"Real People": Manufacturing Word of Mouth

Today's Theater Blogosphere issue is: Broadway.com's Word of Mouth Panel. Apparently, Broadway.com, which until a few months ago had regular professional reviewers writing reviews, has hired (I hope they're paying them!) a panel of 12 "regular people" who it will send to see shows and write reviews. The selection criteria for these people was apparently "interesting jobs, funny comments and genuine passion for live theater."

Rob Kendt, who used to write excellent reviews for Broadway.com, was the first to post, I believe. Theatre Conversation open things up for discussion. Theatre Ideas says maybe it's not such a bad idea, really. Theaterboy rightly points out that the diversity of their panel is laughable.

Personally, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to have "everyday people" reviewing plays. I'm not exactly a professional reviewer myself (although being well on my way to a PhD in theater history probably indicates that I wouldn't qualify as a Broadway.com reviewer, either) and yet I write and post my own reviews of plays. And I like reading other people's honest reactions to plays. The LA Times Reader Reviews can be a tool for getting a sense of a play before you go, or measuring your opinions against other people's. Forums for all theatergoers to write reviews can help to make theater a more vibrant opportunity for public discussion. More opinions out there can be a good thing, and selecting a few nonprofessional reviewers and giving them theater tickets and/or paying them to write reviews can be an interesting experiment in fostering discussion or offering diverse opinions.

I do, however, think it's a horrible idea to fire experienced, skilled reviewers with strong background in theater in favor of these ordinary people. It's fetishizing the uneducated opinion over informed analysis, and that is not a good thing. Silencing knowledgable professional opinion at the same time as promoting other reviewers is the disturbing aspect of this whole development. Why are the two mutually exclusive? Why not publish their opinions side-by-side?

And these particular reviewers are also a pretty laughable selection. While it's nice that there are two young people (although six seems a little too young to me), this seems to be a group of almost entirely straight, white, middle-class people. If this is Broadway's (or even Broaday.com's) audience, it's in big trouble. These aren't "real" people, they're mainstream people. Note the emphasis on the fact that they all paid full price for their tickets. So those of us who have to scrounge to afford half price and student rush tickets don't qualify to be reviewers?

We'll have to wait and see what kind of reviews these people produce before we can really judge the success or failure of this move, but it seems like a dangerous move away from informed criticism. Will these new reviewers be able to do thorough readings of complex plays? Will they be aware of race, class, and gender issues? Will they offer diverse opinions or will they agree on everything? Will their reviews allow readers to decide whether or not they want to see these shows? Will they be slavish fans or intelligent critics? I don't know yet, but I'm skeptical.