Grrritics: interroge-toi quand tu ris... (or if you're happy and you know it, clap yourself on the back!)

I went to the Walkley Awards last night and danced ’til my feet bled. (Damn those shoes!) I kissed Maxine McKew’s hand -- I would have dried her feet with my hair I reckon -- dreaming that some of her peerless interviewing skills might rub off... and that she might reconsider her ‘retirement’. (Maxine, “case 1352”, left.)

There was a winner at my table, a jobbing journo from Bendigo whose exposé on the dire state of water supply to the town -- and the possibility of a simple and relatively inexpensive solution -- not only won him a gong, it also resulted in a single loose-leaf insertion into a recent state budget. A fix! A palpable fix!

This big, ruddy bloke -- not a young man by any means -- pinched back his tears and fled the room to regain his composure... only to find out (at the end of the night) that the presentation of his particular award had been edited from the delayed broadcast, on SBS-TV, because some pissed buffoon [of course I mean American pissed, as in angry, rather than Carlton & United pissed, in case the lawyers are reading] decided to storm the stage and manhandle one of the presenters. (It was on YouTube before the tables were cleared of dessert, I kid you not! God bless the media!)

Unlike the Pulitzers (which are named after the Hungarian-born newspaper publishing magnate Joseph Pulitzer) The Walkleys, bizarrely, are named after the founder of Ampol Petroleum, Sir William Gaston Walkley, a man inexplicably fond of journos. But less about that in a moment.

It’s Bill’s great uncle Arthur, A.B. Walkley, theatre critic for The Times of London from 1900 until his death a quarter of a century later, who interests me right now. And, specifically, a published lecture of Walkley’s to the Royal Institution from the early 1900s which, if memory serves, was simply entitled Dramatic Criticism. (Alas, I cannot find it, on- or off-line, so no link.)

Now, unless you’ve been living on Mars, you will know that Theatre Notes’ Alison Croggon went, saw and was conquered by a play recently. She left at interval. An unexceptionable act, I reckon, for any human being. Unless you’re on duty... when you must stay to the bitter end. (The TN saga begins here and continues here. See also Ben Ellis’s contribution, here.)

A.B. Walkley, helpfully, reckons we have to distinguish between the response of the punter and the necessarily different thought process of the critic. It’s not enough for a critic to love a show, she must -- like Madonna’s beau/belle de jour in the song -- justify her love. Or in this case justify her loathing.

“Was I pleased?” is the sensualist playgoer’s mantra. “Was I right to be pleased?” is the critic’s.

(Walkley reckoned that Matthew Arnold purloined this distinction from Augustin de Saint Beuve and the line itself from Stendhal. Who am I to argue?)

But there’s another axis in this equation, I reckon, that Walkley doesn’t pin down. And it’s one theatre professionals -- be they playwrights, directors, choreographers, dramaturgs, designers, whatever -- will understand.

Instead of asking “Did it work?” -- something both punters and critics will probably ask -- the theatre pro/am will ask “Why (and how) did it work?” And that interrogation, normally, makes even the vilest of theatrical experiences a little less intolerable.

Not wanting to buy into this very particular debate, I do think it’s unexceptionable to decide after an hour -- or five bloody minutes as the case may be -- that a play/production is bad or incompetent. It might be a function of writing, the realisation of that writing by a director or the realisation of the director’s vision by the cast. Permutations and combination.

I do believe, however, that director Chris Bendall has misread Croggon’s comment about not leaving a bad MTC production. Bendall sees this as Croggon’s greater commitment to the flagship company. Croggon, clearly, means that she is more likely to forgive -- and therefore drop the curtain on -- a bad indy experience... which, of course, she hasn’t here! And there’s the rub.

Coincidentally, I was composing a post about the critic’s legendary and irrational fear of over-praising when this flap blew up, cross-town. (As it stood, my piece seemed too frivolous, too blithely disconnected from the real life drama which started unfold soon after I put finger to keyboard!) I will get around to rewriting and posting that little piece Real Soon Now.

One parting bitch... Given Sir William Walkley’s family line, why are there no awards for arts coverage? For criticism? The latter is bundled in with editorial writing and commentary, but there’s no gong for aesthetic criticism, only social.

Once again, if memory serves, the Pulitzer for criticism went to a car writer a year or two back. This, of course, heartily pissed off the cloak-wearing, cane-wielding thesps and cinéastes... Yet made perfect sense to me. The winning critic/journo wrote about cars in Los Angeles (again, from memory) and thus was writing about American cult culture in its very heartland. Great writing is great writing, no matter where you find it.