly simple: Sophie and Marisol, a young couple, become friends with their neighbor upstairs, Dr. Victoria Frankenstein. In their slightly alternate universe, the Frankenstein novel/legend does not exist, so the name has no resonance for them; for the audience, however, the name promises death, rebirth, and all sorts of deliciously dreadful complications.

Kristen Vaughan
Photo: Deborah Alexander

One of Rogers' main themes in Frankenstein Upstairs is "can you choose your family?," and his answer is clearly "yes." In addition to Sophie, Marisol has chosen Taylor, a man she met in a domestic-violence-recovery group, as kin. Taylor loves Marisol deeply and also admires her because she's "the biggest hit in group, right? She’s the only one who tells stories about hitting back."

And Dr. Frankenstein ("Please call me Vic"), clearly isolated and terribly lonely, is touched, thrilled, grateful, and somehow defrosted when Sophie simply invites her to dinner. When Marisol later touches her face, in a moment of easy (for Marisol) intimacy (unprecedented for Vic), Vic falls in love with both women, but not romantically. She chooses them for her family. Whether they will choose her back is another story.

Rogers has a wonderful ability to make the mundane magical and the magical mundane. On one hand, Vic is Dr. Frankenstein, crazy, brilliant, able to change the world--and also charming and funny. On the other, she is the neighbor-friend-relative who doesn't understand boundaries, who doesn't recognize when she's overstayed her welcome, who thinks that the amount she (genuinely!) loves someone means that they have to love her back. This Dr. Frankenstein is easy to sympathize with--it's not her fault she's a mad genius.

Pippin

Sometimes more is less, as clearly shown by the revival of Pippin currently on Broadway. Or perhaps I should write "sometimes more is less for me," since Pippin's multitude of Tony Awards (revival, director, lead actress, featured actress) and SRO audiences prove that my opinion is not a majority one. But:

Andrea Martin
Photo: Joan Marcus

• Pattina Miller as the Leading Player is all muscles and edges, often looking more like she's working out than she's dancing. 

• Chet Walker's choreography, though based on Fosse's more sinuous work, is full of busy-ness and edges and angles. (I'm not sure why shows have choreography "in the style of Fosse"; is there some reason that they can't just use Fosse's choreography in the first place?)
• Most importantly, while the circus acts are amazing, superb, and magical, they too often pull focus from the choreography and the rest of the show--or perhaps the choreography and the rest of the show pull focus from the circus acts--but either way the audience is faced with visual noise and a production that is less than the sum of its parts. As just one example, the brilliant Manson Trio, an oasis of quiet, is not allowed to finish without some of the circus performers back on stage and, yes, pulling focus. (This links to the Manson Trio from the televised Pippin with Ben Vereen--the trio starts around 3:57. Unfortunately, here too they are unwilling to leave the dance alone, throwing in other images, but, man, what choreography!)

There are some lovely moments amid all this stuff.

3 Kinds of Exile

Everyone has the occasional bad bad at work; 3 Kinds of Exile offers us a few of John Guare's.

The first exile, Karel, has a few advantages: (1) his story is genuinely interesting; (2) he is played by the wonderful Martin Moran, who knows the alchemy involved in turning a monologue into a living piece of theatre; and (3) it comes first in the evening, while the audience is still perky. (Note: all of the exiles are real people.)

Martin Moran
Photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia

The second exile, actress Elzbieta Czyzewska, has a tougher time of it. Although her story is fascinating, with everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end, Guare has turned it into a dualogue, which is painfully different from a dialogue. Guare, making his "acting" debut, and Omar Sangare, who had a featured role in Czyzewska's life, take turns telling us about her and what happened to her. Omar occasionally plays one of the people in Czyzewska's life, to little profit. The "play" is a recited essay.

For the third play, Guare gives us an absurdist version of an absurdist's life. Writer Witold Gombrowicz is the exile. Luckily for the audience he is played by David Pittu, who single-handedly improves the piece from tortuous to only extremely painful.

I go to theatre to see people interact--people, not one person. I like to see characters spar and bill and coo and lie and manipulate and give and take. Mostly, I like to see them talk to one another. However, even though two of the 3 Kinds of Exile feature more than one person, they do not rise above the ambiance and disadvantages of the thinnest of one-person shows. (Of course, there are writers and performers who ace one-person shows--see, for example, Moran's brilliant All the Rage.)

On a whole, 3 Kinds of Exile left this reviewer eager to see Six Degrees of Separation.

(midway back, orchestra, press ticket)

Potted Potter

Potted Potter promises to present all seven Harry Potter books in 70 minutes, a promise it only kinda sorta keeps. Its talented, energetic cast of two--Dan Clarkson and Jeff Turner, who are also the playwrights--run around, throw on hats and wigs, and talk very fast. They are frequently quite funny.

Unfortunately, many of the precious 70 minutes aren't actually about Harry Potter. Too much time is given to Dan and Jeff's making fun of each other and themselves, and discussing whether Dan ever did read book 7, and talking about Dan's supposed misuse of their budget. This silliness is sometimes fun, but it's familiar stuff, and we're there because of Harry Potter, not because of Dan and Jeff.

Still, it would be a crabbier person than I who could ultimately resist the frenetic insanity on display, and I did end up having a lot of fun.

And the Quiddich match is pretty wonderful.

(row N, press ticket)

Tony Awards: PS

I was glad to see Cyndi Lauper win best score for a musical, because I love Cyndi Lauper.

But then I happened to turn on the radio and catch the tail end of this interview. Specifically, I caught composer-lyricist Tim Minchin singing "Quiet" from Matilda.

And I'd have to say that he was robbed. There's more brilliance in that one song than in all of Kinky Boots.