University of Virginia Library

Biased Judgement

There are of course, different
sides to the story. Although he did
not ask for Real's dismissal, Stoner
felt that Real allowed personal bias
to interfere with his critical
judgments, especially of actors.
"There's a lot of childish
vindictiveness going on," Stoner
said, "a lot that I cannot talk
about."

Stoner, however, is one of the
few people I have talked to who
does not regret the loss of Real as
the Progress critic. None of the
drama faculty here at the
University sees anything invalid or
unfair about Real's criticism of
"Oklahoma!" even though some of
them enjoyed the production.
Moreover, they feel that Real was a
highly competent critic who is
going to be missed by the
Charlottesville theatre community.

The entire episode becomes all
the more ludicrous when the
comments of Ben Kent, Executive
Editor of the Progress and the man
who decided to make the personnel
change, are taken into account.
Kent believed that after four years
of running Real's reviews it was
time for "fresh blood," despite the
fact that he respected Real and
considered him to be "pretty
professional" in his job. When
asked (get this, now) whether Real
might be too good a critic for the
general readership of the Progress
to appreciate, Kent replied that it
was "quite likely," and added that
"he's too damn good for this
town."

Thus, what we have is a critic
losing his job because he has too
much talent. It's absurd! If, say,
Kent agreed with Stoner that Real
was prejudiced and took pot shots
at actors, then it would be a whole
different ballgame. But Kent didn't,
and instead of standing behind his
critic, he look the easy way out and
fired him, with the result being an
almost certain lessening of the
caliber of drama criticism his paper
publishes, which will be particularly
harmful to those people involved in
local theatre who are seeking an
honest evaluation of their work.

This brings us to the roll of the
critic. Contrary to what you may
believe, most theatre people do not
want to receive praise unless they
feel it is deserved. One of the things
that irked Stoner about the letters
which were written to the Progress
was that some of them look the
attitude, "Well, these are nice kids
doing their best and trying to do
the community a service, therefore
your critic should give them a
break." Although Stoner violently
disagreed with Real's review of
"Oklahoma!", he'd be the first to
tell you that there is no place for
charity in drama criticism only
honesty; and if Real or any critic
had valid objections to the show, he
was obligated to write them.