DeWitt he ain't

Can I just say that I love Tom Garvey? He is the ultimate example of the old adage, "Those who can't do, teach, and those who can't that either, become critics." He just makes me giggle. He clearly aspires to be Boston's answer to Addison DeWitt, the devilishly powerful critic from the Brilliant All About Eve but has neither the style nor grace nor "Witt" to achieve it. What you do get is as reliable as an old fart complaining about his Depends. He hates everything, ESPECIALLY the Actors' Shakespeare Project. It doesn't matter what they do. This is clearly what he believes the critics job to be. He goes to such lengths to let us know how much he knows about Shakespeare, going on and on and on expounding his narrowly dogmatic view of the "bard's greatness," and how ASP fails to achieve it.

And this, of course, is the problem. He is so enamored of his own deep understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare (and, it appears, drama in general), that he is completely unable to do the critic's job, which is to openmindedly examine the efforts of theaters to achieve their goals in putting on a particular play in a particular way. No doubt a good critic views a project through the prism of his own point of view - and Mr. Garvey certainly has a point of view - but if your only response to what other people are trying to do is to condemn it for not fitting within your point of view, then you are, as Mr. Garvey has so effectively done to himself, marginalizing yourself.

Here's his latest:

I must say, I kinda feel for the guy. How long has it been since he actually enjoyed a performance in a theatre, especially of the stuff he supposedly loves, that is, Shakespeare? And that's another thing, he is constantly ascribing the kind of cynicism that he is obviously burdened with to others. He can't imagine that anybody is actually looking for a dynamic and meaningful entrance into the physical experience of these plays (which, I must emphasize, is dramatically different from what we imagine them to be in our scholarly classes, which my friend seems to have taken a few too many of), but attributes everything to a cynical desire to be hip and trendy.

And then, there's the whining. That's where I begin to lose sympathy. "Well, Don Aucoin really liked it, but SIGH I just don't get it - once again I'm the prophet crying in the wilderness where everybody seems to be enjoying themselves, but I see that they have all drunk the Koolaid so let me just say that at least somebody has noticed that western civilization has gone down the toilet." If the people who are coming to the shows, including the hundreds of students and seniors, and just plain folk who have been scared and bored by Shakespeare their whole lives, are actually finding that they are excited and engaged by these EXPLORATIONS of the plays - and I write that in caps because that is all that any one production of any play can be - then maybe it's not they who are missing something. I'm just saying...