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Examples of the limits of the Times's power go way back

Posted by: AlanScott 07:10 pm EST 11/18/14
In reply to: re: They do have a deep bench, - Haberville 03:51 pm EST 11/18/14
Raves from Atkinson did not make hits out of The Grass Harp (the play) or Greenwillow. I suppose that his Greenwillow review could be regarded as favorable rather than a rave, but in the Drama Critics Circle voting in 1960, Atkinson chose it the best musical of the season over Fiorello!, Gypsy, The Sound of Music and Bye Bye Birdie. And, of course, Atkinson panned Bye Bye Birdie, yet it did not suffer too much from his lack of enthusiasm.

(Suskin, by the way, lists no favorable reviews for Greenwillow. Valuable as those two books are, the tallies for some shows are not accurate.)

Going back to the 1930s, a favorable Times for the first Broadway production of 3-Penny Opera did not make it a hit.

More recently (but well before Rich), a very favorable review from Barnes and a rave from Kerr could not help Moonchildren run more than two weeks. It's hard for me to understand why Merrick did not give it at least a couple of more weeks under the circumstances.

Conversely, I'd say that Rich's review and followup columns on Sunday in the Park With George had a pretty major effect. If the production still closed at a fairly big loss, it did surprisingly well for a long time given what the reviews were like overall. Although it won the New York Drama Critics Circle award with a majority (10 out of 19 critics) on the first ballot, my memory is that the Times was the only favorable review of the daily papers and the television reviews weren't too favorable overall. Despite its easy win in the Drama Critics Circle, there was never a feeling that the show had gotten mostly favorable reviews.


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