Very important today is the ability of a person to critically evaluate something. In many areas, this can be done by writing a review, which, in turn, has certain creation rules. 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, a literary work, cartoon, scientific work ...).
What is a review for?
The purpose of the review is to inform about the new work, give it a critical assessment, and point out its strengths and weaknesses. The review should draw public attention 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 may also gravitate to the genre of essays, a literary article. It should be objective, therefore, it is not allowed to use personal emotionality, crude comparisons, the presentation of subjective thoughts. All opinions expressed must have clear arguments (examples from the text, statement, style, author's position, etc.). Writing a review involves the use of terms in the field of art, to which the analyzed work belongs.
Theater Performance Review
Theatrical review is one of the most popular genres of theatrical criticism. Her goal is to evaluate the performance (not the play). To work on this critical article, it is necessary to analyze the production, to understand the creative intent of the director, the concept of the director, which is embodied on the stage through various means of theatricalization: stage design, lighting, music, acting, stage play.
Review of the performance gives an objective assessment of the production. At the same time, the viewer explores the literary text of the work, the means of expressing the author’s position (problems, conflict, plot, composition, character system, etc.). The review of the performance is based on a deep and well-reasoned analysis, the quality of which depends on the reviewer's theoretical and professional training. In the process of writing a review, you need to correctly use theatrical terminology.
Steps for creating a review
The process of creating a review takes place in several stages:
- Preparatory work (reading the play on which the play was staged, studying the previous productions on it, studying the director’s creative path, the place of this performance in the theater’s repertoire).
- View the performance.
- Analysis of the production (including content, form, images, directorial discoveries, novelty of interpretation).
- Direct writing of 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 of the need to review this performance (a new statement by the director, a controversy surrounding the author’s work, the relevance of the problems of the work, etc.).
II. The main part: the interpretation and evaluation of the ideological and artistic originality of the production.
IIІ. Conclusions about the artistic merits of the studied production and its significance for theatrical and public life.
Review Plan (sample)
In order to give a complete critical assessment of the production, it is necessary to take as a basis a review plan for the performance. The availability of items and their sequence in the presentation is determined by the author.
- The name of the play, director, theater (basic information), date of production.
- Information about the author of the play, the director.
- The storyline of the work, the main episodes (the choice should be argued).
- The author’s creative plan and its implementation (author’s: theme, idea, problems; features and differences of the director’s intention from the text of the play).
- Genre features of the performance, composition of the play.
- Score acting.
- The main problems raised by the author, their relevance.
- Features of the director's interpretation of the text (unexpected use of theatricality, features of scenography, musical accompaniment, special effects ...).
- The reviewer’s overall impression of the performance (to what extent the production is inherent in the novelty of the director’s interpretation, did your expectations regarding what he saw come true).
If you have any difficulties at work, do not despair. Use the materials on how to write a review of the play (an example of its preparation is given in this article), and you will significantly improve your reviewer skills.
Review Writing Tips:
- Before writing a review of the play, study the material (play), which serves as the basis for the production so that during the viewing you do not follow the plot, but evaluate the director’s interpretation.
- See the performance yourself.
- During the performance, make 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 performance. This will allow you to objectively evaluate the performance.
- If you personally didn’t like the performance, be able to find good moments in the watched and interesting directorial finds.
- If you are writing a review of a production based on a play by a classic playwright, point out the novelty of the vision of the work by this director, unlike others.
- Do not forget that the performance is the work of an entire production group (director, lighting designer, composer, ..), so pay attention to all the components of the performance.
- Be sure to provide arguments.
- Remember that any review of the play is an example of a competent and logical presentation of the material, so watch for the style, structure of the article and the absence of grammatical errors.
The main mistakes in writing a theater review
- The use of phrases of subjective assessment: “like” - “dislike”, “impressed me”, “pleased the actor” ...
- Retelling the plot instead of analyzing the play.
- Emphasis on details that do not carry a special semantic load.
- Illiterate use of terms.
Performance Review Sample
In 1878, A. N. Ostrovsky wrote one of his most famous plays, The Dowry. After some time, she was recognized as the best work of the playwright.
The first stage embodiment of the play took place on the stage of the Maly Theater, but it did not make the proper impression. Over the years, the production became 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 visited the production of "Dowry" in the Drama Theater. I plunged into the world of magnificent unity of directorial design, the skill of actors and the breathtaking atmosphere of the play. Being in the hall, I felt like an actor.
I was particularly impressed by the game of actress M. Magdalenina (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 the stage very successfully conveyed the character of Larisa. The integrity of the image was facilitated by the beautiful melodic voice of the actress. I believe that she played her part simply brilliantly.
The honored artist of Russia Valery Potanin (the role of Karandyshev) pleased his skill. His hero appeared before the audience displeased and grouchy. It seemed that he could "explode" at any moment. There was constant intolerance, and sometimes even hatred of Paratov. But at the moments of humiliation by other heroes, Karandyshev involuntarily felt sorry. The image conveyed by Valery Potanin in the play differs from my presentation of Karandyshev. In my imagination, this 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, Honored Artist of Russia A. Gladnev. His hero gives the impression of a reasonable person. His movements are thought out, impeccable, clear. Only sometimes can one see a thoughtfulness in the image, which creates the impression of a wise man who has seen a lot on his life's journey.
S. Karpov played in the performance of Paratov. He managed to convey rationality, calmness and passion in communication with Larisa. The only thing I would like to note: the type of the actor did not quite match the appearance of my idea of ​​a hero.
Throughout the performance, the audience was amazed by the wonderful actor Vladimir Zaitsev, who played Robinson. The image created by the actor was surprisingly cheerful and cheerful. Thanks to the play of this actor, the director managed to draw a motive of kindness and optimism through the whole performance.
It should be noted that the selection of actors would have been very successful, their types, as well as vocal data, contributed to the creation of amazing and attractive images of the performance.
Noteworthy is the work of the costume designer and the make-up of the performance: all the props, costumes, makeup, wigs were created and selected with knowledge of the matter.
The scenery is fully consistent with the ideological content of the play. The fact that they did not change during the production also had an ideological and semantic load.
But, in my opinion, the light score of the performance was not well thought out. In this case, the emphasis was placed on the rear spotlights, and this, in turn, distorted the viewer's view of the scene and negatively affected the actors' play.
In general, the impression of the performance is good. The synthesis of professionalism of the director and skill of the actors contributed to the fact that the long-known play began to play in my mind with new colors. In my opinion, this is one of the goals of the theater: to attract public attention to the problems that are always relevant, and to help the audience through experience become cleaner and wiser. I hope that the subsequent productions of this director will also make an indelible impression on me.
Features of reviewing productions for children
The review of the children's play corresponds to all the genre features of this critical article. When writing it, it is important to take into account a single point: the performance is usually designed for a certain age of children. Both the text of the play and all artistic decisions on the stage must correspond to the specified age of the children. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the production for children, taking into account the age characteristics of the audience.
Review of the performance is a product of creativity. The reviewer should try to convey the spirit of the production so that the viewer wants or does not want to see it.