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University Daily Kansan
Monday, Nov. 19, 1956
Critical Words Misunderstood
Certain persons on the hill seem to have critical reviews and public relations propaganda thoroughly confused.
A critical review is to express the opinion of a person designated by a publication to review a production because his opinion is valued by that publication. It is not his purpose to render lavish praise merely to assure that tickets will be sold and seats filled. Such propaganda is the job of a public relations agent and is in no way even vaguely concerned with one who is employed as a critic.
The word "criticism" should not be interpreted as implying adverse comment only. As a matter of fact an advanced course in critical writing at the University strongly emphasizes the importance of appreciative criticism in the review.
Realizing that we are not now a second Brooks Atkinson, Olin Downs, or George Bernard Shaw, and probably shall never become such, we accept the challenge of -expressing our considered opinions of artistic presentations for publication and also the verbal attacks of the thin-skinned who prefer to remain ignorant of the true purpose and service of criticism.
Let us respectfully suggest that all who are seriously contemplating treading the boards of the professional stage enhance their knowledge of the purpose of the critic and criticism.
The business of criticism has become the business of not so much arguing that what is excellent is excellent as arguing that what is not excellent should be excellent, and trying to indicate, as best it can, the ways and means
gradually to make it so. Criticism otherwise is of small service and is converted into a mere game of clap-hands, giving issue only to an automatic applause which turns a true artist's stomach.
We should like to know why it is that the vanity of the average actor is so great that he has come to regard a critic's description of his performance as "adequate" as condescending and even a bit insulting, when "adequate," were he to look it up in the dictionary, means "equal to the requirement or occasion" and "fully sufficient?"
One member of the speech and drama department faculty has expressed his great distaste for the individual who comments after a University performance "It was an excellent performance FOR A COLLEGE ENDEAVOR." He maintains that University plays should be criticised as though they were the professional stage.
Yet paradoxically, when this is done one also hears the old argument that "these kids are just amateurs and the only pay they get is praise for their performance." This, as we have consistently contended, is a nice pollyanna attitude, but not true to life. Let's remove our rose-colored shades and face cold facts. Some of the persons in the dramatics department are striving for a degree of professionalism or they wouldn't be in a university. When troupers are being trained for the stage they should be given the type of conditions they can expect to encounter in the commercial theater and this includes the "nasty old critic" who won't give junior a lollipop every time he shows off.
Jim Tice
71-Year-Old Phog Fights On - 'Unretired'
Dr. Forrest C. (Phog) Allen was 71 years old Sunday.
And a conversation with the coach whose outspoken opinions and gift for coaching kept himself and Kansas basketball on the map for 39 years reveals that none of his zest for life is gone.
With the same enthusiasm that brought him respect in the coaching profession Allen has embarked on a new career.
At an age when most men are content to dwell on the past and view the future with apprehension Phog will tell you he's anything bue "retired."
With his son, a Lawrence attorney, he plans soon to open an office to practice his original profession as an osteopathic physician. Since last June when he reached the mandatory retirement age at the University he has practiced at his home.
Doc Allen was and is a fighter. Whether or not he should have been retired last year is past history. He felt he had to make known his feelings on the matter and in reflection we have a hunch that even those whose sorry task it was to refuse his request for an additional year would have been secretly disappointed if he hadn't made a fight of it.
And his outspoken voice which filled newspaper columns for decades is still spreading the gospel for KU as he follows the banquet trail to cities far and wide.
It will be a sad day indeed for the University and for Kansas when the terrible rumpus of Doc Allen clearing his conscience and booming forth with his foghorn voice is silenced.
This is one time we wish we could stop the clock.
Bob Lyle
Letters To The Editor
Critic Fights Back
Concerning Mr. Carniel's attack upon my criticisms of "The Servant of Two Masters," space permits only a brief examination of the circumstances under which it was produced.
Because scripts were unavailable, the play was rehearsed for only two weeks. Glenn Pierce, having received no direct support from the University Theatre, had to design costumes and makeup, build or borrow properties, direct, and then act in his production.
Add to this a cast chosen in an audition from which four other plays were cast, constant script revisions, only one backstage technician, sickness in the troupe, pitiful stage facilities, and a select, extremely intelligent, invited audience, and the resultant situation is one at which the most hardened theater-goer would shudder.
This then, is the production Carniel terms "perfectly played." No art is perfect; we may therefore assume that it wasn't art—most incongruous in a museum of art.
His assumption that I need profess a greater knowledge of Italian drama than yourself is as relevant as the necessity of my spending a year in an alcoholic sanitarium to adequately judge the portrayal of a dysmianiac. Research is necessary, but one need only know "what" to expect, not "why" in order to reflect the impressions that are the moral responsibility of criticism.
I spoke of Goldoni only in regard
All will agree that a translation is but a dull image of the original. Further, if Mr. Pierce has perfected a Venetian dialect, then we have a common bond, since all Kansans boast a similar accent.
to his effect upon a 20th century audience—not one of his period or country. These comments are based upon the same standards used to evaluate Aeschylus, Shakespeare, or Shaw; that is, their current effect upon our audience, nor their popularity when written. Some works contain classic universalities, others little more than academic interest. (Witness last year's production of "Menaechmi" and "Gammer urton's Needle") But if Goldoni is the "father of modern plays," then other of your compatriots such as Alfieri and Pirandello may be classified simply as placenta.
Daily Transan
As for the characters being indexes to modern Venice, Goldoni himself states; "Comedy was invented to correct foibles and ridicule disagreeable habits." If we may accept this, then contemporary Venice must be very picturesque.
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Mr. Carniel, you have my sincere apologies and sympathies if in some way I inadvertently wounded your national pride, I have every respect for you and Goldoni and the massive cultural contributions that you represent, but unfortunately we are not in Rome and therefore cannot do as the Romans.
A wise old man once said: "Indignation is the seducer of thought; no man ever thought clearly with his fists clenched."
Tom Sawyer
Topeka junior
Review Correction
This is to correct a statement attributed to me in your Friday editorial to the effect that the Kansas Law Review is one of the most " exhaustive publications attempted by any law school in the country."
In our five years of publication we have achieved some progress but we could never hope to be compared with Harvard, Yale or 20 other like publications which have been established for 30 years or more.
What I did say was that the Review is one of the largest student publications printed in the University Press.
Tom Payne
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