theatre criticism, in the journalistic sense, began in Britain in the early 18th century. Despite earlier attempts by
Dryden in his Prefaces and
Rymer in
A Short View of Tragedy to uphold French neo-classical principles, it was not governed by a continental adherence to aesthetic rules. Its emergence was determined by pragmatic factors: the rise of the opinionated essayist, the strength of Restoration acting, and the need to protect the stage from moral censure.
Steele claimed: ‘There is no human invention so aptly calculated for the forming of a free-born people as that of the theatre.’ But while Steele and
Addison were occasional commentators, Aaron
Hill and William
Popple in
The Prompter (1734–6) became the first professional theatre critics pursuing a campaign for realistic acting that paved the way for
Garrick.
The proliferation of late 18th century journalism, the centrality of the stage in London life and the presence of great actors all promoted a lively criticism based on personal observation. But it was Leigh
Hunt and
Hazlitt (both of whom were witness to legendary performances) who transformed dramatic criticism from a transient record into a durable art. Hunt was often at his best writing about comic actors such as Charles James Mathews or Robert William Elliston; Hazlitt was inspired by the demonic genius of Edmund
Kean. His reviews of Kean's Shakespearean performances combine astute technical analysis with vivid impressionistic images: describing the battle scenes in
Richard III, he writes that Kean ‘fought like one drunk with wounds.’
Actor-led criticism continued in the later 19th cent. with
Lewes and Joseph Knight; but the emergence of
Ibsen and the new drama brough new rules.
Shaw used his coruscating columns in the
Saturday Review in the 1890s to attack the reigning actor-manager,
Irving, and to endorse a drama that addressed social and moral issues; he was keenly supported by
Archer. Shaw's successor,
Beerbohm, was more a whimsical essayist than an embattled campaigner, and
Agate, who wrote for the
Sunday Times from 1923 to 1947, was a distinguished connoisseur of acting rather than a reliable analyst of plays. But the separate traditions of graphic reporter and militant enthusiast converged in Kenneth
Tynan, who both enshrined legendary performances (particularly those of Olivier) and used his
Observer columns to champion
Brecht and
Osborne. Harold Hobson, his opposite number on the
Sunday Times, was equally persuasive about the work of
Beckett and
Pinter. American theatre criticism, with a shorter historical tradition, produced in the 20th cent. a pugnacious essayist in
Nathan, a gracious stylist in Stark Young, and a distinguished blend of academic, practitioner, and journalist in Eric Bentley, Robert Brustein, and Harold Clurman. The distinguishing feature of English-language theatre criticism remains, however, a suspicion of intellectual theory and a trust in subjective impressions.
