'The artwork judges them': The theatre critic in a changing landscape (The functions of the critic in the theatre and of his responsibilities towards the theatre)

The functions of the critic in the theatre and of his or her responsibilities towards the theatre have long been debated and disputed, and are now in a state both of flux and contradiction-flux, because of the rapidly changing state of the media in which criticism is published and the new forms which 'publication' can now take; contradiction, because of the dual perception of criticism as at once an 'offensive' art and an 'art of solidarity.' Especially for the critic of theatre, the dilemma has always been heightened not only by the ephemerality of the art to which the review gives a vicarious and subjectified after-life, but also by the shifting sands between the journalistic and the academic landmarks of the craft. Rather than attempting impossible solutions, Josette Feral offers illuminating definitions and suggests helpful boundaries-aesthetic, cultural, social, and historical.