15 May 2007
Dead White Males
Nick Hytner is right. Of course he is. We have a generation of theatre critics who have been in their jobs for over thirty years. Some of them may have moved papers but Nick de Jongh, Michael Billington, and Charles Spencer have been doing their jobs for way too long. It wouldn’t matter if any of these three men gave you the slightest impression that they had an alertness to what is new, that they were capable of giving themselves to a piece of theatre, that they yearned to be changed by it, to risk their profoundest thoughts and feelings. But they don’t.
- Billington, as he pretty much admits, measures everything by the standards of the plays David Hare used to write thirty years ago.
- Charles Spencer has descended into absurd parody, huffing and puffing, scoffing and scorning, refusing to be impressed by anything.
- Nick de Jongh is notoriously the most waspish critic in town, seeming to watch shows only to furnish himself with caustic remarks. It is typical of him that his response
Billington makes a reasonable point when he says that he should not be expected to embrace every passing fashion in theatre. But he seems to embrace almost none unless they confirm the views of theatre that were formed when he was young. Do you have no self-doubt at all, Mr Billington? Most of us think of the music we listened to when we were in our late teens was a kind of golden age, but unless we are peculiarly blinkered we are aware that the same is true for everyone. If we want to stay alive to new music, we have to open ourselves to the truly new; to accept that youthful music has a pleasurable intensity for us, but it is not all that music can or should be. The same is true of theatre: a full, rich response to theatre is in the dialectic between the views we have and the profound disturbance that something truly new can be for us. In this lies theatre’s continual source of transformation.
Nick de Jongh’s shrill response is typical of him. Hytner’s claims are ‘alarming and significant’:
There has been nothing like this cri de bile in modern theatrical times. It marks the declaration of war on the part of the director of our flagship theatrical institution. It poisons the theatrical air. It sets up an embattled them-and-us attitude that will help no one. Not since the late 1960s, when the Royal Court attempted to ban the then Spectator critic, Hilary Spurling, because they disliked her views, has there been such a battle.
The thing is: there is a them-and-us attitude - they are them and we are us. Some critics may flatter themselves that they are critical friends, collaborators in the co-creation of a living theatre culture, but actually they are hired hacks who spend their time working out their own inadequacies by squirting their inky opinions across the pages of newspapers. They think they are culturally important but they’re not: they help sell tickets. That’s all.
Why should theatres be required to give free tickets to any critic, however idiotic (Toby, pay attention), however ignorant (that means you, Quentin), however cretinously right-wing (Lloyd, are you listening?)? If you can’t do the job, we shouldn’t support you.
In an unbelievable lack of self-knowledge, de Jongh remarks: ‘Hytner has hit a rough patch himself. He has been directing plays for more than two decades now’. Two decades? And how long have you been reviewing plays, Nick? More than three. Isn’t there something to be said for being forced to move on? Maybe you should have to reapply for your job every year? What artistic director has been in place as long as Billington? What writer has managed to sustain a 25-year career as easily as Spencer?
De Jongh strongly refutes Nick Hytner’s claim that the ‘dead white males’ are particularly biased against women directors, or that they snigger about lesbian theatre workers. Let’s take his word for it that, as a gay man, he doesn’t snigger about lesbians. But let’s look at his reviews: in his review of Attempts on Her Life, why does he refer so sniffily to ‘Miss Mitchell’? The day before, his review of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Roundhouse did not single out ‘Mr Supple’. The day before that, Little Shop of Horrors was not directed by ‘Mr White. The use of ‘Miss’ is small thing, but we all know what it’s about; it’s a way of patronising and belittling women. Let’s also remember Charlie Spencer referring to Sarah Kane as Ms Kane ‘the naughtiest girl in the class’ and be clear that despite the hot air coming from the critics this week, there is definite misogyny in their writing and we’ve all seen it for years.
It’s not the case that an older man must necessarily patronise and belittle women theatre makers. It is probably not the case that these critics are uniformly hostile to the efforts of women in the theatre. But there are patterns and the curious thing is that, just at the moment, the task of envigorating and innovating British theatre seems to be in hands of some very exciting young women directors. Critics like Lyn Gardener do seem to be genuinely able to open themselves to the force of the new; Billington, Spencer and de Jongh can’t. And if they can’t, they shouldn’t carry on.
Hytner is our unlikely Cromwell. Let’s remember the old revolutionary cry:
You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Some of you are drunkards. Some of you are corrupt, unjust persons. Depart, I say and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
5 Comments currently posted.
theatre worker says:
Fight! Fight! Hytner takes on the critics « West End Whingers says:
[…] The Whingers, as you can imagine, are like pigs in muck, although we are a bit mystified by the piece on Encore Theatre Magazine which accuses de Jongh of “seeming to watch shows only to furnish himself with caustic remarks”. What’s wrong with that? […]
notional says:
The debate about critics being ‘past it’ is irrelevant - so disappointing that it’s what the press have latched onto. More pertinent is the accusation that they are biased and narrow-minded - being charitable to Hytner, I think it’s this he’s levelling at rather than longevity. Incidentally, Hytner seems determined to take some bullets himself on behalf of emerging artists, which is noble and may be the lasting contribution of his tenure at the NT - more so than his own productions. Like them or not, the programme has been remarkable for the offerings from kneehigh, shunt, punchdrunk, melly still, katie mitchell’s media experiments, et al, and Hytner has (a bit hesitantly in the early days with shunt) stood up and championed them.
It just so happens that the most misogynist and bigoted critics are the old men. We all know that the established critics have personas and exercise them. I’m sure de Jongh romanticises himself as the waspish assassin, and when in doubt reaches for the poison. Billington increasingly caricatures himself in his reviews, which now offer guidelines on how he would have directed some of the plays. Perhaps the critics should write anonymously, or be published in more than one paper? We read them all and compare, but it’s horrifying to think how many people will only read Rhoda Koenig (a dejongh-in-waiting)’s self-centred assessment of something.
But are we just complaining about critics having a perspective? (bigotry is an unpleasant perspective, but a self-exposing one at least). A partnering system with two reviews always published in competing publications - garnder and spencer perhaps - might allow them to express themselves more fully and more personally, without feeling the awkward responsibility of having to accurately represent and reflect on the production they’ve seen.
I like the idea of making them reapply for their jobs every year - or perhaps there could be a league table, with relegations, that keep the more stylish or effective reviewers in the big titles while allowing Billington to gracefully recede to a the small-circulation special interest peridiocal he prefers to cater for.
Andrew says:
I propose an interesting test. This whole thing really blew up over A Matter of Life and Death. Someone (you? the government?) should canvass everyone who saw it for their opinion and settle the matter once and for all. I predict that the corollary will be that it was, indeed, a pile of crap and that this verdict is not just that of the dead white males.
Marie Sloan says:
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Alison Croggon has blogged on this debate
http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2007/05/fight-fight-fight.html
as has David Eldridge
http://onewriterandhisdog.blogspot.com/2007/05/great-escape.html
and there’s a typically smart piece by Lyn Gardener (which I imagine will make for a frosty atmosphere next time she bumps into Billington)
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2007/05/are_women_directors_suffering.html
Thea Sharrock has responded sedately
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2007/05/its_about_time_we_reviewed_the.html
More to follow, no doubt