Who do you have to f#*k to get a review in this town?
// August 6th, 2007 // Blog, Kris's Soapbox
We had five media personnel (read: critics) at our Saturday night performance of The Churchill Protocol. Four of these reviewers were from Edmonton. One was from Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix.
The Edmonton reviewers come en masse to the Saskatoon Fringe, hoping to see as many of the touring shows as possible so that reviews can be printed right at the start of the festival. In a way, it’s kind of nice to know that our Edmonton Fringe review is in the can two weeks before we open: good or bad, it’s done; there’s no reason to stress out over it.
We would really have loved an opening night review from the StarPhoenix. We had no advance press here, of any kind, and no other media opportunities (these were all drawn by lottery) . Aside from our entry in the Fringe program, thenm, nobody really knows we’re here. Our attendance numbers to date are highly demonstrative of this fact.
Handing out flyers in Saskatoon is infuriating during the first weekend of the festival, too: not only are you seeing the same small crowd of people in every line for every show, but the fact that there are only four venues means that there are often more performers handing out flyers than there are audience members to take them.
All this is meant to indicate that there is very little about our audience situation that is in our complete control.
The local paper sent someone to see our play on Saturday evening. We had a great show that night, too, so hurray for us. But during the day on Saturday we learned that the StarPhoenix doesn’t publish on Sundays. And since Monday is a holiday, there is no chance for the review to be published before Tuesday — halfway through the festival, and halfway through our run.
This angered us, of course, and I make no bones about it. It costs us more than $2,000 to bring the show to town (not including what it costs for quaint luxuries such as food), and since the only money we make is from ticket sales, we need butts in seats. Even shows that have had mediocre reviews have managed to pull in good crowds simply because the reviews were published, which actually speaks voumes for a theatre-going public that is willing to take risks on plays as long as they’ve heard of them.
“Well,” we thought, “there’s always Tuesday. A review on Tuesday will help us for our last three shows.”
While it is true that no paper was published today [Monday], many reviews were posted on the StarPhoenix’s web site. Ours was not. In fact, many of the new reviews were of shows that were seen by StarPhoenix staff on Sunday — one day after our show was attended. So what’s the deal?
Our fear is that the reviews on the web site are the ones that are going in Tuesday’s paper, which means that the earliest we will see our review printed is Wednesday — two thirds of the way through our run, and in the final days of the festival (when most people’s show-viewing schedules have been decided).
There are a number of things that I detest about the Fringe circuit. One of them is that shows live or die on the strength of their reviews (which is amusing, especially since Fringe reviewers are often totally unqualified for the work they do. We were reviewed in Toronto by a food critic, and in Winnipeg by a woman who writes a weekly pet column and whose latest article reviewed several types of sunglasses you can buy for your dog. I swear to God that I am not making this up). I fail to understand how any media outlet can proudly claim to review every show at a festival, and then renege on that commitment by saving the lion’s share of the reviews for a publication date at which the reviews become utterly irrelevant.
I am eagerly looking forward to getting to Edmonton, where we know we will have at least three reviews posted on or earlier than our opening night. I am trying to take comfort in that, but the last days of the festival in Saskatoon are going to be difficult and stained with negativity, no matter what our eventual review says about our show.
I don’t care what the reviewers said, and seldom do. I heard about the show by word of mouth from two very enthusiastic bums in seats, who said they loved it for the inventiveness and the acting and rated it as a must-see.
As for me and my companion, we thought it was great! My companion had seen the headliners, as well as some other items, and said it was at the top of her list, tied for first place, while the highly-touted #1 of aforementioned reviewers was not worth bothering with.
I’ve been fringing and attending readings all across the country for decades, and, boys, this is a stand-out for staging, acting and direction. The pay-off was a little slow in coming, but the ride was a gas! And the giggles had an interesting underpinning, with the argument about what the public needs to know about what our military are actually doing — and who’s doing the telling.
You get five stars from me. Hope the rest of your tour of duty gives you the celebrity you deserve.
S.