Confessions of a ‘theatre’ critic

tion. Put simply, they think we criticise others because we are all too painfully aware that we are not perfect and desperately if subconsciously wish to correct that condition. Personally, I do it because I drank too much milk as an infant and get too little mollycoddling as an adult. Boohoo. So there you have it in a nutshell.

Early on in life (er, or around the age of 24, which was almost half a lifetime ago), yours truly decided to put his critical ability to good use. Which is to say, I undertook to pen a regular theatre column for an, ugh, leading newspaper of the time. At first, the barbs were brutal and the brickbats cruel, and these came (surprise, surprise.) rather naturally to me. Later, I actually began to mean what I wrote. Life can be delicious when a dyspeptic theatre critic discovers that the state of dramaturgy on the local boards really leaves much to be desired. Told you so! As I said...

Did my audiences love it and lap it up? Not so much. The few who understood that I was sincere and what I said was just and fair and true – if not good – nodded their heads (in private). The few who misunderstood wished for a public beheading (mine, you might guess). The animator cannot understand the play! The actors cannot understand the animator! The audience cannot understand the actors! The academic cannot understand the audience! Result: the acrimonious criticism of the acerbic critic. Much acid had flowed under the bridge since then. One tries to hold one’s own. But it is a discouraging business. Even if one still receives secretive encomiums from theatre insiders who dare not profess in the open that they agree with me on more than one point.

I have another confession to make. I enjoy criticising politicians. (It’s not that I love you less, dears, but that I love country more.) Another madder, badder, sadder bunch of strollers or street players have not swum into my ken like a constellation of comic clowns since the last farce at the Wendt came around for the sixth year running to full houses packed with morons who wouldn’t know a tragedy if it bit them in their, ah, absurdity. Tut, tut. We must not get vitriolic. Not good for one’s general health to vent one’s spleen. That is what the doctors tell me. That is also what the spin-doctors suggest. If you want to be spared the wrath of the powers that be, you must learn to live and let live and let the masked men and women go on with their masquerade.

Gentlemen of the right wing. Ladies of the night. Stakeholders in the sorry sight and stage, er, state of the nation. Nothing would please me (and us all, I’m sure) more. But you need to get your act sorted out. Most performances put on at Colombo’s auditoria cost the paying theatre-goer a pretty penny at today’s prices. If I’m not mistaken, the shows put on for the Commonwealth’s attention also come at a hefty cost to the taxpayer, the poor of the land, the citizen trying to make ends meet in an already quite dramatically volatile (but cleverly cosmetically concealed) milieu. In short, if you’re going to make us fork out the shekels for the privilege of play-acting, please expect the courtesy of our critical engagement. As for awe and pity, the awe is in the spectacle all right – but the pity of the matter is the inevitable criticism of the critic. Players do it with whispered words and unloving looks. Politicians, can we still rely on you not to break our bones with sticks and stones for the privilege of telling the truth? I didn’t think so! And more’s the pity...