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Goethe
There are many approaches that can be taken to effectively critique a theatrical presentation. One of the simplest dates back to 19th century playwright, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pronounced Gur-ta; listen to a pronunciation of Goethe here).
He created his Three Questions:
- What was the artist attempting to do?
- Was it well done?
- Was it worth doing?
According to Goethe, critics simply need to answer these three questions as they apply to the performance. Let's take a minute to look at each of the questions.
Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at age 80, painted by Joseph Karl Stieler in 1829. Image from the Bavarian State Painting Collections is in the public domain.
What was the artist attempting to do?
What was the artist attempting to do? A critic can evaluate any of the artists. This includes the playwrights, director, designers, or actors. A complete review will evaluate multiple roles at one time.
Next, no artist creates art just to create it; they have a reason. It is the reviewer's responsibility to attempt to figure out what the reason is.
Additionally, the reviewer must figure out how the artists attempts to do this. Sometimes this is an easy task and sometimes it is not.
Read The Evolution of A Raisin in the Sun, From Dream Deferred to Broadway Masterpiece from Broadway Buzz about Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun.
African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965). Image courtesy of Discovery Education Streaming
What was Hansberry attempting to do when she wrote A Raisin in the Sun and how did she do it?
A scene from a 1959 production of the play A Raisin in the Sun. From left: Ruby Dee (Ruth Younger), Lena Younger (Claudia McNeil), Glynn Turman (Travis Younger), Sidney Poitier (Walter Younger) and John Fielder (Karl Lindner). Image is in the public domain.
Was it well done?
Was it well done? Once a critic has identified what an artist is trying to do with his creation and how he or she attempted to do it, the critic is now ready to evaluate how successful the artist was. The critic is looking at the effectiveness of the message.
From our previous example: Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun to illustrate the struggles of black people in the 20th century. She used the Younger family (based on her own family's story) to show this. Was she successful?
Since its 1959 debut, A Raisin in the Sun has had multiple successful runs on Broadway, has been turned into a movie and a musical, and has won many awards, including Tonys, Emmys, and Golden Globes. The New York Times stated it "changed American theater forever." James Baldwin stated, "Never before, in the entire history of American theater, had so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on stage." The critics agree – it was well done!
A scene from a 1959 production of the play A Raisin in the Sun. From left: Louis Gossett (George Murchison), Ruby Dee (Ruth Younger), and Sidney Poitier (Walter Younger). Image is in the public domain.
Was it worth doing?
Was it worth doing? Once a critic has decided what an artist is attempting to do and whether or not it was well done, it is now time to decide was the effort even worth it. Goethe stressed that these questions must be answered in order. There is no way to answer the third question without understanding the first two!
An error that is often made by critics is that they immediately answer the final question without considering the first. This makes for a subjective review. How can you decide if a performance was worth doing without even understanding why an artist did what they did? I am sure that you can think of movies you have seen that you gained nothing from. You are no better at the end of the movie than you were at the beginning. A theatre critic must evaluate if the story was worth telling.
In our discussion of A Raisin in the Sun we can, once again, answer this question with an unquestionable YES! Drama critic Brook Atkinson said, "She has told the inner as well as the outer truths about a Negro family in Chicago. The play has vigor as well as veracity and is likely to destroy the complacency of anyone who sees it."
A scene from a 1959 production of the play A Raisin in the Sun. Pictured are Claudia McNeil (Lena Younger) and Sidney Poitier (Walter Younger). Image is in the public domain.
In the end, no matter what a critic thinks of a play, if an audience is able to connect with the performance the play is a success. In an interview in 1959 with The New Yorker, Hansberry said of A Raisin in the Sun: "We all know now that people like the play, including the critics. Most of what was written about the play was reasonable and fine, but I don't agree that this play, as some people have assumed, has turned out the way it has because just about everybody associated with it was a Negro. I'm pleased to say that we went to great pains to get the best director and the best actors for this particular play. And I like to think I wrote the play out of a specific intellectual point of view. I'm aware...that real drama has to do with audience involvement and achieving the emotional transformation of people on the stage. I believe that ideas can be transmitted emotionally."
