Why Am I Always So Positive?

I write a mostly positive reviews on this SubStack. Is that a good thing?

As a lover of writing, reading, and consuming stories in any way I can possibly get them, I have also consumed a lot of reviews. The best way to get book reviews, at least for me, is from my favorite “Book-Tubers” such as Savy Writes Books, The Book Leo, Lexi aka Newlynova, and Reads with Rachel.

Rachel in particular is one of my favorites. She’s incredibly intelligent, funny, and is actively fighting the good fight against book banners! Recently she posted a video on negative reviews, entitled “The Hatred of Bad Reviews”. It really got me thinking about my own reviews that I write here on SubStack. Namely— why have I only published positive or positive leaning reviews?

Why Only Positive NPX Reviews?

I thought about New Play Exchange and the myriads of plays that I have read via this database. What is the main demographic, professionally, of the artists that post their plays to NPX? In my experience with it over the past five years or so, it’s mostly emerging playwrights. There are a few established ones, but almost certainly none that are getting their plays published regularly by Samuel French or something like that.

These are playwrights that— while they may have an MFA or some self-producing experience, or perhaps a few finalist or semifinalist wins under their belt— are not getting full productions of their work consistently, and are usually working other, non-theater/writing related jobs. I would count myself among them! In fact, I would venture to say a large chunk of active playwrights are among them, honestly.

Not only that, but when I read a play from NPX I have to consider the fact that this draft is probably not the final product. A lot of people, myself included, don’t wait until the play is “finished” to upload (is a play ever truly finished anyways? That’s debatable too!). So there are quite a few plays on NPX that are on their first, second, third, etc draft when I find them.

Usually reviews are for the readers/experiencers of the play and NOT the playwright. However, when these playwrights are still fairly up and coming and the play I’m reading may not be the play’s final iteration, it feels…well, it would feel sort of icky for me to write up a scathing review. Especially considering that the goal of this publication is to educate and support playwrights, I don’t feel that a review saying something akin to “this was poorly written and sucks” would be helpful for any readers. The playwrights whose plays I review oftentimes read the review I write, and once again since the goals here are education and community, I want to be able to offer feedback!

This is not to say I have loved every play I’ve ever read from NPX. Because…I definitely haven’t. But I don’t know that the community we’ve built here would benefit from me saying publicly that XYZ playwright wrote a “bad play” and here’s why. I think we can learn a lot from poorly written plays! But I don’t want to be the reason that somebody stops writing, or never returns to that “bad play” to make it good. So when I read a play that I think is poorly written from NPX I just…put it to the side.

I’m not in the business of tearing down emerging artists, essentially. The world already does that enough.

What About Published Work?

Now, this is where I think it gets fairly cut and dry. Once a work is published, it’s effectively done. Finito. There is no more place for feedback, as it cannot be implemented. Plus, if a full length play is published (especially by a large publishing house) that playwright is definitely an established expert and industry professional. Therefore, I am much more comfortable being critical of already published works.

I have still written mostly positive reviews of the works I’ve found to review in this section, however— mostly because I have gotten amazing recommendations so far. But I do want to make a point here to say that I try to single out, especially in books, the parts that are worth reading more than others. Not everyone has the time to read a full 300+ page book on writing/playwriting/screenwriting/etc, so I have been trying to focus more on picking out specific sections of books I read that can be helpful so even people with limited time can benefit.

However, I want to encourage myself to be a little more critical in this section. After all, I think we can learn something from bad advice or poor writing just as much as from effective advice and amazing writing. And just because I think a book or play is “bad” or not worth reading, doesn’t mean someone else won’t read my review and decide that it is!

Finally, What About Live Performance Reviews?

This hasn’t become much of a “thing” yet on this SubStack, mainly because I don’t currently live in a place where I can frequently see shows. But when I finally settle in NYC at the end of the summer, I will definitely be doing a lot more of them! They’ll eventually have their own section and schedule.

My stance on positive vs negative reviews for live performance is this: If it’s a fully produced show at an established, professional venue/company, I’m not holding anything back. If it’s anything self-produced or by a small, indie company, I’ll be going by NPX rules. Anything in the middle? Well, I’ll use my judgement to determine what will be most helpful to you— my community.

Because in the end, that’s what this all comes down to. You. I write this because I love to, of course, and because I genuinely think it has contributed to making me a better theater artist and teacher. But a big part of that is writing things that I think will genuinely help other artists out there. I’ve said it a million times already, but the main goals of this SubStack are education and community. So if it’s not in service of that, I will not be doing it, period.

I’m glad that Rachel’s video pushed me to consider these things about my own reviews! I want to always be improving, and this was a good thing to interrogate about my work here. And now you all can see a little bit about my thought process in regards to the reviews that I provide here. I hope it was enlightening! It sure was for me to put into words.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you on my next post!

Happy theatre-making!

~Brynn