Like most theatre bloggers, I regularly write about shows I’ve seen at a preview performance. Mostly, it’s a matter of convenience – theatre blogging isn’t a job for me so I can’t guarantee to get to every performance exactly on its press night – and there is also an element of trying to get a review out there as early as possible in a run to maximise its relevance.
I got a message on twitter this morning from a member of the cast of Men Should Weep taking issue with this:
It seems that I wasn’t the only one with whom this cast member was unhappy. Life In The Cheap Seats got a similarly themed message in the early hours of this morning.
I’m all for performers engaging with bloggers – I think it shows that they care about the work – so I don’t object in the least to this person reaching out to say they didn’t agree with my review and that they thought I hadn’t given the show the chance it deserved. We can agree to disagree.
Nevertheless, it raised an interesting query: are we bloggers within our rights to review previews?
The narrow answer is that of course we are. Unlike the critics who dutifully wait for press night, we are paying customers and we can write about whatever we like whenever we like. As @webcowgirl says “I pay, I write“, and I struggle to say that she’s not within her rights there.
The reviews I write are deliberately personal and subjective – the entire premise of this blog (and the reason I don’t, for instance, give star ratings) is that I never pretend to be an arbiter of taste. I write what I think, and I always try to do it as if I were writing to a friend asking what I thought of a show. Would I recommend Men Should Weep to such a friend? No. Would I refuse to answer because I’d seen a performance three days before the press night? I doubt it.
There is, however, an argument that even bloggers (even bloggers like me) have a duty to our readers to write a review which is representative of the show that they will see if they go out and buy a ticket (or the show they will miss if they don’t). Does attending a preview allow a writer to make this judgement?
The cast member in question is clearly of the opinion that it doesn’t. She bluntly states that a preview “isn’t the show”. Fair enough, that’s her view.
I’m less sure. If it “isn’t the show” then what are we all paying to see? Previews run for a week and while they’re cheaper, they’re not that cheap: at £28.50 for a ticket it’s not like we owe them a favour. Shouldn’t the thousands of people paying up for preview seats get to see “the show” too? Is a preview really so unrepresentative of the show that no conclusions can be drawn from it? I note, for instance, that the cast of this show have had no issue retweeting positive comments about it based on previews, so they must attach some credence to what these audiences think.
In any case, is the performance that proper critics see any more representative of the run going forward than a preview? In my experience press nights are some of the most unusual and unrepresentative performances I’ve ever seen – Rory Kinnear advises actively avoiding them.
Leaving the principle aside, I come back to wondering whether I have done this show or my readers a disservice by reviewing an unfinished product (albeit a finished product that the creators were willing to show to paying customers)? I can’t be sure, but I really don’t think so.
I fully recognise that things change during previews. Staging tightens up, lines are cut, performances bed down. If I’d called the staging clumsy or lines misread or the performances unpolished then I could understand why the cast might feel they hadn’t been given a chance to ramp up to opening night, but that wasn’t the issue at all. In fact, my review was (uncharacteristically) polite about the production itself, saying it would be “difficult to imagine a more thoroughly designed, directed and performed production of the play” but taking issue with the text and the tone – things which two more run throughs before press night weren’t going to fix.
Do I understand where the tweeting cast member is coming from? Sure, if I’d worked hard on something I’d want people to judge the finished product.
Should I have refrained from reviewing a preview? I don’t think so. The tone of my review makes it very clear that it is a subjective view of a particular performance. Half of it is an anecdote about my being confused about which play I was even going to see, for crying out loud, so there’s a good level of self-deprecation in there anyway – I don’t think anyone could claim that I was representing myself as the absolute authority on the quality of this theatrical work. (For that I, of course, defer to the twin guardians of our national theatrical estate, Messrs Billington and Spencer)
Should I have stated more clearly that I was writing about a preview? Maybe – but given that my concerns were largely unrelated to issues with the production or performances themselves, and focused more on the play, I don’t feel too bad about it.
Maybe I am wrong about Men Should Weep. Maybe the reasons I didn’t like it (a bit boring, quite depressing) were ironed out before Billington et al got to see it. Maybe.
So here’s my offer: if the NT press office comp me a ticket I’ll steel myself and go see it again (taking my total investment in the play to five and a half hours, admittedly a fraction of that of the cast but still quite a long time) with an open mind and write honestly about whether my views have changed. I’m sceptical, but genuinely willing to be proved wrong. Otherwise, I’m afraid my previous review stands and I make no apologies for it.
Bloggers, actors, critics: what do you think? Am I out of line here?
I want to write something in reply to what you’ve written, but to be honest – I don’t think I can. You’ve given every argument possible, and even given it the time to think in the opposing ideas to write about them.
There are so many different counter arguments that can be had over the topic of reviewing previews – and you clearly know every one!
If I was to throw some words to the argument it is only that I understand where performers/directors/creatives etc come from when they get annoyed at reviews coming in for previews. The preview performances are still that testing ground – to find where possibly the lines sit with the audience – did the directors intentions actually go to the audience well? Or must an actor play those lines in a different direction because it works better with the public?
Of course there are technical elements too – I was at work watching a preview show, and they were adjusting the lighting DURING the show. It completely threw me off, and because of it, I decided against giving my opinion until seeing the show again. This is of course an extreme case, but generally speaking – you don’t go and change a whole show over night, you tweak – you cut, you adjust.
For someone to say that bloggers can not write a review on a preview show is ultimately telling the audience that they can not voice a verbal opinion about the show afterwards. It is only after press night that these opinions become valid. My verdict is simple: What a load of crap!
You paid for it, you do what you like with it – but OF COURSE if you’re writing about it, at least have it somewhere in the back of your mind that what you saw during the second act where someone’s entrance was off time can be ironed out – and will be.
What you can’t change though is the overall feeling you get from a show. This ultimately stays with you regardless of a preview or a press show.
I realise I’ve just repeated a lot of what you’ve said, but it’s only because you are true in every aspect of what you’ve written.
I quite agree. It’s crucial to be sensitive to the idea that this is a testing ground where minor technical elements need to get ironed out. A mis-timed entrance, an unconvincing fight scene, a flubbed line – all of these things should be forgiven in a preview.
In preparing this post, I reread one of my reviews in which I mentioned an actress forgetting her lines in a preview – and was horrified in retrospect that I mentioned it. Thankfully I had enough manners not to mention who it was, but this was clearly not the right thing to have done on my part and I’m embarrassed by it. But in respect of Men Should Weep, where my concern was with the “overall feeling” you mention rather than specific technical issues, I think my conscience is clear.
You know, I said I would re-review it if they offered me a comp, but since I wanted to leave at the interval I just don’t think I could manage.
Yep. I’m slightly banking on the premise that the NT press office is entirely unaware/uninterested in this blog’s existence. Hence limited risk of my bluff being called. Right?
I am all for a cast member having the right of reply but that right of reply is a two way process. If a theatre is charging for tickets then I’m sorry but then they have to accept the risk that audience reaction may not be possitive. Now I’m sure it’s not nice to read negative comments about something you are closely involved in but that’s the harsh reality of theatre.
I’m not reviewing Men Should Weep for another couple of weeks (due to diary commitments, not any desire to avoid previews) but I wonder if I find failings in it if I will receive a telling off as well – and if so for what reason!
I don’t think it’s fair to call it a “telling off”. As I said, I’m all for the right to reply (or, more accurately, the right to dialogue) for performers, producers, directors, box office staff – anybody who feels invested in the production. I’m delighted that people care enough about their work to get on the internet and take random strangers to task about it. It can only be healthy.
To be clear: I’m absolutely not disgruntled with the way the cast member handled it; it just made me think about whether we bloggers should be more sensitive to this point.
We have the absolute right to blog about shows if we’ve paid for them.
However if we want to avoid a glasgow kiss from an over-protective actress it is probably wise to include a prominent caveat near the beginning stating that we saw a preview and things are subject to change.
A really good example of change between preview and first night was Absurd Person Singular back in December 2007. I saw the same performance as the West End Whingers and it was dead. Great cast, good play and no laughs. My row in the circle (including a couple of friends) half emptied at the interval. 5 days later it got 4 and 5 stars reviews from almost all the critics.
Some Links:
http://www.londontheatregoer.com/2007/12/absurd-person-singular-by-alan.html
http://westendwhingers.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/review-absurd-person-singular-garrick-theatre/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2007/dec/13/theatre1
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/drama/3669861/First-night-Alan-Ayckbourn-Absurd-Person-Singular.html
To be fair to the overprotective actress in this case they do seem to have had quite a few changes between the first preview and the opening night of Men Should Weep, which seemed (according to her twitter feed) to be a bit painful.
I have to say there was little wrong with the first preview that I saw. The only problem was that a small but significant number of people left at the interval; the four near me who left were American and complained that they hadn’t understood the Glasgow dialect.
I liked the thick accents. Everything was understandable as far as I was concerned. I think the show would (will) be weaker without them.
As one of The Critics, I’d obviously rather we weren’t scooped by bloggers attending previews… But I’ve gotta say, there’s no practical argument to back up that feeling. Everything you’ve said about the ethics, politics, economics, business relationships and all the ramifications is absolutely on the money. Sure you wouldn’t refrain from giving an opinion in other media such as conversation just because you’d seen a play in preview, so nor is it reasonable to expect you to hang on here. (Understandable, maybe, but not reasonable.) And above all, you’ve paid, and the production is charging real money for those previews and so can’t reasonably expect to get a free or even a cheap ride for them: one of my maxims is that people don’t pay that kind of money to make allowances.
The nub of it, of course, is that the Net has changed the very concept of publication as of so much else, and so the concept of press embargo needs to evolve to catch up with that. When or how this might happen, I don’t know, but until it does, it seems quite clear to me that you’re not bound by those formal conventions as we are, and so your conscience is your guide… and yours has been an immensely conscientious examination of the issues. ‘Nuff respeck.
Yes, I think the only way round this would be to close down teh interwebs altogether and then we would all know where we were. I know there are theatre designers who agree with me on this.
I very much agree with the article, whenever I am reviewing a preview (especially when I’m doing so on a work comp, and know my review is going off to the producers / producers assistant / bin), I’ll always make the point that it’s a preview, but that will not stop me from saying anything that I feel about the production… if anything, you can use that fact to offer the reader a little bit of hope that perhaps the production will get better!
Love Never Dies was the main one that I found this issue with as I was one of the first bloggers to review it, and did so on the second night (armed with insider cast info on what was being changed etc) – but I found the preview issue to be a bit of a minefield, I felt that I had to keep mentioning it to qualify all the naff bits. Whenever I’ve seen a good preview, I barely make reference to it to be honest…
I think it all sits within the tone of the article and how easy it would be for the niggle to be changed. If it’s inherent in the production, then it’s less relevant than if it’s something that could easily be cut or modified.
Fab piece!