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| re: The Walter Kerr review | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:10 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: The Walter Kerr review - keikekaze 03:32 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| I would say that Atkinson wasn't generally quirky or humorous. He was reportorial, that's the best word that comes to mind. Even his Sunday pieces are sort of unshowy, and he rarely if ever indulged in the kind of rhetoric that is in this fake review. And the Kerr review is missing both his quirkiness and his analytical skill. And the prose is flat-footed, which was rarely if ever true of Kerr's reviews. |
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| re: The Walter Kerr review | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 04:24 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: The Walter Kerr review - AlanScott 04:10 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| And, as I said about both reviews, the info presented is boilerplate and incredibly general. Not much insight. Just the kinds of stuff you'd expect from any basic, non-skilled review. | |
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| re: The Walter Kerr review | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:39 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: The Walter Kerr review - Chromolume 04:24 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| Atkinson's opening night reviews did tend to be on the generalized side. He did have only an hour or two to write them. The thing that set Kerr apart from everyone else and made him so special was that even with the same deadline, he came up with reviews that felt more detailed and analytical and had an interesting, even eloquent quirkiness to them. Maybe the Herald Tribune was an afternoon paper, which would have given Kerr more time than Atkinson had. I don't know the answer to that. | |
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| re: The Walter Kerr review | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 05:02 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: The Walter Kerr review - AlanScott 04:39 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| I am linking Atkinson's opening-night review of Death of a Salesman. His Sunday followup piece can easily be found online. This review is more specific than I think of Atkinson as generally being. And it is probably as much of a rave as anything he ever wrote. I can't put into words the stylistic differences between this and that Dear Evan Hansen Atkinson review. Perhaps someone else can. But there are certainly things in the fake review that I just can't imagine Atkinson ever writing. Also, I can't imagine him writing that kind of all-out rave for Dear Evan Hansen. Not because I think he might not have liked it, but because such all-out raves — the Death of a Salesman review is one — were rare from Atkinson. Perhaps I would say that there is a quietness even to Atkinson's raves, and that is missing from the Dear Evan Hansen review. |
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| Link | Atkinson on Death of a Salesman |
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| re: The Walter Kerr review | |
| Posted by: garyd 08:28 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: The Walter Kerr review - AlanScott 05:02 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| "he evokes a wraith-like tragedy". This phrase has always stayed with me from the first time I read this review. Such a poetic and accurate description of the play. | |
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| re: The Walter Kerr review | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 09:23 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: The Walter Kerr review - garyd 08:28 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| And I don't think of Atkinson as having been poetic very often, but it shows that he could be when inspired. | |
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