Lyn Gardner: Don’t believe the hype: a critical response demands an honesty free of influence

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Talking about his upcoming performance in Simon Stephens’ new version of Vanya, Andrew Scott recently observed: “Some people will like it, some people won’t, and that’s great. I feel ferocious about wanting to take risks.”

I reckon he hits on something important: art only moves on, the boundaries of theatre and performance are only stretched, when those making it are not too hung up on whether people will like it or not. Doing so almost always leads to compromise, just as when big Hollywood studios test out a movie in front of an audience and change it according to the response.

The work that often speaks to me most deeply is that which is so confident in itself that it takes us, the audience, with it. I’m thinking here of the productions of Robert Icke in knotty pieces such as The Doctor. Or a couple of performances I saw in Edinburgh this summer such as Fix and Foxy’s Dark Noon, a bold, harrowing subversion of the myth of how the American West was made, and Adam Scott-Rowley’s You Are Going to Die, a show that kept reminding us of our own and the planet’s fate with astonishing physical prowess and emotional clout.

Both were shows that refused to apologise for making the audience uncomfortable. Neither are likely to end up at the London Palladium any time soon, but they both found an audience by being completely themselves.

Of course, Scott’s mere presence in Vanya guarantees that it is a commercial proposition and will get an audience. But with Vanya he is stretching himself and the audience in relation to their terms of reference to both Scott and Chekhov’s play. That’s potentially interesting but as Scott admits: “It could go wrong. But we need a bit more of people not liking things.”

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A star rating is not a science or an art – shame theatre is so in thrall to it

What's a press night for: objective criticism or gushing ovations?

Too true. As Scott observes, the ubiquitous standing ovation has become meaningless, not least because, so often, individuals feel pressured into standing even if they didn’t have a particularly good time. I’ve seen people who have snoozed through most of the performance who suddenly leap to their feet applauding enthusiastically. Why? Maybe because the physicality of standing and clapping vigorously can release a sense of well-being that persuades you that you’ve had a good time and the price of the ticket is worth paying?

But there is something to be said for not always following the herd. One of the things that happens in theatre is that the entire publicity machine primes us before we even step inside the auditorium. There are the previews and the interviews and then there are the reviews and social media with the stars pasted everywhere. With a big hit show, we have been told how great it is many times before we even come close to actually seeing it.

If it is a really big hit, we may have had to make a substantial effort to secure tickets and probably at considerable cost.

Good critics have to be unafraid to go out on a limb when everyone else is on their feet clapping wildly

It’s not just that we go with expectations, but we enter the theatre already knowing that we are going to love what we see because we have almost been primed to do so. I did once think of starting a support group for all the people, myself included, who felt like heretics because they didn’t rate Jerusalem.

Decades ago, Mark Ravenhill wrote a mischievous piece proposing a moratorium on previews and reviews, so instead of feeling overwhelmed by all the art on offer and that horrible feeling that you ought to see it all, and instead of knowing what you are going to think about something before you step inside the theatre, people would respond more honestly to what they saw.

Being bold enough to say you don’t like something works the other way, too. There are plenty who consider themselves way too cool ever to like anything with, say, tap dancing or circus. But if you never try it, how do you know that you don’t like either?

In the end, I think we do ourselves and the art form a disservice if we are not honest in our responses to the theatre that we see. Good critics have to remind themselves of that everyday and be unafraid to go out on a limb when everyone else is on their feet clapping wildly, because our job isn’t to be cheerleaders but recorders of our personal response to what we saw.

But that’s true for all audiences, too. Because how are artists ever going to be able properly to gauge how their work chimes with audiences if the latter don’t respond honestly because they are responding to what they have been told in advance about a production, rather than what they personally experienced? Nobody should be afraid of being the only one sitting while everyone stands.