Notes From the Great Criticker

Sometimes, when The Great Plotnik reads other reviewers, he scratches his head and wonders if they have seen the same show he has. But after ten years reviewing first film and now theater, The Great Critiker has discovered several truths about the process:

1) Other reviewers are not all blind, deaf, dumb and without senses of humor.

2) Other reviewers are not all seduced by free tickets and sucks on the production company largess machine.

3) Other film reviewers are not all frustrated film makers and other theater reviewers are not all frustrated playwrights.

4) All reviewers do not revere only depressing stories.

5) All film and theater reviewers are not gay.

5a) Not every film and theater reviewer finds it ideologically impossible to comment on gratuitous gay sex in Acts One, Two, Three, Intermission and in the lobby.

6) Other reviewers don't eat up ALL the biscottis.

On the other hand, we do share one similarity.

We all dream of that great, perfect, quirky show of explosive genius, the one where Act Two pays off Act one, where we're involved with all the characters, where we jump to our feet screaming with joy at the final curtain, where we run out of the theater wanting to call up all our families and friends and bring them back to the theater tomorrow night.

OK, John Guare's "Rich and Famous" was written in 1974. OK, it's not perfection. But it's REALLY funny. In this morning's Bird Wrap review, Robert Hurwitt must have had one too many biscottis with his cup of decaf battery acid.

You can read the San Francisco Theater Blog review of Rich and Famous here, and remember that ACT has a $15 ticket, though you'd better bring oxygen and dramamine. Maybe pay a little more and get ready to howl.