There was a funny headline in the Paper of Record the other day, “Public Theater’s Uptown ‘Party’ leaves a Hangover” (NYT, 10.19).

Retrospective on the not-so-long-ago days of Mandy Patinkin the backstage water-thrower? No – apparently, after the death of the unfortunate “Wild Party” staged on Broadway earlier this year, the kerfuffle surrounding it refuses to die. Scott Rudin, hot-shot from Hollywood is bitching about this and George C. Wolfe, Public Theatre man is sniffling about that.

Ben Brantley, a-hole-in-Chief pulled the cast over his crotchety old knees and gave them a good spanking, calling the colorful extravaganza “a cause for sorrowful head shaking.”

Now, I don’t know from Cats (RIP), but I did see the show at the Virginia Theatre last spring and thought for all its inadequacies, it was a hell of a good time.

That’s the funny thing about Broadway – these days, who cares? As with so many things in this fair city of ours, so little comes out to get excited about. As Manhattan has gone soft, so has gone Broadway.

Critics generally panned and cluck-clucked over the Eartha Kitt-Toni Collette debacle, I generally enjoyed it because sitting front-row-mezz I got great views of Toni Collette for two straight hours (do I have to spell it out for you?). The songs were fun, lyrics mostly not embarrassing (how rare is that these days!), and apart from a wooden character or two, it was well worth the $50 spent.

Perfection? No. Fun? Hell yes. Which reminds me of something I’ve been pondering forever.

Back when I first began putting pen to paper, I was moonlighting as a music critic for an online music zine, and while it was good experience, I hated it. Possibly because it grated on my creative instincts to criticize someone else’s art, I ended up quitting shortly after I started. Now I critique destinations as a travel writer – I can’t build my own city, so it doesn’t eat at me to criticize one.

Far be it from me to say that arts criticism should be wiped out, it’s just that as life moves along, when it comes to something as petty as music and film (by petty, I mean in the grand scheme of things), isn’t it all about what you find enjoyable?

Where oldsters like Ben Brantley imagine themselves, rightly maybe, as some figurehead-kingmaker-dickhead who can make or break a Broadway show, it’s only because we humans are too feeble-minded to make our own decisions.

Shouldn’t we, the ones who paid to get in, be the ones to decide whether or not a show is good? True West, staged by Phillip Hoffman and John Reilly at Circle in the Square was one example. A few good reviews and the house was packed.

It sucked. Not the acting, but the script. Stoopid. Fucking stoopid. I could have doctored that script and made it ten times interesting in ten minutes flat. The character of the mother was so confined to ridiculous lines – poor Celia what’s-her-name, so fantastic in Dead Man Walking, here in a straightjacket.

You disagree? Fantastic. I don’t give a shit. Go, enjoy. You like Ace of Base? Think Hanson was the best thing since the Jackson 5? God bless you.

I’ll leave the arts criticism to the hatchet-jobbers. As a good man somewhere once said, I’d rather be criticized for something I did than sit around critiquing others work because I was never brave enough to create something of my own.

So write a play, Ben Brantley. Or have you already.

Email: davidr@lifeingotham.com

Next Update: 25 Nov