"in the past few seasons, what shows have truly received across-the-board raves?"
People seem to remember reviews as being much worse than they actauly were. Without bothering to do the research, this season and in every season in memory, there have been at least 5 to 10 shows on and off-Broadway that have received across the board positive notices -- just a couple of days ago, the new musical STRIKING 12 got a very nice slate of reviews and off the top of my head in the last few months, THE CLEAN HOUSE, JACQUES BREL, NO CHILD, SEVEN GUITARS, and HEARTBREAK HOUSE all got mostly positive notices. Last season JERSEY BOYS, LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE, HISTORY BOYS, THE FAITH HEALER, DROWSY CHAPERONE, WELL, BRIDGE & TUNNEL, SEASCAPE, PAJAMA GAME and SHINING CITY were all universally praised (save for the odd critic here or there).
And as for your list, A CHORUS LINE received positive or mixed-to-positive reviews from all but two or three major critics, the reaction to LES MIS was split with as many mixed-to-positive and mixed-to-negative notices, and, contrary to popular belief, if you look up the reviews for MAMMA MIA and WICKED, most were mixed-to-positve, with only a few pans thrown in (Brantley actually really liked MAMMA MIA and wrote a love letter to Chenoweth in his review of WICKED, though he was rather mixed on the overall show).
I'll never understand why people always have the impression that critics trash every show. The only time you see across the board pans is for shows like TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN or IN MY LIFE or that awful Suzanne Somers show -- shows where the audiences agreed with the critics and stayed away causing the show to flop. Most long-running shows got mostly decent reviews -- perhaps not across the board raves, but at least mostly mixed-to-positive notices.
The current slate of critics is not a bunch of intellectual theatre scholars -- just the opposite actually. Only a couple of them have ANY background whatsoever in theatre either professionally or academically (Feingold of the Voice and David Cote and Adam Feldman of TimeOut are some of the only ones that come to mind). Most, like Brantley, for instance, were English majors who stumbled into journalism and then just by chance ended up reviewing theatre (Brantley had NEVER written a theatre review in his life before he joined the Times -- he used to write entertainment features and movie reviews for Vanity Fair and Women's Wear Daily). None of them have any specialized knowledge or rarified taste in theatre (and most, in fact know less and have less experience both seeing and working in the arts than several of the members of BWW and ATC). In short, their opinions are very similar, in most cases, as any reasonably well-educated adult on the street. So to think that they collectively are a bunch of snobs who's tastes are too intellectual for the average theatregoer is a bit of a stretch.
The only thing that makes them any different is that they see much more theatre than the average person and by virtue of that, perhaps have a different take on a given piece than your typical person who may see 4 or 5 shows (or less) in a given year. Perhaps, seeing tons of bad stuff and tons of good stuff year in, year out gives them a different set of standards than most people (not to mention, they are held accountable for their opinions and have to justify them in print to thousands, which also can account for why their opinions my sometimes vary from an average theatregoer).
Anyway, the point is, there's never any reason to allow a set of reviews to get you upset. Critics, in the main, don't know any more than any other reasonably intelligent person, so if their opinion differs from yours, it doesn't mean that they're right and you're wrong. If you disagree, don't let it bother you.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
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