My daughter's Chicago theatre production of Map of Virtue for COR Theatre has brought out a widely scattered group of reviews from the "local" media. One reviewer (who shall go nameless) writing for the "big newspaper" in town blamed the play and the actors' lack of "investment" in their acting/characters as a fatal flaw. She thus exhibited she knew nothing about theatre beyond realism -- perhaps the "stuff" of her favorite Lifetime Channel movies.
The concept of "acting styles" has kind of disappeared from modern parlance (and reviewing). If something isn't totally "reality based" (even the kind of unlinked 'reality' contained in 'reality television') it just can't be any good. This is where that kind of reviewer needs to link to authors and stylists like Brecht, or Ivey, or even Shakespeare. Realism is not the only anchor to reality. Lots of forms of realism also exist in: expressionism, impressionism, objective acting, etc. This reviewer needs to school herself in the many forms of theatre that exist.
On the positive side of the "review" cycle -- several reviews (including the "other big newspaper in town" and a couple of the better media reviewers) got it! That is they understood that the "effect of a play is not intrinsic or necessary by the mode of performance." Plays can be realistic at one moment -- and stylized diatribes at the next. The overall impact of a production is what is at stake. And any reviewer worth hiring -- has to get beyond her/his own limitations in theatre and be open to the process of "audience-dom."
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