Is the professional critic going the way of the typewriter repairman, the telegraph operator, the encyclopedia salesman? That is, into the graveyard of once-useful professions that are now about as essential as fleshy appendages on a bull?
You might think so after this week's dust-up between the loud, unpaid fans in the bleachers and their counterparts, the somewhat more sedate professional critics in the plush seats, over the opening of Love Never Dies, Andrew Lloyd Webber's much-anticipated sequel to Phantom of the Opera.
Even before previews of the new musical began, a certain number of obsessives who sleep on Phantom bedsheets - sorry, that should be "phans" - registered their disapproval with the mere idea of a sequel. Soon, more measured voices joined in as people began attending previews and giving their opinions online, many of them negative. They ignored the quaint notion, still gospel among professional critics, that all judgments should be held until after opening night. (I'll tell you what I thought of the show in just a moment.)
The clamour became so loud that Lloyd Webber stepped in to defend his baby, still wrapped in its swaddling clothes. Some of his earlier shows would have died in their infancy if he'd faced such pressure, he told Reuters. "If there had been the Net then, you'd have almost given up." Theatre reviewer Michael Coveney, who went on to give Love Never Dies a rave review, went farther, worrying about the health of the critical brotherhood. "The idea that the babble of the blog is inseparable from critical assessment is taking serious and dangerous hold," he wrote (in his blog, it should be noted).
Of course, any group that feels beleaguered is going to hiss like a cornered cat. It's true that the fraternity of "legit" critics is shrinking, even as it grows on the Web (just this week, Variety axed veteran movie critic Todd McCarthy and theatre reviewer David Rooney ). Yet it seems futile to worry about "amateur" reviewers, who are often separated from their professional counterparts not by passion or depth of knowledge but by a weekly paycheque. There's enough room in the playground for everyone, and the more noise about a show - a book, a movie, an exhibit - the better, no matter what quarter it comes from. Debate can't diminish an artwork's intrinsic value.
But Lloyd Webber may have a point about the pre-show hysteria robbing Love Never Dies of room to breathe. Many musicals - Les Miz being a famous example - flourished despite painful reviews, but that was in the pen-and-paper era. I went back and looked at the reports before Phantom's London opening in Oct. 1986: Everyone was nervous, including producer Cameron Mackintosh. The Phantom himself, Michael Crawford, admitted to being "a wilting, sweating mess … a terrified phantom." The first previews were cancelled; star Sarah Brightman had vocal problems. The reviews were mixed, and that is being kind. In today's hothouse of opinion, would the show have wilted before it had a chance to grow, and not gone on, as we are told ad nauseam, to become "the most successful single piece of entertainment of all time."
But live by the sword, die by the sword. Producers can't hope to reap the benefits of the Internet age - seducing younger audiences through tweets and podcasts and social-networking sites - and expect to control its chaotic appetites at the same time. Better to listen to the vox populi and take on board some of the more sober criticism. (This may be happening: According to a report in The New York Times, Love Never Dies will be "tweaked" before its Broadway debut.)
It could use a tweaking, although, on the whole, it's a reasonably enjoyable experience. I've seen the show twice, and have not yet managed, by ice pick or plastic explosive, to dislodge the songs from my head - a primitive but powerful measure of a musical's oomph. Much has been made of the fact that Lloyd Webber recycles a melody from The Beautiful Game for the show-stopping aria, but really the score is the show's strong point, and along with some gloriously gothic stage design, narrowly overcomes a ludicrous story.
Ten years after the nutty Phantom was left broken and abandoned by his love, the opera singer Christine Daae, we find him reborn in Coney Island, the successful owner of a freak show and musical revue. So far, so delightfully grotesque (there's a trio of supporting players who could have come from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and deserve a musical of their own).
Things get mired in treacle when Christine, her drunkard husband Raoul and son Gustave show up. It's not giving much away to say that the musical hinges on Christine's choice between a murderous stalker and a whiny tosspot, neither of whom seem to have her best interests at heart. The end should come much quicker than it does, and possibly should make sense. A lush score can't hide the fact that the lyrical broth has been ruined by too many cooks (there are four people credited with writing the book), evident in the reliance on patent untruths such as "the heart never lies," and "love never dies," which were stale when Lorenz Hart was a pup.
The show is fortunate to have two charismatic leads (in Sierra Boggess and Canada's Ramin Karimloo), who throw themselves wholeheartedly into the melodramatic soup. Boggess brings grace and dignity to the meat-free role of Christine, and her performance of the climactic song is powerful, if a little strident. Karimloo's versatile voice is wonderfully yearning in the ballads ( Beneath a Moonless Sky) and rises to a wail worthy of Robert Plant in the rock-tinged The Beauty Underneath, which is thrillingly staged alongside the weird automatons in the Phantom's lair.
At the end of the second performance I attended, Brooke Shields, sitting in the audience, leapt to her feet to lead the standing ovation, like a particularly beautiful giraffe towering above pygmy goats. I have a feeling that's the only critical reaction that matters these days.