Bad reviews

Interesting article by playwright/blogger, Donna Hoke about bad reviews (and how to survive them). Basically she says as difficult as it may be, the writer needs to be open to the criticism. (I half expected her piece of weathering bad reviews to be a survey on which drugs and alcoholic beverages were the most effective.) Anyway, it’s well worth reading.

Let me chime in my two cents.

First of all, if you’re a writer for any length of time you’re going to get some bad reviews. They’re inevitable. It’s one of the prices you pay to stick your neck out there and go public with your work.

I’ve had my share of bad reviews. One critic said MANNEQUIN 2 was like “stepping in something.” The review went downhill from there. Tom Shayles, the longtime TV reviewer of the Washington Post hated BIG WAVE DAVE’S so much he blamed my partner and me for the downfall of the television industry. (Okay, he was right.) 

Obviously, bad reviews are no fun. And they sting. But they can also be helpful. Sometimes I’ll read a bad review and be mad at myself. Why didn’t I see that story flaw or whatever the criticism was? If the reviewer was confused about something I have to decide whether I wasn’t clear enough or the reviewer was just dense. Like Donna points out, critics often get details wrong on shows they liked. You get a rave even though they missed the whole point.

There are times when you know going in that your show is bad. And it might not be your fault. Your play was horribly cast and directed. Your screenplay was re-written by six hacks and the result is a piece of shit. And in those cases you just have to hold onto something and take your beating.

It’s important to take into consideration who is critiquing you and whether they have their own agenda. For my play A OR B? (pictured above: me with stars Jason Dechert and Jules Willcox) when it was produced at the Falcon Theatre a few years ago I enjoyed fabulous reviews – except for one. This guy so hated every single thing about it that he even panned the props. Far from being hurt I found the review hilarious.

Another time I received a rave review for ALMOST PERFECT (the Nancy Travis CBS show I co-created) from the Baltimore Sun and in the middle of it the critic said I was a shitty baseball announcer. Huh? Where did that come from?  I had been gone from Baltimore for four years. He needed to get in that gratuitous slam in a review about a TV show?

When you come to playwrighting from a TV comedy background you can almost bet some theatre critics are going to call your play a “sitcom.” Christopher Durang writes the same play and he’s a comic genius. That’s just the nature of the beast. I always take comfort in a 1991 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. interview when he said: “I would rather have written CHEERS than anything I've written.”

Some critics are nasty and you have to take that into account. Some may just not like your work. You’re just not their cup of tea. Some have a certain point-of-view and if your piece goes against it you’re going to get slammed. On the other hand, there may be critics who just adore everything you do and will give you glowing reviews you don’t really deserve.

And that’s another key – you have to weigh the good and bad reviews equally. Just as you might not agree with a certain criticism, you have to discard effusive praise. Your project is probably not as good or bad as they say.

At the end of the day you have to take what you can from them and move on. Al Michaels, a great sportscaster, used to keep in his pocket a review that slammed Vin Scully. Even Vin Scully got blasted. Michaels kept it merely as a reminder that no matter who you are there are going to be people who don’t like you. So do the best you can and don’t worry about it. Al, if you’re reading this, you’re welcome to carry around my Baltimore Sun ALMOST PERFECT review as well.