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WNET NY Graphic

Funding for the show by Announcer and overlay the Eleventh Hour graphic.

Host Robert Lipsyte at his desk in studio welcomes viewers and talks about the topic of tonight's program - the power of critics. He announces guests coming up.

Cutaway to a scene from "Gus and Al" where the playwright Al (the actual playwright) discuss the negative critic's reviews with his friend.

The Eleventh Hour graphic.

INTERVIEW:

Robert Lipsyte:
Well, Frank, rich of the New York Times is considered the single most powerful theater critic probably in the world. And with that baggage, of course, comes responsibility. And the question really is to whom are you responsible to theatre to yourself to the editor to your readership?

Frank Rich
Well, most of all, I'm responsible to the readers. My responsibilities are really the same as any writer for The New York Times or any major news institution, like the times, in that I have to be honest, fair report what I see. And in a way that serves the readers. In a sense, I'm also being honest to myself, and to my editors, by doing that. The responsibility to the theater is is that I be as fair and honest as I can and accurate. But I'm really there to I'm not part of the theater. I'm a journalist, and I'm and I'm writing for the readers of the New York Times, which is very demanding readership.

Robert Lipsyte
Yeah, but also the the survival of the theater. And we really want to separate between Broadway in the theater, there is a difference, isn't there?

Frank Rich
Oh, absolutely.

Robert Lipsyte
Maybe you could define that?

Frank Rich
Well, in any given year, a minority of what I review is Broadway plays only about 30 Broadway productions, a season now, there are many, many more Off Broadway plays. So like any other New York drama critic, most of what I review, isn't on Broadway, and sometimes isn't in New York,

Robert Lipsyte
but isn't there some sort of responsibility, you know, some, some little flower in a corner of a new playwright, somebody who's not quite that good yet, but to, but to criticize as thoroughly as you might want to, would crush that? How do you handle that?

Frank Rich
I think, if you're totally honest with the reader, you handle it in an appropriate way. For instance, you say exactly that, here is this writer whose first play is being done Off Broadway or off off Broadway. And there's a wonderful new voice here, there's some great ideas about the theater, don't go expecting a finished play by a writer who has 10 plays under his belt. So you just state your case, I think if you if you're as clear and concrete as a writer as you can be, you you're you're doing exactly what you said, it's not a matter of giving out stars or points, I don't work that way

Robert Lipsyte
back back to power, and what powers that you have. I mean, it seemed that you couldn't say, eastern standard of play that you liked. Nor could you kill Phantom of the Opera, a musical that you were not crazy about

Frank Rich
exactly the power of the times, which is, which is real to an extent, because there's a tremendous overlap between times readers and people who are interested in theater. But it's always been a sort of exaggerated myth as well. And the fact is that a lot of plays and musicals survive mediocre reviews from the times and elsewhere and ones that times and other critics didn't like it vice versa. In regard to plays would have a particularly difficult time in New York, someone in the theater was saying just the other day, to me in a conversation, that there are four ways to play can survive on Broadway and none of them involved reviews. They either have to be by Neil Simon, have been a hit in England, have a major star, or win a major award, Eastern Standard taking example, didn't fit into any of those four categories. And I think that's actually sort of accurate. It's the theater, the commercial theater where ticket prices are high as fighting for an audience, period. And it's tough for anything except big musicals to survive

Robert Lipsyte
if the big musical comes in with A large advance sale and a lot of publicity. You can't beat it to death no matter how you feel. But let me ask you in terms of your sensibility, you know, you liked Eastern Standard, you weren't crazy about Phantom of the Opera. One didn't survive the other did. Which would lead one to believe that your sensibility might not be the same as the theater going Publics?

Frank Rich
Well, the theater going public is enormous, and heterogeneous. All I can do is be honest to my own opinions and beliefs, I can invent a taste for myself, that I won't have. I'm not a pollster, just as I'm not a consumer guide. Just as we distrust politicians who cater their views to opinion polls. Why should I cater my views or beliefs to the box office? Which is a form of poll if you will

Interview concludes. The Eleventh Hour graphic - small round animation slides over graphic ending in the corner reads: Welcome to the Club

Cut away to animated curtains opening - screen reads "Act One Opening Night"

Large bright yellow poster with a set of big pink lips holding half a body, just legs, out of side mouth and reads- " Welcome to the Club"

Large bright yellow poster with a set of big pink lips holding half a body, just legs, out of side mouth and reads- " Welcome to the Club"

Inside theatre - scene from the play - women on stage in bridal gowns singing.

Cut away to another scene from Welcome to the Club as Cy Coleman narrates - woman in flamboyant colorful dress singing (poorly!), man with striped shirt, suspenders and Hawaii leis around his neck dancing looking silly.

cut to a scene from the play, audience laughter can be heard. Scene with four guys - singing, "don't f--- around with your mother-in-law". looking pretty much silly

Talking head male in tuxedo talking with unseen reporter - saying the play is "really terrible" and hard to believe anyone would invest money into it.

Talking head man standing in crowd, other people are seen mingling in bkgd, says "great fun great lyrics...well worth seeing"

Actors lined up across stage waving to audience. Audience applause. Fade out, curtain comes down.

Fake curtains open up - reads: Act Two "Cast Party"

Pan out from "Sardi's" awning - crowd gathered under awning waiting to get in, pink balloons, festive.

Actor, Avery Schreiber, talking with interviewer about the power of the critics to close a show based on their opinions only.

Cartoon theater curtains opening to "Act Three". "The Reviews".

Montage of critics reviews of the play from Jeffrey Lyons, WPIX; Stewart Klein, WNYW; and Joel Siegel, WABC;

Host Lipsyte is back and announces that print reviews were overall just as terrible and the play closed in a week. He introduces his guests.

Rocco Landesman, Broadway Producer of "Big River" and "Into the Woods" seated in studio with poster of Les Miserables behind him. Lipsyte introduces him and welcome him to the show.
President of Jujamcyn Theatres. Welcome, Howard.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES

Robert Lipsyte
who is in the theater going public. I don't think there really is a theater going public other than critics who go to all the plays who decides ultimately Is it is it someone from out of town.

Rocco Landesman
You Yes, this is the problem with the with the theater today. Going to the theater is a $500 experience. You've got to get the babysitter. You've got to get the Transportation, the dinner on the town, the the whole thing, the price the tickets themselves. It's $500. You don't spend that lightly. You want to have that certification that in premature, that it is going to be the the thing to do.

Robert Lipsyte
It's going to be an experience whether it's good or not. There'll be a stretch limo and somebody's taking your picture.

Rocco Landesman
Yes, yes. And you want somebody to tell you ahead of time that it's going to be important experience. You can't go to the theater anymore casually. You can't simply decide at dinner time. Okay, we'll go to the theater night. What's there? What will we see?

Robert Lipsyte
What is there? Is there any chance of any kind of middle ground? Are people going to be able to go back and see theater a little more casually?

Howard Kissel
I think we have to remember that. In addition to Broadway in New York, there's Off Broadway and there's off off Broadway. And people go to those things regularly. Though. One of you mentioned, I think it's true. We don't have people who go to the theater regularly as people did in New York, 30 years ago, they only want to go for something special. And I think part of it is the cost.

Robert Lipsyte
Because I know that I've pretty much scratched off Broadway and Broadway musicals. I've been just disappointed too many times. When when you bring a show into the Jujamcyn theater, and I of course, you would only bring in good shows Rocco, but in the back of your mind is is forget about, you know, the play and the playwright and the actors. It's the money bringing in enough money to survive, isn't it?

Rocco Landesman
That's the job of the producer to reserve for potentially bad reviews, to have enough money in the bank to run the show, no matter what the critics say, I still wonder to this day, what would happened to Kerry, which might have been this year's grace. If the producer had $2 million in the bank to run the show, which was a show the audience's adored and the critics didn't?

Robert Lipsyte
Is this a good system? That sounds? Does it somehow, something I don't get here, it doesn't make sense,

Howard Kissel
again, where I don't think we like to think of ourselves as the arbiters of public taste. I think we are concerned with the level of

Robert Lipsyte
power because before I spend $50, even for a consummate experience, you know, I look to you to tell me whether I'm going to be a fool.

Howard Kissel
Um, I think yes, you want what I think of as good advice. But my major concern is I think something that must be remembered is nobody loves the theater as much as we do. Nobody goes to the theater three or four or five times a week the way we do. And I think we're concerned about what the theater is and what the theater can be. And that's reflected in our reviews. But sometimes the person who's buying a ticket just wants to have a good time, which I think is fine. I think you can have a good time at a good play as well as at a bad.

Robert Lipsyte
But also you can convince yourself that you had a good time at a bad play. Because it was loud. It was garish to a stretch limo, so and everybody else was sitting there and clapping. Hopefully that is part of the theater too Rocco Landesman, Howard Kissel, you both have four stars. I'm gonna have to close your show right now. This is the 11th hour. I'm Robert Lipsyte.

Credits overlay Eleventh Hour graphics.

Reel end.