Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter
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Not everyone’s a critic
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The arts and life team is midway through our Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival blitz; by Tuesday morning, we will have seen and reviewed all 160 plays at the annual summer event.
In honour of the occasion, which is one of the most exhilarating and exhausting times of the year, Erin Lebar, our intrepid manager of audience engagement for news, made us buttons. The pins feature our mascot, Scoop, and the motto “Original influencer.”
It’s a cheeky little nod to the fact that while traditional media has been usurped by social media in many arenas, when it comes to fringe, the newspaper still looms large. (I loved overhearing people in the beer tent say a play got “five fish” last year, when the Freep switched to fish instead of stars to match the festival’s annual theme; this year, we’re doing space aliens to fit with the Play Hard video-game theme.)
However, though I adore the pins, I do feel it’s important to point out that while Free Press reviews are indeed influential — we have long been the only media outlet in town that covers all the productions — we are wholly distinct from influencers.
I have nothing against influencers. It’s a valid job and it’s also hard work. I follow many of them and enjoy their content, from BookTok stars to local food accounts.
But here’s your reminder that it’s marketing, not journalism.
The ceaseless positivity that comes from influencer culture means any negative response to art is now classified as “mean-spirited.”
But negative reviews are not undertaken lightly, nor are they “personal attacks,” other than in the sense that if you are a person who creates a work and that work isn’t very good or you aren’t very good in it, you might be called on it; this has always been a hazard of presenting art in public, especially art for which you are charging money.
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Free Press reviews, be they one–star pans or five-star raves, are not written to serve the production or the performers; our responsibility is to the reader, to audiences.
We are promoters of the local arts scene, in the sense that we continue to cover it in an ever-widening news desert, but boosterism is not our purview.
I don’t pretend that our reviews are the last word or the definitive opinion on any piece of art; critical writing is always somewhat subjective. And now, more than ever, if you want a different opinion, you can go online and read 100 hot takes. You can also just sit in the beer tent at Old Market Square and get word-of-mouth recommendations from people you trust.
But remember that if you’re watching a breathless Instagram reel or reading a rapturous review from someone who was paid to see a production and produce positive content, you’re not getting an honest reaction. It’s an ad in disguise.
Ads won’t hurt any feelings, it’s true. But as New York Times critic A.O. Scott says, “It’s the job of art to free our minds, and the task of criticism to figure out what to do with that freedom. That everyone is a critic means, or should mean, that we are each of us capable of thinking against our own prejudices, of balancing scepticism with open-mindedness, of sharpening our dulled and glutted senses and battling the intellectual inertia that surrounds us. We need to put our remarkable minds to use and to pay our own experience the honour of taking it seriously.”
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Jill Wilson
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Did you know we have many other free newsletters? You can gorge yourself on food and beverage news from my Arts & Life pals Eva Wasney and Ben Sigurdson, who write the bi-weekly Dish newsletter, or you can follow a weekly exploration of Indigenous voices, perspectives and experiences in Niigaan Sinclair’s Biidaajimowin | News from the Centre.
You can browse all of our newsletters here.
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FRINGE FESTIVAL
Free Press review team:
Fringe reviews #5: Power up!
Dan's Inferno, Great & Powerful Tim, Hapalochlaena, Jean-François, Letters, No Worries If Not, One Human Being Toy Story, Onwards!, Quintland, Meat Machine
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Free Press review team:
Fringe reviews #2: No cheat codes required
Dangerous Curves, Elon Muskrat, Evolution of a Broken Heart, Fool's Gambit, Hair Brained, Happy Valley, Lies of a Promiscuous Woman, Mr. Loopy Pants, Pete Seeger Tribute, Tymisha Harris
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Free Press review team:
Fringe reviews #1: Choose your fighter, then your venue
Absolutely not a cult, Afeni, #Black Eye, Chekov Shorts, Fakespeare, The Ghost of a Flea, A Sexy Pigeon Show, The Shelter, Things That Go Bump, Viento.
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Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter
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OUT AND ABOUT
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NEW IN MUSIC
Meridian Prize launched
While the Polaris has recognized top Canadian albums since 2006, there has long been some consternation within industry circles regarding regional dominance by artists from Ontario and Quebec.
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NEW ON SCREEN
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NEW IN BOOKS
Reviewed by Scott Montgomery:
Balance through imbalance
Dave Eggers’ stunning new novel ruminates on friendship, art and the tension between conception and creation
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Reviewed by Riel Lynch:
Smith’s sisters haunted by ghosts, childhood memories
The 15th novel by Scottish author Ali Smith details the remembered traumas or ghost stories of sisters Petra and Patch, who heard of ghost horses and people that were “pancaked” by an army tank (presumably while under military occupation during the First World War).
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Reviewed by Kathryne Cardwell:
Rounding the bases
Wryly funny essays chronicle the rocky road to motherhood — and her debilitating postpartum anxiety
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