NEW YORK — At lunch recently in New York with a retired theater critic, I asked if he’d care to join me later in the week for a matinee of the touted Broadway revival of “Into the Woods.” No, he demurred. He had reviewed the original production, and the show, like many of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals, has a second act problem.
My distinguished colleague, whom I’ve long considered a mentor, was making decisions based on his energy and interest during the busy holiday period. He longed to be my plus-one for “Merrily We Roll Along,” a Sondheim musical with a notorious track record in the theater, so it isn’t as though he’s averse to recalcitrant material. (That ticket — the hottest in New York for the New York Theatre Workshop production starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez — was already claimed.)
But his reason for passing on “Into the Woods” made me reflect on critics and their relationship to their own criticism. Of course there are shows that I’ve panned that wild horses couldn’t drag me to see again. But I feel no need to stay true to my published verdicts, especially with works that have a long afterlife.
