Training the Critic

Abstract

The training of theatre critics today in Sweden is extremely heterogeneous. That is, our reviewers come from diverse backgrounds and their training is of many types. Most of our reviewers, I think it would be fair to say, have been trained as professional journalists and have come up through the ranks of the newspapers. And, I must say. this is not really a bad kind of training for reviewers. It’s a very general kind of training. Many of those who are trained in universities for careers in criticism, tend to show particular biases. That is, a person trained in literature or in literary criticism will generally show a bias toward script analysis. The only real drawback to the more general journalistic training is that these people have no real background in any of the arts. I would have to say that only about a third of our critics have had formal training in theatre, have studied drama or have themselves worked in the theatre in one capacity or another. I suppose, then, that one could say that Swedish critics are composed of about equal parts of professional journalists, university-trained people and those with theatre backgrounds. All of these backgrounds have positive values but I’m not sure if background and training is the key. I would lean more toward a feeling that it is personal ethics which separates the good ones from the bad ones. For good critics are good no matter where they come from and bad critics are bad no matter what their background.