Wednesday December 01, 2004

THE NEW CRITICISM. Now Roger L. Simon is doubling as National Review theatre critic. He begins his maiden review (of Frayn's Democracy) with a few character observations that evince some knowledge of dramaturgy, but, anxious to please his Soviet masters, gets soon enough to the political money shot:

Like many successful playwrights in today’s iffy theatrical market, Frayn has formed an entente cordiale with his audience. Two of the plays more pointed laugh lines are "What does Communism have to do with the Left?" and "Never mind football! Try parliamentary democracy!" The audience is encouraged to chortle at a kind of soft cultural relativism of low expectations, their conventional liberal values reinforced and almost willfully unexamined. These views also fit a majority of that tiny segment of the American community still going to serious drama on Broadway. It’s not quite a "status/business deal" in the way the purchase of modern art was described by Tom Wolfe years ago, but it’s not all that far off.

With a few names changed, this wouldn't have been out of place in the New Masses.

I would recommend that Simon examine the work Terry Teachout, a conservative whose theatre criticism is about the plays rather than the goddamn audiences, but I fear the lesson would be wasted.
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