Chloe Veltman on the Little Man

posted by Cheshire on Mon, Jan 28, 2008
in Local Theatre

Local theatre critic Chloe Veltman has taken a poke at the elephant in the room of Bay Area theatre, the SF Chronicle's Little Man and his power to turn any production into box office gold just by getting off his ass and onto his feet, clapping his little head off. She says that after 50 years of making it so that you don't actually have to read the reviews, it's time for the Little Man to hang up his little hat.

I have a few thoughts on the matter.

Chloe starts off by recounting an exchange she had with an unnamed "Berkeley theater director," in which the director opined that not only does the Little Man have a tremendous effect but that he nearly obliterates the effect of reviews from other Bay Area media, presumably including her own paper, the SF Weekly. (She writes that she's out to achieve something other than helping or hurting shows anyway, so such a dig doesn't appear to sting her so much.)

She then goes on to argue that, worse than the Little Man's role as a latter-day Rumpelstiltskin, the real problem is that because he's there at all, she thinks that people skip reading the entire reviews, relying solely on the Little Man's pose to make their ticket-buying decisions.

Such shorthand is nothing new: movie reviews frequently contain star-ratings, as do restaurants. Even in Bay Area theatre reviews it's an accepted practice: the Oakland Tribune hands out one to four stars, and the Bay Guardian, like Publisher's Weekly does for books, simply gives one star to show listings it thinks you should consider more strongly.

One thing about the Little Man is that he's inconsistent. He adorns reviews of movies, theatre, television, music, and videogames, but he's nowhere to be found on reviews of opera or dance, theatre's closest cousins. Perhaps he just doesn't like opera or dance. Or perhaps those art forms evade simplified rankings -- though one could argue that so should the other arts under review.

The Chron even admits that the Little Man is reviled by some of the paper's own critics, for precisely the reason Chloe laments. And yet he's here to stay, despite repeated calls for his behatted head.

Chloe doesn't just blame the Chron, by the way -- she also takes theatre makers (ahem) to task for rewarding such behavior. She doesn't say how, but I presume she means by including the craven image in ads and on websites, etc.

Here I think she's wrong. Theatre companies, Impact included, routinely condense critics' lengthy reviews to just a few choice words. Such oversimplification is the name of the game in marketing a show; including a Little Man icon, especially when he's jumping out of the chair, is just one more instance of that reduction.

So what do I think of the Little Man? I think he's fine. Impact appeals to people who wouldn't normally consider going to theatre in the first place. Those people probably aren't reading full reviews anyway, because that's not really their thing. So if something small can catch their eye and let them know that this piece of theatre or that is worth their attention, then that's probably a good thing. We want to increase the overall theatregoing audience. Pretty much any way that happens is okay by me.

I share Chloe's sadness, however, that readers don't appear to read full reviews. For example, the last time the Little Man had something to say about Impact, he was sitting up clapping. Never mind that Rob Hurwitt had a lot of nice things to say about the show, but since the Little Man wasn't jumping out of the chair, our ticket sales weren't affected that much (though whatever effect we could discern was positive).

In the end I disagree with Chloe that the oversimplification is the worst thing about the Little Man. He helps some people, and the people who hate him should just ignore him, read the full review, and feel fulfilled for doing so.

I would rather see alternative media outlets have a greater effect on theatregoing than they currently do. Chloe explains away the Chron's dominance as being our version of the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune. But in truth the Chron is not the only game in town; there are three major alternative weeklies plus a host of sizeable greater Bay Area dailies here. And yet, most of the critics all see the same shows, even though there are dozens more that never get covered by more than one or two critics, if that.

I'd especially like to see the alternative papers like the SF Weekly and the Guardian dedicate themselves to productions off the beaten path. I know Chloe's after something different in her reviews -- and I do appreciate what she writes -- but without critics to champion lesser-known works and companies, the smaller end of the arts community has a much more difficult time surviving.

That, to me, is the great challenge of arts criticism in the Bay Area. Chloe may see it as a lesser aspect of her job, but if she doesn't help move tickets for the shows she thinks her readers should see, then someday soon there won't be that many shows for her to review.