In today's Age, critic Cameron Woodhead buys into the recent controversy around Shit on Your Play. For once, a sensible, informed piece about theatre blogging in the mainstream press. As he points out:

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of Simmons' writing is that her relentless formula, which runs something like - ''I couldn't give a toss about this show. It's the director's fault. Pretentious wanker'' - risks hijacking genuine aesthetic debate and confirming audience prejudice against all but tried and true theatre. It militates against the most difficult aspect of criticism, the role critics play in equipping audiences to appreciate challenging art and in expanding their taste for novel pleasures.

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I know you must all be sick to death of the Henson debacle (I certainly am, and am looking forward to a break from Australia next week) but I feel obliged to update, I hope for the last time, since this case has signalled some warnings for all of us. I am a bit tired of those who keep casting this as a question of The Arts vs Everyone Else: no, it's a question of whether we want to live in a society where moral questions are rigidly applied in state law. As in, for example, theocracies ruled by Sharia law, or the extremities of the Taliban.

Western democracy balances individual and societal freedoms and, for the moment, there are places where the state, quite rightly, stops. As far as I'm concerned, its authority in questions of private morality should focus on the question of harm to others, and that harm should be actual and not perceived. It has yet to be proved to me that Henson's art has harmed anybody, although the kinds of distress these campaigners have caused Henson, his models and their families with their ugly accusations about child porn have, I have no doubt, caused a lot of damage. For all her supposed concerns about the rights of young people, Bravehearts campaigner Hetty Johnston hasn't shown a great deal of respect for the young models in Henson's photographs, and has certainly paid no attention to anything they have said in defence of Henson.

There are various responses to yesterday's dropping of charges against Henson. Hetty Johnston, whose complaints to police sparked the Roslyn Oxley9 raids, has announced her intentions to pursue her campaign against Henson. And, as comments posted here demonstrate, campaigners have decided that he's a menace to society and must be stopped, even over the dead body of democracy. As UK anti-porn activist Gregory Carlin said to the pro-life (homophobic, anti-Harry Potter) LifeSiteNews, "Material which is child pornography in Britain, is now considered child friendly viewing in Australia". Watch out.

Michael Leunig today claims that those who defend Henson do so "in chorus" (unlike, presumably, the brave individuals going with the flow of public outrage): "Some say his work is creepy pornography that culturally legitimises and fosters pedophilia, others hold the considered view that it's abusive and exploitative, while others defend it unreservedly in chorus, seeing any forceful questions or challenge about its essence as a sure sign of ignorance, repression and mindless resistance to change." He reflects many accusations recently made of the arts world, which reflect attitudinal prejudices rather more than what was actually argued; and of course there are many "considered" and thoughtful defences of Henson's work. And it's hard to think of a world more riven by disagreement than the arts.

But there we go: take heed, my friends, and think on. It is not the fault of artists that they are thought of in these ways so widely, since the arts are in general so badly discussed in the mainstream media, but it is up to artists to address the problem.

And finally, a word from Patrick McCaughey, whom many of you will remember as the flamboyant director of the NGV until he moved to the US, where he was a major defender of Robert Mapplethorpe. He has an interesting reflection in the Australian today, in which he talks with great good sense about the ethics and limits of art:

The artist as rebel against bourgeois order may be an over-familiar image. But working at the edge has brought us great rewards in modern art, from James Joyce's Ulysses to Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles and, yes, Henson's photography. That edge deliberately pushes the envelope of the acceptable, both morally and aesthetically.

Best practice among the arts hews to a morality of truthfulness: truthful to the artist's experience or imagination, to observed reality, to a belief, to a concept of art. That morality may find itself in conflict with bourgeois expectations, such as acknowledging openly the irreversible moment of sexual awakening in teenage children.

The morality of truthfulness also acts as a shield and a sword against racism, xenophobia and prejudice against the other, be they gay or lesbian, Jew or Muslim.

There are limits on the artist as there are limits on the laity. They are intimately tied to a morality of truthfulness. An artist cannot claim the impunity of artistic freedom and be, for example, a Holocaust denier, an addict of hate speech or a child pornographer.

Each carries a denial of truthfulness. The first is a denial of history, the second is a denial of authenticity and the third is a denial of responsibility and empathy for the innocent, without which good art cannot be made.

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This morning comes the news that the DPP has told NSW police that they don't have a case to prosecute Bill Henson for obscenity or possession of child pornography, and Federal Police have said that they will not press ahead with charges over the Henson photographs in the NGA. Moreover, the Classification Board has given the image on the exhibition invitation - the one that sparked this whole farce - a rating of PG. Apparently, it's "not sexualised to any degree". You could knock me down with a feather.

Moreover, Kevin Rudd is - at last - saying publicly that his personal opinion has nothing to do with the decisions of legal authorities.

So that's that, then. I guess we can claim victory for common sense, although there's little to be triumphant about in the spectacle of the past weeks. But at least the police can now get on with chasing actual paedophiles.

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Ms TN and others have had many requests from people who would also like to put their names to the The Open Letter in Support of Bill Henson. Those who would like to do so may go here. Please pass around the word to anyone who might be interested.

Given that (rather laughably, given the fuss) the Classification Board has rated the internet images of Henson's art as "G" or "very mild", prosecution seems very unlikely: but the wider concerns about freedom of expression remain. These are not concerns confined to the arts, as should be demonstrated by the closure of an exhibition about conditions in Hebron after a visit by anti-terror police.

The concerns expressed are about the rights of all of us to represent or debate realities that may offend sections of our community: a point that Guy Rundle seems to have missed in his off-the-mark commentary in the Age today. It's hard to see how the soberly argued Open Letter, which clearly condemns child abuse by anyone, places artists above the law; perhaps Rundle forgot to read it. Certainly, on the strength of some of the responses I've read, I suspect that some of our prominent commentators would fail English comprehension exercises at school.

Yesterday, in a move that reflects the present climate, the ABC reported that the AMA is campaigning for funding cuts to companies making plays and films that depict smoking. I've avoided the phrase "nanny state" (prominent on banners on Friday night, during protests against the 2am lock-out the State Government is introducing, supposedly to prevent street violence) but it's a bit irresistible. Presumably all of us are impressionable infants who can't make up our own minds about anything, and are also incapable of noticing what goes on in the world around us.

Further, many people seem to think that art is a branch of advertising that exists to "promote" certain types of behaviour or "messages". No, it's not: but that's a long argument I won't address here. I'm beginning to wonder if reality is the one thing that artists are not permitted to represent. Welcome to the Brave New World. And pass the soma.

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Yesterday it was reported that police were investigating websites hosting Bill Henson's photographs. Aside from the grim humour of seeing Fairfax and News Ltd prosecuted for distributing pictures they have themselves been instrumental as characterising as pornographic, there is nothing very funny about this. (Better get your pictures of Michelangelo's David and Classical Greek statuary off-line quick - and make double sure that no photos of your kids playing in the bath are littering your hard drive).

What a gigantic waste of police time and public money.

I've held off from reproducing Henson's photographs myself because they are copyright images, but that seems a bit irrelevant now. One of the many odd aspects of the public fuss is that nobody seems to have mentioned that he also photographs male nudes. (And landscapes, trees, roads and urban wastelands). As always, it's the female body that requires custodianship and control. For a discussion of the wider political and social implications of this farce, and some other troubling examples of the censorship referred to in the Open Letter, see Richard Phillips' article here.

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Daniel Schlusser pointed out last week that an illiterate idiot published in the Age was quoting William Blake in order to condemn Bill Henson. (Formerly Chief of Staff to Howard Federal Minister Kevin Andrews, Kevin Donnelly is also, ironically enough, author of a paper attacking contemporary education called "Dumbing Down"). It's almost Freudian: I can't think of a more apt poet for the defence. No one more fiercely defended the innocence of the body, nor more eloquently attacked the hypocrisy of the prurient:

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.


One could be excused for thinking this has been a bad week for art; but, exhausted as I am, I am inclined to think otherwise. It is a mistake to think that the loudest, most strident voices are the dominant ones. They are not. I have been scanning the media and the internet, and much more often I see thoughtfulness and reason, and disquiet at what has been happening here over the past week. Among the best responses I have read was a letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald from a former police superintendent, Alan Leek, which I'll reproduce in full here for its refreshingly sane perspective from someone who knows very well what child pornography and sexual abuse actually are. One of the aspects I most resent about this furore is, in fact, how it trivialises child sexual abuse:

With a foot in both camps, I have watched with interest as this sorry Bill Henson episode has unfolded. I am in a position, perhaps unique in this farce, of having been a member of the NSW Police Force for 34 years and, for the most part concurrently, proprietor of a commercial exhibiting gallery for more than 25 years.

I am gobsmacked and bitterly disappointed that a police force, which is far better than the one I joined all those years ago and far better educated, still fails to see when it has been ambushed by the pursed-lipped paragons of public morality; those zealots who can't separate nudity from sexuality and who rely on an obsequious police to do their bidding in glorious ignorance. Let's face it; most police would not know their Ansel Adams from their elbow.

Debate is one thing, criminal sanctions are another. Debate should be welcomed - criminal sanctions stifle any opportunity for debate.

Henson's art has nothing to do with exploitation or pedophilia, but enough has been said about that by those more qualified than I.

Not one of the pedophiles I arrested and prosecuted advertised their vile workings. They operated under the coward's cloak of darkness and familiarity. Not for them the arc lights of a legitimate gallery - more the deeper crevices of the internet or the well-thumbed pages of their sordid juvenilia and other paraphernalia.

That senior police fail to utilise their discretion to uphold the independence of a profession I still hold dear, setting themselves up again to be pilloried for ill-informed actions that must surely fail, is a bitter pill for me.

Having worked with scarce resources, I shake my head at the waste portrayed by television images of police seizing crates of artworks, and wonder to what better use their expertise might be applied. Child protection, perhaps?

Ill-informed comment and motherhood statements from political leaders that further cast the burden on police are regrettable.

To ensure that public disquiet is addressed in the future and that the police do not continue to undo their normally laudable work, perhaps those same political leaders might consider a mechanism where pious complaints can be referred to censorship arbiters.

In the meantime, I commend Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, for standing tall when others have lacked the backbone to do the same.

In my various command positions, I would not have sanctioned the actions being taken by police. I would also have no hesitation in exhibiting Henson's work.

In time, this whole inane episode will appear pretty dumb, but the damage to Henson and his subjects and lost opportunities for professional policing are inestimable.

Alan Leek (retired superintendent of police) Breewood Galleries, Richmond

Indeed.

Our Open Letter made the front pages of the Herald Sun, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age (the Australian gave it what perhaps was its real news value and ran it more modestly), and overseas was reported in the Guardian, the New York Times and by the BBC. I and other signatories were on talkbacks all over Australia, on PM, the ABC news and television. It has been misquoted, misrepresented and plain lied about. (I personally wish on Miranda Devine the task of getting the "lockstep" artistic community to agree about anything). It was also reported fairly in many instances, and published in full on the Age's site, so anyone who cares to do so can check what was actually said. The letter has been also been reproduced in OnLine Opinion, Real Time and on many blogs.

Those who are surprised by the venom some responses unleashed against the arts community should get out more. There is a real and abiding hatred of the arts and artists among a noisy minority of Australians, fuelled by perceptions that artists are lazy, rich bludgers who steal the tax-payers' money while lounging about decadently drinking absinthe and (almost certainly) molesting small children. Those who are not aware of this strand of the Australian conversation should be. The culture wars are by no means over. To undo this perception - one which, as we all know, bears no relation to reality - will take long, patient and calm work.

Those of us who care about the arts and freedom of expression should focus rather those on who are also speaking, if less stridently, more rationally and thoughtfully about this issue. Over the past couple of days, I have done a scan of blogs and media coverage, and it seems to me that these voices far outnumber those rushing to lynch Henson. I am not so sure that the "arts community" is as "out of touch" as some interested commentators claim.

Samples of the more interesting commentary, in blogs and other online publications, are below:

New Matilda
Sorrow at Sill's Bend
Discussion (and links to others) at Larvateus Prodeo
The Guardian
Home Page Daily
Superfluities
Sebastian Smee (The Australian)
Guy Beres
Sarsaparilla
Hyperidian Bannerman
Goals + Girls Blog
Cafe Philos
Not Too Much (interesting, a Christian view)
Pavlov's Cat

Interestingly too, given the Malthouse/Victorian Opera's recent production of Through the Looking Glass, Phillip Adams raises Lewis Carroll. And it's hard not to wonder how the upcoming Hayloft production of Franz Wedekind's Spring Awakening will go in its return season at Belvoir St in Sydney later this year.

And, for some comic relief:

Ampersand Duck
Aaron Timms in the SMH
Pauline Futeran

Finally, many people have asked to put their names to the Open Letter. We are now considering how best to facilitate this, and will let you all know as soon as it's decided. Meanwhile, normal programming will resume soon.

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That monstrous crrrritic Ms TN gets a bit of what's coming to her in Crikey today. My spies tell me that Peter Craven has gone for the throat in a piece that attacks my recent overview of Joanna Murray-Smith's plays in the Australian. I have little to say in response: on the strength of what he says here, I expect Craven and I will never agree on what constitutes serious writing. But I will say that I thought my piece was in fact very fair: for instance, I clearly acknowledged Murray-Smith's achievements as well as my reservations about her writing.

Moreover, Craven himself has made a serious "category mistake": I was not asked to write a "profile", and neither did I "interview" Murray-Smith. I was asked to write a critical overview of the playwright, not a puff piece. And that is precisely what I did.

This is part of what Craven has to say:

It was astonishing to see the profile of Joanna Murray-Smith by Alison Croggon that was published in the Arts pages of The Australian on February 8. Croggon, the paper's Melbourne theatre critic, suggested that Murray-Smith (whose play, The Female of the Species, is being done in Brisbane) was a right-wing purveyor of soap, that her "anguish" was all a matter of upper-middle class aspirationalism, and that she was essentially a vapid, self-involved commercial hack who had turned her back on any form of artistic seriousness or political commitment -- Murray-Smith is the daughter of the left-wing intellectual and editor of Overland, Stephen Murray-Smith -- and that her comprehension of feminism (The Female of the Species plays on a famous incident where Germaine Greer was tied up by a young female intruder) was shallow and self-dramatising.

Murray-Smith's conflicts with Robyn Nevin, the former head of the Sydney Theatre Company, are presented as the real wellspring for her comedy's conflict between an older and a younger woman.

The overwhelming implication is that Murray-Smith is only concerned with motherhood issues in the pejorative sense because her work and her statements about it are so many walking cliches.

Croggon's piece is an odious piece of work and has caused widespread dismay. This so-called profile is an extraordinary case of poisoning the wells and it is also a category mistake. Alison Croggon has written a hatchet job opinion piece and served it up as a profile in a way that (if it were to set up a precedent) would make anyone apprehensive of an arts interviewer.

Reminds me of the good old days. Though I'd remind Craven there is plenty of precedent for this kind of thing. F'rinstance: Kenneth Tynan, Michael Billington, Robert Brustein, Eric Bentley...

One final point. In the fuller article, which gets a fair bit nastier - and is also wildly inaccurate insofar as my personal taste is concerned - Craven claims: "Alison Croggon can't stop herself from saying that the Australian playwright who vies with Joanna Murray-Smith in terms of how much his work is performed overseas is her own husband, Daniel Keene." If he had a better memory, Craven would realise that factoid comes, almost word for word, from an MTC press release for Murray-Smith's play Ninety (sent out at the beginning of the 2008 season). I don't in fact know how the precise figures divide between the two playwrights. He uses this to suggest that my criticism of Murray-Smith's work wholly stems from a competitive and personal agenda.

(In retrospect, it might have been wiser to ring the Australia Council and get the precise figures. But it hardly seemed worth the trouble, and I had a deadline. It is a detail that has already been widely reported, is merely a straight fact and is hardly promoting Daniel's interests. I would personally add - in the nicest possible way - that to be at once a theatre critic and married to one of the more significant Australian playwrights is more of a pain in the arse than anything else, since anyone who wants to smear your motives has a faecal missile ready to hand. In such moments, I remember that I am an artist first and a critic second, and that I am interested in the art of theatre, not its tawdry politics.)

And I reject Craven's insinuations absolutely. It's not personal, Peter: it's business. At least in this neck of the woods.

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Boy, they like a good feeding frenzy up in Sydney. Nicholas Pickard is doing a good job of logging the controversy. Meanwhile, the latest STC savaging comes courtesy of Diana Simmonds in Stage Noise, under the somewhat ambiguous heading "Give Colin the clap". Below is a tidied-up version of my response in TN comments:

I guess the real task is sorting out the valid criticisms from the bile.

Simmonds' comment here - "Moody will be painted as a malcontent in public and as a hero in corners where he will be surreptitiously patted on the back. Meanwhile, his former colleagues who are enjoying the rare experience of a steady job and decent salary will toe the line and work their arses off as they have been for the past couple of years." - is, I know, complete rubbish. The reaction to Moody's comments, especially from those "insiders" critical of the STC, has been dismay. Why? Because it makes it so much harder to address the real issues.

For what it's worth, I think the questions of artistic leadership, the critique of the importation of second-rung directors, the issue of the "treadmill" and the central issue of artistic vision are things that invite discussion. The 2008 program - especially the Actors Company part of it - promises some real vision. And I'm kind of wondering, looking at those hyping Gale Edwards and Rodney Fisher - let's face it, not the most exciting directors on earth - whether this vision might not well be part of the real problem. It seems to me that there are some outspoken voices who want their theatre nice, and want to get rid of adventurers like Kosky, and any excuse will do.

Frankly, I think if they succeed, it will be a tragedy. Do you really want a straight diet of Noel Coward, dead plays and musicals up there? Not that there's anything wrong with Coward, or musicals, in a balanced menu; but I rather think that's the subtext.

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...while we're on the subject of State theatre companies, actor Colin Moody is in the Age today tearing strips off the STC. Moody's parting from the STC's Actors Company was a bitter one, and it's all come out here, with attacks on the Blanchett/Upton duo ("an Oscar for acting is not a suitable recommendation to run the biggest theatre company in the country") and the STC ethos of "office politics" and "hypocrisy".

There's justice in the criticism that Robyn Nevin has imported second-rung British directors. But I'm still baffled by the "observer" logic that the fact that a bunch of actors have a full-time job means that others are deprived. The pie's more complex than that, people.

The proof, for us audience types, is in the pudding. As I said earlier this week, the STC's 2008 season is looking very impressive. And "industry insiders" (to take a leaf from the Fairfax book), while critical of many aspects of the process there, are generally up-tempo and optimistic about the new STC leadership.

It's hard to see much in Moody's criticisms beyond a great deal of bile. Which is bad, of course, but not germane. TN's twitching journalistic antennae are still telling her that the real story is elsewhere, beyond the STC.

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I know that the Melbourne Festival has been the epicentre of the universe lately, but a couple of things have banked up while I've been hobnobbing with Merce and the lads. (Wowee, was that good; but I think I'll wait for Program B before I write anything). So this is a bit of a catch-up post.

Yesterday in the comments, Julian Meyrick denied rumours that his departure from the MTC was impelled by anger. If he wasn't cross before, he sure is now: he took the opportunity to have a few swings at the critical culture and, in particular, blogging.

Over the last two years especially, I have watched with dismay as the tone of local crits has increasingly muddled subjective response and dispassionate analysis. Like the judges in Australian Idol, reviewers seem less concerned to address work presented than to trial aberrant, at times bizarre sets of personal predilections. This is particularly true of blog coverage which, in its looseness and lack of protocol, ignores context, embraces personal comment, and makes frequent use of strong, vilificatory language.

Good to see the MTC at last getting into the commentary mix. For my part, this protocol-free, aberrant blogger hopes that a careful read of her reviews will reveal plenty of context and dispassionate analysis. (Even the odd positive review of MTC productions.) Meyrick also tells me rather startlingly that I inspire fear and dread. "Is that what you want?" he asks me. "For artists to be afraid of you?" Well, of course not: TN is really a fluffy little bunny with a heart of butter. But my motto is "without fear or favour", and that can sometimes get a little sticky with even the nicest people.

Meanwhile, the National Library has asked to include TN in its Pandora Archive, an ongoing project to archive electronic documents of "social, political, cultural, religious, scientific or economic significance and relevance to Australia", so all this can be recorded for a deeply puzzled posterity.

Finally, Matt Clayfield at Esoteric Rabbit finds himself wishing audiences would spontaneously combust, and adds a few handy hints on protocol himself. They must have read his post, because last night's audience was very well-behaved, at least where I was sitting. Not a whisper of German Death Metal. And further afield (har har), Andrew Field addresses the faux Us v Them dichotomies of experimental v legitimate, mainstream v fringe (pick your poison) in an interesting post taking to task the reviews of Michael Billington.

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You all know that my worser self takes over now and again. I'm afraid I had a day like that yesterday. Oh, I could just slap myself.

Andrew Bolt, who much prefers to play the man rather than the ball, had a couple of goes at me when I took issue with him over the programming - and the non-existent non-audiences - at the Melbourne Festival. Specifically, he got personal about our respective book sales. "Considering part of my copyright fees were used to help send Croggon to read her poetry in Britain," he says (is that envy I detect there?) "I think she could at least be more grateful. I’m pretty sure I’ll never get an overseas junket in return that’s funded by her sales." Take that, Croggon. But he forgot - that is, if he ever knew - that I actually write popular books.

So I've pointed out that my sales are simmering along nicely. While hardly in JK Rowling territory, they are now in six figures. He's being uncharacteristically shy about his own sales, so my fingers flew to Amazon. Amazon US doesn't list him at all, but on British Amazon - underneath various books about bolt-action rifles - you can find Mr Bolt's immortal tome, Still Not Sorry (released by News Custom Publishing, ie, our mutual employer, in 2005). Amazon UK today puts its sales rank at 1,416,346. In comparison, today's ranking for The Crow (it changes, but it's usually around there) on amazon.co.uk is 2551. Or maybe it might be fairer to look at The Riddle, released, like Still Not Sorry, in 2005. It's at 2806. Take that, Bolt.

And now the Bolt defenders are telling me huffily that mere sales are not a reflection of quality! The irony is exquisite! And you were saying about the MIAF box office, Andy...?

(PS: In the fact-free parallel universe that is Boltworld, it seems that selling out 10 shows after the first weekend means that "nobody is going". I wonder what one has to do to be a hit? Sell as well as Andrew's books?)

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Every now and then my brain seems to dissolve in my skull and turn into something resembling fish paste. At such times language deserts me, which I'm sure you'll agree is a problem for a blogger and sometime crrritic. I console myself with the sage advice of St John of the Cross: "Stody thou not for no wordes, for so schuldest thou never come to thi purpose ne to this werk, for it is never getyn by stody, bot al only by grace."

While I float in my cloud of unknowing waiting for grace to fall about me, let me direct you to some interesting discussions occurring elsewhere in the blogosphere. There's the on-going debate about George Hunka's alleged indiscretions in writing a flaming review of a new play at Playwright's Horizons (I've had my say here). But there's meatier stuff in the UK blogosphere, where Chris Goode, fresh back from the Edinburgh Festival, has deposited another long and unmissable post at Thompson's Bank, although you might be advised to follow a fellow Goode fan and print it out to read on the bus. Meanwhile, Andrew Haydon at Postcards from the Gods is conducting a fascinating self-interrogation on the practice of theatre criticism.

He questions the convention of "critical distance" in a thoughtful post that asks whether fraternising with artists will lead inevitably to compromised criticism (I don't believe so, myself - in fact, if the critic cares at all about the art itself, I think the opposite - but then, before I picked up the critical baton again, I was on the "other side" for 15 years). In a follow-up post, Andrew points to Lyn Gardner's views on this question (which leads to Michael Billington's very different take, part of a fascinating debate between the Guardian's arts critics). My personal view is very close to visual arts critic Adrian Searle's.

"Strange though it may appear," writes Searle, "some artists even invite truthful criticism. Antony Gormley once asked me round to his studio "to give me a hard time", as he put it, not long after I had dissed a group of his sculptures in a review. As soon as I got home from grilling him he called me back - "You weren't hard enough. Come back tomorrow", he said. Candour is good." And he goes on to say: "I prefer the company of artists to that of most critics. Artists can more cruel about each other than any critic I have ever met, and just as hungry and insightful when it comes to looking at art. They know more about how art gets made, are sharper when comes to detecting when someone is faking it, and more generous about genuine failure."

That certainly dovetails with my own experience. My friends can attest that friendship has never stopped me from negatively criticising their work (it is, in fact, an excellent test of the strength of a friendship, although perhaps not to be recommended). As Michael Billington wisely comments: "If a critic can't write honestly about friends or acquaintances, he or she should change jobs: I'd even suggest that the imperative of writing to a deadline forces one to shed old loyalties. It's not 'what do you do about friends?' that's the big issue. It's 'what do you do about enemies?'."

Billington is dead right. The only time I have felt seriously compromised in doing my job was when I recently had to review Hannie Rayson's The Glass Soldier, which featured a particularly nasty character called Alan Croggon (who was mercifully shot in the head halfway through the first act).

In my critical response to that I felt fettered: the play sorely tried my patience, but I felt that whatever I wrote would inevitably be construed as being motivated purely by personal spite. My only recourse was a retreat into a pose of chilly objectivity. My review for the Australian prompted a 40 year MTC subscriber to write me an email in which he said: "As a consequence of reading your beautifully written review, the term 'damning with faint praise' has been elevated to a new level of eloquence."

A sweet response, but the experience still leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth: if the aim was to get me to shut up, it was half successful. The fact that I keep mentioning the incident indicates my unease, I suppose.

Well, this has ended up a lot longer than I intended. In other news, my review of the brilliant production of Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur now on at Theatreworks was published in yesterday's Australian, and perhaps grace has emerged from the mists and will allow me to think about it a little further... and also, I'm pleased to see that Jane Bodie's elegant play A Single Act, which was produced at the MTC last year, last night won the Premier's Prize for Drama. A worthy winner.

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So George Hunka is asked along to a show at Playwrights Horizons in New York, and his invitation stipulates that he is asked to blog his thoughts, positive or negative. The show gets on his wick so badly he leaves at interval. He then, as requested, blogs his displeasure. And the shit hits the fan.

Not from the aggrieved theatre company, which quite properly has nothing to say, but - perhaps surprisingly - from his fellow bloggers. Some, like Matt Freeman, are discomforted by his leaving at interval. (This question has already been debated on this blog, after a controversial walkout of my own. At the time, Age dance critic Hilary Crampton picked up on TN's walkout and defended the critic's right to express outrage and "take strong action", claiming that "in claiming democratic rights to freedom of speech, artists must also allow critics the freedom to comment on their public presentations".)

But Matt was simply, rather mildly, asking a question. Not so Leonard Jacobs, a critic and editor at Back Stage and blogger at the Clyde Fitch Report, who went ballistic. His beef is that the show to which George was invited was a preview. (Unlike here, where we have maybe three or four days of previews, NY previews go for weeks; this particular show doesn't officially "open" until later in September.) In a series of increasingly inflammatory posts, Leonard accuses George - and then, when it was revealed that a number of bloggers had been invited under the same conditions, Playwrights Horizons - of appalling dereliction of professional ethical standards. Mixed up with this is a fuzzy objection to bloggers getting free tickets, which seems to be regarded as a form of payola: as he elegantly puts it, "just because there's a pimp doesn't mean you have to fuck everyone".

Well, here's my 2c worth. TN doesn't review previews. I saw a Malthouse show in preview a while back because I was going overseas and it was the only performance I could attend (for the record, I thought the show was poor) and that was on the understanding that I did not blog it. So I didn't. But in this case, where comment has been specifically invited by the theatre, I don't see any problem.

Elsewhere, bloggers who pay for preview tickets now regularly blog about shows that haven't officially "opened" for print. The Guardian theatre page often rounds up these responses. In the strange case of the recent RSC production of King Lear, which was officially in "preview" during its entire Stratford season, the only critical responses for weeks were from bloggers. In this case, there is a clear line drawn before "official" and "bloggy" reviews. Here in Melbourne, where the performing arts culture seems to be miles ahead in its acceptance of bloggers into the general discourse, the line is a little fuzzier.

TN has uncontroversially operated as a freelance reviewer from the start, requesting and receiving free tickets like any other critic. Perhaps it's an Australian thing: along with with my fellow bloggers Chris Boyd, Nicholas Pickard, Richard Watts and Matt Clayfield, I operate on a nexus between print and online publication, reviewing for both, and perhaps this makes us seem marginally more legit. Though I think it's more that many people here have been starving for some decent public conversation about theatre.

More germanely, the upset seems to be about George's "destructive" negative reaction (positive reviews on another blog seem to have attracted no controversy at all), a perennial issue in theatre reviewing. As he quite rightly asks, if his response had been rapturous acclaim, would anyone have been bothered? I expect not. In a general sense, it still seems to be considered impolite for a critic to criticise, along the lines that "if you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all".

As far as I'm concerned, this is the death of dialogue: such an attitude has pretty well killed off critical discourse in Australian poetry, where people regularly refuse to write about books they don't like. To take a local whipping horse, Age theatre critic Cameron Woodhead: I might disagree - and often - with what he has to say, but I'll defend to the death his right to say it. And conversely, my right to take issue with what he says.

Apropos of this question, I was buttonholed at a Melbourne Writers Festival dinner last week by historian Ross McMullin, who wanted to grill me about my reviews of Hannie Rayson. McMullin is the biographer of Elliot Pompey, the real-life model for a couple of characters in The Glass Soldier, and is also a friend of Hannie's. This very pleasant man was clearly one of those for whom my reputation as bitch critic had gloriously preceded me.

Given my record with Hannie's plays (four strikes out of four, as I recall), he suggested that I should not review them at all. He seemed to think that having an aesthetic viewpoint in itself represented some kind of conflict of interest.

When I asked if he was suggesting that I had a personal animus towards Hannie which then informed my reviews - which I would strenuously deny since, whatever else I am as a critic, I seriously attempt to be at once honest and fair - he said no, he wasn't suggesting that. I then said that I always went to the theatre hoping that it would be good, and that if it ever happened that I enjoyed a play by Hannie Rayson, I would have no hesitation in saying so. And launched into my impassioned spiel on the necessity for frank and honest discourse yada yada. I'm not sure I convinced McMullin, though he did allow that he himself had been known to review books negatively, and that it was legitimate to do so.

Finally, to leave the last word with George, it's a question of respect - for audiences, for readers, and for theatre practitioners.

Artists are not children to be coddled and protected from criticism when they, or their producing organization, invite it from whatever source, and critics are not paternalistic playground monitors, to pat artists on the head when they do well or scold them when they do poorly. Artists are fully-grown mature adults, well aware that they conduct their professional lives in the public arena. Criticism, whether it's from a reviewer or from a friend over drinks after a show, is the risk one takes, consciously, when one chooses the profession.

Readers of both blogs and newspaper reviews, similarly, are not children. ...they are fully capable of reading, fairly and critically, the reviews we write and decide on the basis of that whether they want to see the show or not. They are aware that these are opinions, nothing more and nothing less. And the more familiar they are with an individual critic's prejudices and interests, the more they are fairly able to judge whether the play itself holds any interest for them or not. People who have been reading "Superfluities" for the past few years, as well as the reviews I've written for other publications, are well-aware of my own, and my fairness when it comes to reviewing shows which don't conform to the aesthetics I hold for my own creative work.

Yay to that. The alternative is a bland, boring, defensive culture that actively seeks to eradicate difference. I've lived in a culture like that, and believe me, it's no fun at all.

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You have to pity the London crrrritics. Just as the spat over Nicholas Hytner's full-frontal attack reached an uneasy detente, AA Gill reached for the cutlery and did some comprehensive mincing of his own. Gill, the notoriously waspish food critic for the Sunday Times, accused the critics of dressing badly, demanding aisle seats like spoilt children and being "moribund, joyless [and] detached". Worst of all, they write with a "uniform, dank sogginess". Where, asks Mr Gill, "are the voices that ring out as being aesthetically intelligent, passionate, current and, most important, entertaining?"

As the Guardian's Lyn Gardner comments in a spirited defence of her profession, it reads rather as if Mr Gill is suggesting himself as the Man for the Job. And, as she often does, Gardner puts her finger on the real problem that bedevils mainstream theatre criticism: lack of space.

What has happened is that theatre criticism has been squeezed in terms of length. When I first arrived at the Guardian, reviews were around 600 words; now I seldom get to write more than 300. Style doesn't have a great deal of room to swagger in such conditions, although by style I suspect that Gill really means the flip, cynical wit which characterises his own TV and restaurant reviews and which is so beloved by editors. Don't get me wrong, they're a great read, clearly written - like his article on theatre criticism - with provocation in mind. But in my experience only the direst theatre shows with no redeeming qualities lend themselves to that kind of waspish humour.

Quite right: artistic sledging is too often mistaken for discriminating taste, when in fact it's very often just a cop-out that appeals only to the little sadist within us all. (We all love a bit of schadenfreude.) It's very easy to be witty and superior at someone else's expense; much less simple to attempt to engage with a work on its own terms, and then, for good or ill, to write about that. Although I do agree with Gill that reviewing is itself a kind of performance, and has a duty to entertain.

Gardner suggests that Gill widen his field of vision, and look not only beyond the West End, but beyond print media. TN is a little chuffed (ok, very chuffed) to be named, with the reliably funny West End Whingers, as an "intelligently provocative" new voice entering the conversation through the web. And three cheers for Gardner, for at last pointing out that bloggers and mainstream critics can exist together, not in deadly rivalry, but as complementary voices in a wider and increasingly fascinating conversation.

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1. The VCA blog Spark Online makes my heart beat faster this morning with the brilliant news that Oscar Redding's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, produced by A Poor Theatre, will premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival. I saw the play, and I've seen enough of this movie to ensure that I will be thrusting the lame and the halt brutally aside to get into the cinema. Trust me, you don't want to miss this one.

2. Kudos to the Malthouse (and to co-producers the Sydney Opera House): after a successful opening in Vienna last week, Honour Bound, Nigel Jamieson's stunning physical/visual theatre piece about David Hicks, has scored a season at the Barbican in London. Revisiting my review of its Malthouse season last year makes me wonder how the Brits will respond: it's rather different fare from the David Hare-style political theatre they're used to. Which brings me to...

3. ...the continuing saga about Dead White Males presently enlivening the London theatre scene. The Guardian's Michael Billington recounts a showdown in a car park between himself and the NT's Nicholas Hytner, who sparked this particular brawl with an exasperated comment to the Times. Billington's latest punch has sparked a deal of scornful commentary, on the Guardian's blogsite and elsewhere.

As Encore Theatre Magazine reported, this battle began in earnest in March, with Katie Mitchell's controversial NT production of Attempts on Her Life. The London debate interests me because it's very similar to conflicts here - in both cases, the outrage has been sparked as the theatrical vocabulary of what some people like to call "the fringe" is given legitimacy and cash and main stages. Readers of this blog will remember the bitter attacks last year, for example, on Kristy Edmunds' direction of the Melbourne Festival. (As an aside, Mark Davis's recent essay on turf wars in the Age - itself a follow-up to his book Ganglands - gives these arguments a broader context.)

To return to London: in response to Billington's defence of the importance of a critic's individual voice, Andrew Fields scathingly points out on his blog The Arcades Project that the actual problem is that the major voices are all too uniform:

In fact, [Billington is] sounding remarkably similar to those of all the other daily critics for, though they may have different tastes and prose styles, they all share a fundamentally limited notion of what theatre can or should be - a notion that sees Billington dismiss Katie Mitchell's the waves as a 'sterile piece of theatre about theatre' that is nothing but a 'celebration of technical ingenuity' in much the same way as Nicholas De Jongh calls her work 'a dreadful form of directorial embellishment' and Spender states that all devised theatre is becoming 'more like an acrobatic display than a piece of real drama'.

Playwright David Eldridge also has some interesting comments and links to yet more responses - you could read the tos and fros all day. All the same, it seems to me that on the whole Billington is rather unfairly getting the worst of it, and it makes me want to defend him (and not only because he proves himself a good chap by linking to Theatre Notes). As I said in a review in which I tangentially discussed Billington's collected reviews, One Night Stands:

Billington has his limitations: his subscription to a notion of theatre as a branch of sociology meant, for instance, that he initally missed the significance of radical talents like Sarah Kane (although he was man enough to admit it later). But a read through his collected reviews will give you a fair idea of the ferment of ideas that ran through British theatre in the 70s and 80s – the variety of its aesthetic, its political concerns – filtered through a fascinated, mobile intellect. More importantly, it leaves you with the feeling that the theatre is an exciting, vital place to be.

It occurs to me that Billington has drawn some fire which might more justly be directed towards some of his colleagues: whatever one's disagreements with him, he puts himself out there, and is still up for debate. You never know, he might even revise his assumptions: something that, judging by Charles Spencer's impregnably superior response in the Telegraph, seems unlikely in his peers.

And to get parochial for a moment, I can't see this kind of discussion happening under the august banner of the Age's arts pages. Melbourne's print critics are rather shy little petals.

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UPDATE: Encore Theatre Magazine follows up with editorial and more reaction from London's critical elite, who have lined up as one man to scoff at Hytner's criticism. Yes, says Theatre Worker, they have been in their jobs too long. "It wouldn’t matter if any of these three men [Charles Spencer, Michael Billington and Nick de Jongh] gave you the slightest impression that they had an alertness to what is new, that they were capable of giving themselves to a piece of theatre, that they yearned to be changed by it, to risk their profoundest thoughts and feelings. They don’t."

And Bad Boy Cote responds to the righteous indignation hurled his way.

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Fans of schadenfreude should investigate the stoush enlivening the British theatre scene at the moment. Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, swung into the enemy's territory when he told the Times that London theatre critics are a bunch of "dead white males" who demonstrate misogynistic responses to the work of women - especially gay women. Guardian critic Michael Billington almost proved Hytner's thesis about DWM by proclaiming in irresistibly Dickensian language that Hytner's attack was "balderdash and piffle", and points out (justly, of course) in a robust defence that reports of his death are premature and that the picture is more complex than simple ideas of gender.

Not, when you actually look at these things, that gender is ever a simple issue. The reliably thoughtful Lyn Garner, also of the Guardian, says that Hytner has a point, but she thinks the women simply get out more because they do the "fringey" stuff and so understand that theatre is about more than West End openings. Unspoken, of course, is the understanding that this happens because the women are often the junior partners in the critical exercise.

I think Gardner is on the money here:

...I do think that Hytner is doing a terrific job in trying to drag the National into the 21st century and reflect the experiments in form and ways of working that are taking place in British theatre. Not all of these shows will be successful, but the National should be taking risks and so should we critics, because otherwise we are acting as gate-keepers keeping innovation out - rather than doing our job and helping theatre culture grow and change.

George Hunka at Superfluities agrees that the real problem is the question of aesthetic blinkers, rather than whether the critic is old or possesses a penis. He also brings up the rather puzzling NY blogtroversy about "anti-Christian" critics, currently raging around the ears of TONY theatre editor David Cote. Rat Sass, bless him, is maintaining the rage over Cote's more recent comment, in a review, that: "Of course, if artists (or scientists) could find out why some people can’t do without supernatural bigotry, the world would be a better place... religion is bad theater for stupid people". It's baffling that a supposedly impassioned defender of that primal anti-religionist Artaud should get so exercised about defending institutional Christianity, but there we are.

In fact, they're all enjoying themselves hugely. Except possibly David Cote.

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Chris Goode, of the admirable Thompson's Bank of Communicable Desire, once made a distinction between those who are playwrights and those who write for the theatre. It struck me as an interesting distinction between different kinds of practice, the question revolving around the question of theatrical collaboration: a playwright offering his deathless prose for theatrical minions to interpret and "serve", the theatre writer as a glowing member of the ensemble. Most playwrights are somewhere in between these extremes, but Edward Albee is most unambiguously a playwright (no, a Playwright) and has lit much blogospherical heat by describing those who impede the writer's vision as "the forces of darkness". Catch up with the debate at Superfluities, Parabasis, and the Guardian.

UPDATE: Mr Goode himself steps into the fray with a long and fascinating rumination in which he expands on his distinction between playwright and theatre writer, and suggests why "old-guard playwrights" might be feeling defensive. Pin your ears back and drink it in; I think he hits a lot of nails bang in the middle, especially when he talks about a necessary violence to the text that is part of making theatre. As here: "The director's fidelity is to the demands of theatre, not to the demands of the playwright; indeed, once the director has the text in her hands, there is no playwright. There is only theatre. The playwright in the rehearsal room is utterly and irretrievably fallacious." I know playwrights who completely agree with this. Oh, wait, they're probably theatre writers. Things I'd argue with too, but I should be writing, and not about theatre.

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Asks Supernaut (aka dancer Frances D'Ath) of the so-called "controversy" around the Melbourne Festival.

Slagging match of the week goes to Melbourne Festival vs. The Media, wherein Robin Usher tries to sound a rhetorical question and get us all wondering, "Hey, yeah, maybe the Melbourne festival has lost its touch".

Is this lame journalism trying to find an angle to cut down contemporary arts in Melbourne and put the big companies - Oz Ballet, Opera and Melbourne Symphony back in their rightful place as the upholders of culture?

Supernaut isn't a great fan of Edmunds - and says why - but looks with even more disfavour on the - well, shall we say one-sided? - mugging of Edmunds that's currently taking place in our august daily journals. And in articulating with scalpel precision the place of "debate" in mainstream media, she proves herself a mistress of snark:

"Robin Usher's extra-lame controversy-mongering and reductionist bottom-line dollar-dollar-bills-y'all art-as-finance in The Age is just puerile and asinine," lisps our fearless Naut, her voice sweet and low (an excellent thing in a woman). "...When the critical and intellectual position of the arts in mainstream Australia is represented by people like Robin Usher and Andrew Bolt, why should such debates take place where these pseudo-critics get a paycheck for mentally feeble drooling?"

Quite. Here we save our spittle for better things.

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UPDATE: Just caught up with Rat Sass's take on what he calls blogosphere "theatre talk" and the "contra-review". Among other interesting points:

If an artist has a practice, he has an aesthetic stake to defend or explain or propagandize. His criticism of others’ work will necessarily have both the bias and the integrity of this practice as its foundation. He is able to speak from this specific base of aesthetic knowledge – to define and delineate borders between his practice and others’. This kind of criticism creates a venue for an exchange of ideas outside the market, a discourse about the art form itself. This is exactly the discourse that the artist/critic Eric Bentley and others have defined as drama criticism. [My emphasis]

OVER at ArtsHub, respected Age dance critic Hilary Crampton (no, it's not an oxymoron) buys interestingly into the critical debate raging across the blogosphere. She recalls a 2005 essay, The Myth of the Mainstream, by former MIAF artistic director (and all-round star) Robyn Archer, in which Archer lays into Australian anti-intellectualism, including mainstream arts coverage. In response, Crampton writes:

As a practising professional critic, I inevitably felt defensive. Some of what Archer had to say rang true with respect to the mainstream press, but limited turnaround time, the requirement to write short snappy reviews, the positioning and timing of publication are factors entirely in the hands of the publishers and should not be blamed on the hapless critics.

What struck me more forcefully was that her critique positioned artist and critic simplistically as inevitable adversaries. Is this, or should this be the case? How might we foster instead an inclusive dialogue that expands the discussion to the mutual benefit of artists, audiences and critics?

Both of which are good questions. Crampton sees the blogosphere as providing at least the beginnings of an answer, noting how it opens up a space for debate between artists, critics and audience members that is not possible in the mainstream media. And she has some kind words for TN, for which we thank her. But that's not the only reason why we like what she has to say.

Crampton picks up on TN's recently controversial walkout and defends the critic's right to express outrage and "take strong action". And she makes the obvious point that "in claiming democratic rights to freedom of speech, artists must also allow critics the freedom to comment on their public presentations". Couldn't have said it better myself.

Meanwhile, tough case Casey Bennetto is grilling me in the comments here.

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UPDATES: Some well-considered words from Ben Ellis over at Parachute of a Playwright and gobsmacked disbelief from our man in berlin Daniel Schlusser. More tough words from another New York playwright, James Comtois, some useful (if depressing) background from Chris Boyd and Matt Scholten has the lowdown on the Arts Centre's official response.
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ONE thing about the blogosphere is that your cyber-neighbours don't necessarily live around the corner. Away on the other side of the Pacific, some recent Melbourne shenanigans have raised a couple of those sceptical New York eyebrows. Isaac Butler of Parabasis, for instance, blasphemously suggested in a recent post that I don't wield magical powers: he thinks, despite the powerballs that zap from my fingertips, that other things might affect audience attendance besides blog discussion.

And today at Superfluities, George Hunka buys into another Melbourne stoush that, for once, I wasn't involved in. (For those coming in late, George backgrounds it well, so I won't repeat much here). Actor Ming-Zhu Hii, who recently began the blog Minktails, has found herself in the middle of a firestorm over her vocal criticism of the Short and Sweet festival, soon on at the Arts Centre. I can't give you a link, because the relevant posts have been taken down. As always, George has many interesting things to say, but the kernel is worth quoting in full:

I can't applaud Ming-Zhu's decision to delete her original post and the comments associated with it, though I can easily understand this decision; often enough I have been so tempted with my own blog. But the personal abuse to which she was subjected in the comments section of that original post demonstrates the hypocrisy of many artists who operate on the fringes of the mainstream theatre: they want attention, but only the right attention; regardless of the authority and persuasiveness of the argument, it is not the argument itself which is addressed. Instead, these artists believe that this marginalization (even self-marginalization) should protect them from honest response. Of course this is ridiculous. Any response to any artist, mainstream or avant-garde, needs to be honest; otherwise it is worthless; and contrary to what other bloggers may believe, this honesty must be reflected in our public as well as our private opinions if the blogosphere is to have any authority at all. Otherwise, yes: It does become a game of confluence of interest, we all self-congratulatorily scratch each others' backs.

If comments on the blogosphere about an individual show have repercussions in terms of a show's success or failure in terms of audience size--well, good on the blogosphere; that is the way criticism and reviewing works, and neither Ming-Zhu nor Alison can be accused of irresponsibility; five minutes reading their blogs, and recognizing the depth of their love for theatre, demonstrate that. And some theatre is bad. Some of mine is, some of yours is as well, and as artists we've all been there. But to lacerate sincere writers to the point at which they determine that their own criticial writing is detrimental to the atmosphere in which it is received is ridiculous. And unfair: The artists are trying to dictate the terms of the public conversation about their work. Their responsibility is to their work, not its reception, which is fair game.

Tough words, but in my view absolutely correct (aside from the implied slights against TN's commenters, who are generally a pretty civilised and interesting lot). The personal attacks against Ming-Zhu were driven in part by an alarmist email campaign, which claimed that the Short & Sweet festival was in imminent danger of being closed by her blog (she's also more powerful than she ever imagined).

"One of the Arts Centre Trustees stumbled on [Ming-Zhu's blog] and they are taking what she says into consideration - and are seriously considering the future continuance of the festival," claims the email. "The Arts Centre is monitoring the blog and whether Short & Sweet continues or not may well be decided by how many people get on to her blog and disagree with her...If you want Short & Sweet to continue - act now."

To suggest that Ming-Zhu's blog might be personally responsible for shutting down a festival is plainly risible. But there are other issues here which are more serious. I understand that Ming-Zhu also took her posts down because she was told they were libellous. This doesn't surprise me: I was alerted to the whole affair by this comment yesterday on a month-old post here which, among other things, suggested that Ming-Zhu's comments were defamatory.

So the question of defamation enters the issue of arts criticism on the blogosphere. This is where I start feeling alarmed.

Defamation law has traditionally been used in Australia as a way of closing down free discussion. Even the threat is enough to silence many people - witness what just happened with Ming-Zhu. It is particularly effective because, unlike the US, we have no constitutional protection for free speech. See this site for a clear explanation of how it has been used and what it is.

Legal action has been taken in several cases against critics, including myself - I was sued when I was the Bulletin's Melbourne critic - and I am personally extremely careful on this blog to work within the boundaries of libel. I urge all bloggers to make themselves informed about defamation law: know what is libellous, what is not and what your defences are. For arts criticism, the defence is "fair comment in the public interest", but sadly, no legal privilege attaches to criticism: a criticism may be legally libellous, but still defensible. A good site which outlines the recent amendments and the implications for cyberpsace is here - check it out. If you know what the law is, you are less likely to be vulnerable to vague threats.

George has adequately covered the other main issue this conflict brings up - if you can't be nice, don't say anything at all. To quote Nicole Rhys, the commenter I mentioned earlier:

I... undertand the Artistic Director and other Short & Sweet staff members have not been contacted by Ming with regard to her concerns. She could have written to them / spoken to them easily - their contact details are readily available on the Arts Centre website. Instead she uses a public forum, where her methodology is attack.

To me, this is one of the saddest and most discouraging things about the arts today. Without seeing the worst in everything, where is the real effort to constructively discuss and engage, if not celebrate effort made?

I would argue that Ming-Zhu was, in fact, constructively discussing and engaging. Provocation can be one of the most powerful spurs to thought. Of course she had every right to air her opinion. And those who disagreed with her - as Ming-Zhu freely acknowledged - had every right to air theirs. That was not what happened here: instead, what happened was a concerted attempt to silence debate.

Nicole says that instead of talking about her concerns and criticisms, inviting discussion from others, Ming-Zhu should have quietly and politely made her views known to the organisers. Me, I say bollocks to that. Aren't we grown up enough yet to wear a little robust discussion?

There's one important part of the theatre left out of this equation, in which no one says anything nasty for fear of hurting the artists: the audience. I have great respect for both art and artists, but I do not think that artists should determine or direct audience reaction. They might, and justly in my opinion, defend their right to small audiences, to "fail better", as Beckett so famously said: they might defend their right to be judged on the criteria on which their art is made. But as George points out, ultimately an artist's responsibility is to her work, not to its reception.

PS: I should probably make clear that I have no opinion on Short & Sweet myself. I am seeing Week 3 next week, and will make up my own mind. I may well find myself disagreeing with Ming-Zhu's opinion; but I believe she has every right to hold and express it.

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