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Any other day it might be nice to think that the popular response to serious art criticism of the type encouraged by the Reader and practiced by Justin Hayford would result in critics becoming as potent a political lightning rod as, say, abortion providers. I don’t see the evidence of such a movement, apart from the griping heard from artists who have gotten panned (myself included) by Reader critics. At the very least, this speaks well for the health of Chicago’s critics.
As a playwright who has collected the occasional review so negative as to make my mother see red, I am sympathetic to the impulse to lash out verbally at my critics. Supportive friends have even, on occasion, offered voodoo dolls (which I declined). But I stop well before any thought to strike back, or even to vomit on someone else’s stage, as D.D.B.S. would like to do when Justin Hayford performs. (As an aside, isn’t D.D.B.S. engaging in the same sort of criticism that is found hateful in Justin? Following the same logic, should I hate D.D.B.S. for hating Justin, or just for having such a cumbersome set of initials?)
N. Wayne
