Isherwood Firing- Page 5
Isherwood Firing
yankeefan7
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/14/12
#101Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/1/17 at 4:22pm
"What is there to wonder about? Brantley, as chief theater critic, got first pick of what he wanted to review. Brantley's also-rans fell to Isherwood and the stringers."
Ok, I just did not think it was that simple. I thought they hired Isherwood to be major critic not to be kind of a flunky for Brantley.
#102Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/1/17 at 7:55pm
Flunky, n.
1. a liveried manservant or footman.
2. a person who performs relatively menial tasks for someone else.
Which of those definitions did you have in mind? Because most people I know would say being the second string critic at the Times fits neither. Perhaps you have never had a job, because seniority is pretty standard as a concept in most lines of work.
yankeefan7
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/14/12
#103Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/1/17 at 9:28pm
"Flunky, n.
1. a liveried manservant or footman.
2. a person who performs relatively menial tasks for someone else.
Which of those definitions did you have in mind? Because most people I know would say being the second string critic at the Times fits neither. Perhaps you have never had a job, because seniority is pretty standard as a concept in most lines of work. "
I should have used different term, my mistake. The previous poster made it sound IMO like Isherwood got the "crumbs" when it came to which show to review. I understand Brantley is the boss but I would hope that he would allow the second string critics a chance at some major shows and not just give them shows to review because he did not feel like going. I have been in the work force for almost 40 years (mostly IT) and have had the lowest position in a group and the top position so I understand seniority.
#104Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/1/17 at 10:03pm
well, Brantley was not his boss (they both reported to the same boss) and I don't think you can look at the list of shows Ish reviewed and reasonably say he got "crumbs." There are an awful lot of highly qualified critics who would jump at the chance to have had Ish's portfolio, so I can't fathom your point unless it is just to jump on the Brantley-bashing bandwagon from the rear.
yankeefan7
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/14/12
#105Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/2/17 at 6:43am
HogansHero- See post below. I said in a post that I wondered how they decided who reviewed what show and this was one of the responses. This implied to me that Brantley got what he wanted and Isherwood and the "stringers" got the rest. I took that as the other critics got the "crumbs", if I took that wrong I have no problem being corrected. The other poster used this term not me. I have never bashed Brantley and the few times I have mentioned his name it was positive. For example, people complained years ago that he "gushed" way too much in his glowing review of "Matilda". I posted a reply saying he can't win with people on this board. He bashes shows and people complain he hates everything and then when he loved something like "Matilda" they complained he was way too nice.
"What is there to wonder about? Brantley, as chief theater critic, got first pick of what he wanted to review. Brantley's also-rans fell to Isherwood and the stringers."
#106Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/2/17 at 10:01am
@Yankee Thanks for the additional explanation. I think if you look at the historical list of who reviewed what (I think you can pull this up on the Times website; at least you used to be able to) over the last few years, you will likely agree that what Isherwood reviewed was a significant portion of the theatrical landscape. Now it is true that he was assigned a majority of the DOA shows and generally only got highly anticipated shows if he had reviewed them off-B or out of town, but that is how seniority works. Happily, nowadays, there is plenty to go around, and actually Brantley left more than many would for the #2 because his plate invariably includes a healthy dose of fairly obscure off-off shows that intrigue him.
#107Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/2/17 at 10:47am
Yankeefan, I think you're ascribing a meaning to my explanation that isn't there. The fact that Brantley was (is) the chief theater critic and Isherwood was the second-chair critic is a simple fact. The chief critic, like all senior staff, gets the first choice of what to write about--except in the cases, like Hogan said, where the writer who originally reviewed the show was allowed to stay with the show. I was not saying that Isherwood was a dog waiting for crumbs to drop from Brantley's plate, although that seems to be how Isherwood saw himself after a while.
As a working journalist and sometime critic of more than ten years, I can tell you this is just the way things work in pretty much all ranks of journalism. Senior staff get first choice of assignments (or they are assigned the more plum stories by their editors) and the rest trickle down. Most staff-level employees accept this, and those with aspirations to move up through the ranks do so by showing it in their work. Isherwood seems to have spent a lot of time protesting how unfairly he thought he was being treated to anyone who would listen.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Updated On: 7/2/17 at 10:47 AM
#108Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/2/17 at 12:01pm
One other sidebar to the Isherwood phenomenon: this is the same person who announced in print that he would not review one or more shows because he did not like the writer's work. (I forget the details, and don't feel like looking but I am sure many here remember this.)
From the outside looking in, this appears to be a case of someone who was unhappy in his job, and not liked by either his boss or colleagues. As a result, he did not get the promotion (to co-chief) that he thought he deserved and bristled at not getting first dibs when it mattered to him. In the real world, without the dysfunction that seems to have characterized Isherwood's tenure, if someone really really wants a particular assignment, one asks for it and often gets it in a collegial working environment. Here, by contrast, it seems Ben and Charles spoke barely if at all.
#109Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/2/17 at 12:07pm
Isherwood wrote that he would no longer review Adam Rapp's plays because he didn't like his writing.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Sunny11
Broadway Star Joined: 9/3/14
#110Isherwood Firing
Posted: 7/2/17 at 12:23pm
AC126748 said: "Isherwood wrote that he would no longer review Adam Rapp's plays because he didn't like his writing.
"
Thats a good thing IMO. There are critics who obviously just dislikes certain writers/directors/actors and ALLWAYS gives them bad reviews even when others like it. In these cases they are not doing their proper jobs as critics which is to give enough information so a potential ticket buyer can read it and from it make their own opinion about whether to see it or not. It's better to give the assignment to someone who " could " actually like the piece then to have already made up their mind to hate it before even seeing it.
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