Koptā kritika sociālo tīklu laikmetā

Abstract

The article analyses the situation of professional theatre criticism in the contemporary theatre environment and the reflection of current stage processes in performance reviews. The aim of the study is to identify changes in the purposes, form and content of professional theatre criticism at a time when social networks have become popular and are used both as a platform for discussion and as a platform for self-expression. In order to distinguish between reviews of performances written by professionally trained experts and other written reviews, the author of the article uses the term “cultivated criticism”. The research sources are the Latvian professional media Teātra Vēstnesis and www.kroders.lv, as well as the social network Facebook. The media content is analysed using the insights of art criticism theorists from the beginning of the 20th century to the current day and comparing the common and different principles of reviewing in the pre-digital and digital age. The professional standards of the review authors are also addressed. The author of the article has chosen the principles of theatre criticism from the works of the American theatre director and critic Harold Clurman (1901–1980) and the Scottish theatre critic and cultural journalist Mark Fisher as a theoretical framework. The findings of these experts are related to the opinions of Latvian and Lithuanian practising theatre critics on the meaning of reviews. The content analysis of the reviews looks for intersections with the American art critic Ben Davis’s concept of post-descriptive criticism, which, according to Davis, changes the descriptive nature of traditional, ekphrastic criticism. The research confirms Davis’s thesis that the transformation of a visual image into a verbal image is changing along with the changes in the artistic and informational environment. Regardless of the form of the review, theatre criticism remains an essential tool for the study of theatrical processes. At the same time, it is concluded that media content analysis does not provide a clear answer to the question of how to make cultivated criticism seen by theatre practitioners as respectable feedback and suggestions for professional development. These findings suggest that the paper’s topic is open for further research and discussion.