Very important today is the ability of a person to give a critical assessment of something. In many areas, this can be done by writing a review, which, in turn, has certain rules for creating. How to write it is described in our article.
Review as a genre
Review is a genre of journalism, including scientific and artistic criticism. It is based on a critical assessment of a work of art, science, journalism (film review, review of a play, literary work, cartoon, scientific work …).
What is a review for?
The purpose of the review is to inform about the new work, to give it a critical assessment, to point out its strengths and weaknesses. The review should draw the attention of the public to the issue under study and suggest what is worth its attention and what is not.
Genre features
As a rule, a review is written in a journalistic style, is polemical in nature, and can also gravitate towards the genre of an essay, a literary article. It must be objective, therefore it does not allow the use of personal emotionality, rough comparisons, presentation of subjective thoughts. All opinions expressed must have clear arguments (examples from the text, staging, style, author's position, etc.). Writing a review involves the use of the terms of the field of art, to which the analyzed work belongs.
Review of a play in the theater
Theatrical review is one of the most popular genres of theater criticism. Its purpose is to evaluate the performance (and not the play). To work on this critical article, it is necessary to analyze the production, understand the director's creative intent, the director's concept, which is embodied on stage through various means of theatricalization: stage design, lighting, music, acting, mise-en-scène.
Review of the performance gives an objective assessment of the production. The viewer at the same time explores the artistic text of the work, the means of expressing the author's position (problematics, conflict, plot, composition, system of characters, etc.). The performance review is based on a deep and reasoned analysis, the quality of which depends on the theoretical and professional background of the reviewer. In the process of writing a review, you need to use theatrical terminology correctly.
Steps of creating a review
The process of creating a review takes place in several stages:
- Preparatory work (reading the play based on which the play was staged, studying previous productions based on it, researching creativethe path of the director, the place of this performance in the repertoire of the theater).
- Watching the play.
- Analysis of the production (including content, form, images, directorial findings, novelty of interpretation).
- Directly writing a critical article.
Review structure
In order to give a full assessment of the production, you need to know how to write a review of the play. This critical judgment has its own structure:
І. Introduction: justification for the need to review this performance (new production of the director, controversy around the author's work, the relevance of the work's problems, etc.).
II. Main part: interpretation and evaluation of the ideological and artistic originality of the production.
III. Conclusions about the artistic merits of the production under study and its significance for theatrical and social life.
Review plan (approximate)
In order to give a full critical assessment of the production, it is necessary to take the review plan for the performance as a basis. The presence of points and their sequence in the presentation is determined by the author.
- Name of the play, director, theater (basic information), production date.
- Data about the author of the play, director.
- The storyline of the work, the main episodes (the choice should be argued).
- The author's creative idea and its implementation (author's: theme, idea, problems; features and difference between the director's idea and the text of the play).
- Genre features of the production, compositionperformance.
- Acting score.
- The main issues raised by the author, their relevance.
- Features of the director's interpretation of the text (unexpected use of theatrical means, scenography, musical accompaniment, special effects…).
- The general impression of the reviewer about the performance (how novelty of the director's interpretation is inherent in the production, did your expectations come true regarding what you saw).
If you are having difficulty with your work, don't despair. Use the materials on how to write a play review (an example of how to write a review of a performance is given in this article), and you will significantly improve your skills as a reviewer.
Tips for writing a review:
- Before writing a review of a play, study the material (the play) that serves as the basis of the production so that while watching you do not follow the plot, but evaluate the interpretation of the director.
- Watch the show for yourself.
- During the performance, take notes in a notebook so that when writing a review you have enough material for criticism.
- Write a review at least a day after watching the play. This will allow you to objectively evaluate the production.
- If you personally did not like the performance, be able to find good moments in the watched and interesting directorial finds.
- If you are reviewing a production based on a play by a classic playwright, indicate the novelty of the director's vision of the work indifferent from others.
- Do not forget that the performance is the work of an entire production team (director, lighting designer, composer,..), so pay attention to all the components of the performance.
- Be sure to include arguments.
- Remember that any performance review is an example of a competent and logical presentation of the material, so follow the style, structure of the article and the absence of grammatical errors.
The main mistakes in writing a theater review
- Using phrases of subjective evaluation: “like” - “dislike”, “impressed me”, “pleased the actor”…
- Retelling the plot instead of analyzing the performance.
- Emphasis on details that do not carry a special semantic load.
- Illiterate use of terms.
Sample play review
In 1878, A. N. Ostrovsky wrote one of his most famous plays - "Dowry". After some time, she was recognized as the best work of the playwright.
The first stage performance of the play took place on the stage of the Maly Theatre, but it did not make the proper impression. Over the years, the production has become more and more popular, and to this day it is dearly loved by the audience. The secret of unquenchable interest lies, most likely, in the relevance of the problems raised in the dramatic material.
Recently I went to a production of "Dowry" at the Drama Theatre. I plunged into the world of the magnificent unity of the director's idea, the skill of the actors and the breathtaking atmosphere of the performance. Being in the hall, I felt like an actor.
I was especially impressed by the play of actress M. Magdalina (the role of Larisa). She masterfully managed to create the image of a soft and sincere, sensual and romantic heroine. Her movements combined lightness and confidence, and circling around the stage very successfully conveyed the character of Larisa. The integrity of the creation of the image was facilitated by the beautiful melodic voice of the actress. I think she played her part just brilliantly.
Honored Artist of Russia Valery Potanin (the role of Karandyshev) pleased with his skill. His hero appeared before the audience dissatisfied and grouchy. It seemed that he could "explode" at any moment. There was constant intolerance, and sometimes even hatred towards Paratov. But at moments of humiliation by other heroes, Karandyshev involuntarily felt sorry. The image conveyed by Valery Potanin in the performance differs from my representation of Karandyshev. In my imagination, he was a calm, respectable man who reacted sharply only in cases of injustice and resentment.
The role of Knurov was played, in my opinion, very well by Honored Artist of Russia A. Gladnev. His character gives the impression of a reasonable person. His movements are thoughtful, impeccable, clear. Only sometimes is thoughtfulness seen in the image, which creates the impression of a wise man who has seen a lot on his life path.
S. Karpov played Paratov in the play. He managed to convey rationality, calmness and passion in communicating with Larisa. The only thing I would like to note: typethe actor did not quite match the appearance of my idea of a hero.
Throughout the performance, the wonderful actor Vladimir Zaitsev, who played Robinson, amused the audience. The image created by the actor was surprisingly cheerful and cheerful. Thanks to the performance of this actor, the director managed to carry the motive of kindness and optimism through the entire performance.
It should be noted that the selection of actors would have been very successful, their types, as well as vocal abilities, contributed to the creation of amazing and attractive images of the play.
The work of the costume designer and make-up artist of the performance is noteworthy: all the props, costumes, makeup, wigs were created and selected with skill.
The scenery fully corresponded to the ideological content of the performance. The fact that they did not change during the production process also had an ideological and semantic load.
But, in my opinion, the lighting score of the performance was not well thought out. In this case, the focus was on the rear lights, which, in turn, distorted the audience's vision of the stage and negatively affected the performance of the actors.
In general, the impression of the production is good. The synthesis of the professionalism of the stage director and the skill of the actors contributed to the fact that the long-known play began to play in my mind with new colors. This, in my opinion, is one of the tasks of the theater: to draw public attention to problems that are always relevant, and to help the viewer become purer and wiser through experience. I hope that andfuture productions by this director will also impress me.
Peculiarities of reviewing performances for children's audiences
Review of the children's performance corresponds to all genre features of this critical article. When writing it, it is important to take into account the only point: the performance, as a rule, is designed for a certain age of children. Both the text of the play itself and all artistic decisions on the stage must correspond to the indicated age of the children. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the production for children, taking into account the age characteristics of the audience.
A performance review is a product of creativity. The reviewer should try to convey the spirit of the play in a way that makes the viewer want or not want to see it.
