ABSTRACT
There are advantages and disadvantages in having professional experience in the art which one happens to be criticising. It is always helpful to know how a play gets put on, the difficulties of working on this or that kind of stage, the problems of casting, the limitations of budgets and the opportunities seized or missed. Theatre critics always have the problem, particularly with new plays, of trying to assess where the real credit lies - with the directors, actors or writers. Many second-rate plays have received bubble reputations through the work of imaginative directors. Critics must learn how not to be dazzled by wealth and how to steel their hearts against excessive displays of poverty. It is salutary for them also to feel what it is like to be on the target end of criticism, how painful it can be to receive a really unjust, dismissive review (perhaps misinformed, too). A bad review can affect not just box-offices, but the whole careers of actors and directors. Conscientious critics may have small nightmares about the mistakes which they perpetrate; but those whose talents are damned by such errors are faced with worse trials than a sharp twinge of conscience.
