Tour Whore, August 5, 2012

What would you do if there were no stars?
by Cameryn Moore




What would you do if there were no stars?

You’re a theatre-goer, an avid one, you pride yourself on seeing as many Fringe shows as you can cram in. When you talk to your friends who are less theatre-going than you are, you talk it up a little, how quirky and idiosyncratic the Fringe is, and you know that, therefore, by extension, they are going to admire how quirky and idiosyncratic you are.

You read the filler stories about the Fringe, take in your friend’s show (you hate it, but you can’t tell them that), make your preliminary lists. Maybe you even have a spreadsheet printed out in your notebook. But there are a lot of empty boxes in that chart, and you keep them empty until Sunday night of that first weekend, when the local mainstream daily paper has promised to finish all of their reviews. They helpfully organize it by the number of stars and you arrange and re-arrange the five-star shows until they have all fit in. And then you take the four-and-a-half star shows and try to wedge those into the remaining spaces, and you buy up tickets for all of them. You sweat hard over this process, so you feel justified in looking just a little bit weary on Monday afternoon, when a hard-working performer approaches you, smiling and holding his postcard. “No more, I’m done.” That’s right, you’ve settled your course.

You’re a theatre critic, possibly year-round, but more likely than not you’re only a theatre critic during these two weeks of the year.


But as the week goes on you hear all kinds of buzz about the other shows, the ones that didn’t make your cut. And you aren’t all that thrilled with a few of the ones that you’ve seen, you kinda wish you could trade out your tickets, but after all, yours are all five-star shows, or four, so you must be getting the best possible Fringe experience, right?

What would you do if there were no stars?

You’re a theatre critic, possibly year-round, but more likely than not you’re only a theatre critic during these two weeks of the year. The rest of the time you’re a sports writer, or a book reviewer, or a movie critic, or the calendar listing editor. Maybe you’re a journalism student and you’re excited about getting some clips for your slowly growing file; or you’re a theatre fan, and you’re excited about having lots of people pay attention to what you think (finally).

You stare enviously at the assignment lists emailed out; nothing famous is in yours. You watch all your shows over a few desperate days, and in between shows you huddle over your laptop, trying to pull your critique into the format laid down by your editor. There’s not much room, and you kinda didn’t understand some of the pieces, and you have to turn it all in by Sunday afternoon of opening weekend, or whatever deadline your fucking paper trumpeted to the world. 

But there is no room and no time. The stars make it easier, but they don’t feel better.


If you’re a real theatre critic, the longer you write these mini-reviews, the more years you’ve been at it, the more discontent you feel. This is not the way you like to write, you want to be thoughtful about it. You want more than a paragraph, you want some space to get into the technique, the approach. But there is no room and no time. The stars make it easier, but they don’t feel better.

So what would you do if there were no stars?

You’re an artist. You scan the papers and web sites that whole opening weekend, holding your breath a little as you scroll or flip through to your show’s listing. Maybe you knew when the media attended your show, maybe you knew that someone from this media outlet attended your show three Fringes back on the circuit, just so they could get a jump on reviewing for the current Fringe you’re in.

And you see it. 

IT’S A FIVE-STAR! Or four, which looks almost as good on posters! Quick, make those stars as big as you can and run around the Fringe pasting them up on as many of your posters as are still up. They go a long way toward making you feel better about the not-so-stellar review in the last city, or the one you got on your show two years ago.

It’s a three-star. Worse is when it’s actually a four-star review, there is nothing wrong in the review, no critique, all good things—nothing quotable, of course—but they gave it three stars. You shrug. It adds nothing. It’s a fine waste of newsprint.

the reviewer doesn’t understand your work, clearly, they can’t handle sex or rude words, they completely missed the point on the symbolism or the larger picture


It’s a two- or one-star. The reviewer got personal in a way that makes you mentally flip through all of your encounters over the past four days to see if maybe you ran over their dog or spilled ketchup on their expensive outfit, or something to justify the personal vendetta. You mutter about it over beers at the Fringe club, the reviewer doesn’t understand your work, clearly, they can’t handle sex or rude words, they completely missed the point on the symbolism or the larger picture. 

No matter how many stars are in your constellation, you have at least a little unease in your soul when you talk about it with other performers. Because you’ve seen some of those shows, and they were fucking amazing, and if the same paper gave you five and only gave them two and a half, well, how can you even trust a universe where that happens? Or they got a well-deserved four stars, so you can’t whinge on about your low star count without, again, calling into question the system. Or you saw the one that got a rave review, and all you can say is, no fucking way. The conversations bounce around between performers, because we all have seen it or been victims of it, or benefited by it, but the way it’s done now eats away at the soul. There has to be another way.

So … what would you do if there were no stars? Audience, reviewers, performers: what would you do differently, how would our entire Fringe culture change, and how would it feel?


Cameryn Moore is at the Calgary Fringe from August 3-10
camerynmoore.com