Style Weekly Review of "Doctor Faustus"

Style has been very kind to us this year, with a full-page picture of Grant as Scrooge, a full-page picture and review of Julius Caesar, very positive reviews of both shows, and now another full page for Doctor Faustus. Heck, the cover even says "Doctor Faustus" at the top (must have been a slow news week). And the reviewer clearly liked the show.

But--and I really don't like to nitpick when a reviewer liked our work, especially when the writer has been kind to us in the past--it's a little frustrating that the piece spends more words on Christopher Marlowe's friendship with Sir Walter Raleigh than it does on the acting. And while I'm very grateful for the contributions of Angie Pirko and Tony Lombard to the show, both directors had more than a little to do with the props and the set dressing, and neither is credited with having done, well, anything. It's not an ego thing (I have plenty of that with or without reviews), it's about a theatre review that doesn't have the slightest idea what a stage manager does.

So now I'm in the opposite position of David Timberline's "People Hate Critics" thing a few months ago. I don't want to complain when I'm getting a good review. But is it too much to ask that a theatre reviewer not credit the stage manager with major aesthetic directorial choices? Trust me, Tony had more than enough work to do stage managing, and he did contribute ideas during the process. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's much more likely that the directors made those choices, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a professional theatre reviewer to know that.

Here's the link: A Two-Man Cast of Thousands. Judge for yourself.

Oh, I'm gonna get in trouble.