Secrets of the City

Should be fired on the spot, more properly.

hey, sparber: you are so constantly full of yourself that it’s naueating. Step it down a notch.

If you think you’re going to prompt me into some sort of snarky response, you have mistaken me for some of the other posters on this site. If you’ll go back and reread the post, you’ll discover that I’m reminding people that I am not a critic anymore, and so might be a good person not to comment on.

But, then, anytime Tom or Matt links to the Rake, their accused of relentless self-pimping, even if they only do it once every 300 posts, so I guess this sort of accusation goes with the territory.

And I’m supposed to be the guy who’s full of himself around here. If Sparber starts stepping over the line, I’ll be relentless.

Oh, I’ve seen that happen, and it ain’t pretty. Jason was a freakin’ hurricane on that huge cat story.

Seems pretty obvious after spending a minute on that site that it’s run by someone affiliated with the Lakeshore Players.

I think Quinton Skinner of City Pages and Dominic Papatola of Pioneer Press get “it” most of the time. Are there local blogs with theater reviews? If so, I’d love to know about them.

I’d have to agree with “I need attention.” You post so often — and so much of it is self-indulgent crap — that it’s obvious your participation on mnspeak.com is all about you rather than about the community. I’m not usually one to flame others like this, but really man — cool it for a while.

Then again, this website jumped the shark when Rex flew the coop so maybe this is a good place for the msparbers of the world (or the city) to hang out.

Well, you know, don’t let the door hit you where the good lord something or other.

Anybody want to return to commenting on the actual subject of the post, which happened to be local theater critics?

No, I wasn’t prompting you into a snarky response, I was trying to prompt you into chilling out about yourself for awhile. When you feel the need to remind everyone of what you aren’t doing and haven’t for 4 years, well, that’s a little presumptuous, as well as tiring.

And by the way, you did say, “Have at me, if you must”.

Maybe we should have at the brave critics who are willing to launch personal attacks without signing their names.

I’m just glad that its safe to be in and around the Walker at night now.

When all those blue hairs and suburbanites used to fly out of the Guthrie in an attempt to flee the crime ridden city at night it was seriously dangerous.

I love – LOVE – that there is a site critiquing the theater critics. Quinton Skinner is my favorite here in town. Beyond that, I don’t have anything nice to say, so I’ll refrain under Thumper’s Rule.

What I will say is that the critics in the Twin Cities need a serious dose of schooling from national critics. Why is our criticism often just a synopsis of the story, or a thinly veiled diatribe about what they ate for lunch and how it made for a long show? Why do they never critique the sets? The lighting? The sound? The directing? Why are the crew never critiqued by name? Truly – by reading the reviews here, one would think that all we have is actors sitting in the dark reading off of a script.

At best, it’s frustrating; at worst, it’s embarrassing.

Quinton Skinner has the perfect name for a theater critic. You name your kid Quinton Skinner, what else is he going to do with his life?

To msparber: It’s true. My designs on an NFL career were doomed the moment I wrote my name on the pee-wee league sign-up form.

I hear ya, man. My plans of becoming an international jewel thief were dashed by having the name of a baggy pants vaudeville comic.

I agree Leigha. When I look to the critics, I want to see some advice on whether or not I should see a show. Good luck getting that. And don’t get me started on the lame newspaper websites with criticism. I can find story recaps, but not recommendations. I guess I’m not looking for 2 1/2 our of 4 stars… but something would be helpful.

The trouble with that is critics may not share your tastes. I find I prefer critics to describe the play — but not go into too much detail about the plot — andlet me make up my mind if I want to see it or not. Theater is just too diverse for one critic to act as tastemaker for the local scene.

I’ve said it before, but why not: Quinton is also a wonderful writer of crime novels. Or are they horror novels? I can’t tell which.