Dramaturgy & Dramatic Criticism: “Think Like a Critic”

What is the meanest, nastiest, lowest insult you can think of hurling at someone?

Moron.

Freeman.

Abortion.

Maupin.

Sewer rat.

Curate.

Cretan.

I used to use this little bit of sycamithia from Waiting for Godot, where they say, let's abuse one another.

Call each other names.

And then the biggest insult that can be leveled is when one calls the other critic.

And the stage direction is, he wilts, vanquished, and turns away.

Oh! The worst thing you can be called is a critic.

As you know, Catherine Sheehy is one of our resident historians.

But she's also a kind of, well...

Critic! I am the chair of the Dramaturgy Program here at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.

A dramaturg is a critic.

A dramaturg is a critic in a way that is friendly to the work that is in process.

Imagine having a critic with savvy research skills and extensive knowledge of theatrical history waiting not in the audience ready to take down your play, but rather at your side throughout the production to help you make it the best it can be.

A dramaturg is like that.

A dramaturg's job is essentially to make things better for everybody involved in a production.

So they are sort of in on the ground floor.

They can help an artistic director in choosing plays for a particular theater.

They can help a director with preparation of the text, with understanding the history of the text and what the material conditions were when that play was first written, which might explain a few things about how it operates.

I like to say that the dramaturg is the person who's able to mine the forest while the director and their co-collaborators are in there, you know, paying attention to the trees.

I think it is about making the entire production experience a bit better.

Every year at Orientation, Catherine describes that scene from Waiting for Godot to the first year class to get them more comfortable with or even excited about the idea of working with a dramaturg.

I would try to lessen the kind of anxiety that can be created in an artist when their work is being observed before they're ready for it to be received.

And that's the place where the dramaturg belongs in the room with the art before it is ready for it to be seen by the public.

Criticism is certainly a substantial part of what a dramaturg does, but the job encompasses much

more than that.

We are invested in the success of the production.

To assist with viewpoints that will make the

thing better.

A dramaturg loves a text in perhaps, to my mind, one of the purest ways that a text can be loved.

And I refuse, I don't work without them.

Welcome to...

Oh, the Drama.

In this 10-part series, we'll explore 100 years at the David Geffen School of Drama, where it's been, where it's heading, and how each of the school's programs individually and collectively trains the next generation of artists.

Today, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism.

Think like a

critic.