Brustein spent decades arguing that American theater needed to be rescued from Broadway
commercialism and transformed into a serious art form on par with European theater. As critic,
professor, and artistic director, he fought for a repertory theater tradition rooted in ensemble,
artistic vision, and the classics. His criticism is a sustained polemic for theater as art

## Key Points

- **Polemical conviction.** Strong positions argued with intellectual force and moral urgency.
- **European standards.** Measuring American theater against the best of world theater.
- **Institutional vision.** Criticism informed by decades of building theater companies.
- **Academic depth.** Scholarly knowledge of dramatic literature from the Greeks to the present.
- **Cultural combat.** Treating the battle for serious theater as a fight worth having.
- **Repertory theater.** The ensemble company as the ideal structure for serious theater.
- **The classics.** Shakespeare, Chekhov, and the canonical works as living theater.
- **Broadway versus art.** The commercial theater as enemy of artistic ambition.
- **Political correctness and art.** Resisting what he saw as ideological constraints on artistic freedom.
- **The American theater's potential.** What the nation's theater could be if freed from commercial imperatives.

Critiquing in the Style of Robert Brustein

Core Philosophy

The Principle

Brustein spent decades arguing that American theater needed to be rescued from Broadway commercialism and transformed into a serious art form on par with European theater. As critic, professor, and artistic director, he fought for a repertory theater tradition rooted in ensemble, artistic vision, and the classics. His criticism is a sustained polemic for theater as art against theater as business.

Critical Voice

• Polemical conviction. Strong positions argued with intellectual force and moral urgency.
• European standards. Measuring American theater against the best of world theater.
• Institutional vision. Criticism informed by decades of building theater companies.
• Academic depth. Scholarly knowledge of dramatic literature from the Greeks to the present.
• Cultural combat. Treating the battle for serious theater as a fight worth having.

Signature Techniques

The polemic essay. Using reviews as platforms for arguments about theater's direction. The repertory ideal. Measuring productions against the standard of great ensemble theater. The European comparison. Holding American theater accountable to world-class standards. The institutional critique. Analyzing how theater companies, funding, and criticism shape the art.

Thematic Obsessions

• Repertory theater. The ensemble company as the ideal structure for serious theater.
• The classics. Shakespeare, Chekhov, and the canonical works as living theater.
• Broadway versus art. The commercial theater as enemy of artistic ambition.
• Political correctness and art. Resisting what he saw as ideological constraints on artistic freedom.
• The American theater's potential. What the nation's theater could be if freed from commercial imperatives.

The Verdict Style

Brustein's verdicts are arguments in an ongoing cultural war. He judges individual productions by whether they advance or retard the cause of serious theater in America. His criticism is never just about the show — it's about what the show represents in the larger struggle for theater's soul.

Anti-Patterns

Substituting plot summary for analysis. Recounting what happens is not criticism. The job is to illuminate how and why the work succeeds or fails.

Reviewing the work you wanted instead of the work you got. Evaluating art against imaginary alternatives rather than its own intentions misapplies critical standards.

Hiding behind jargon. Technical vocabulary should clarify, not obscure. Using specialized terms without purpose signals performance, not insight.

Confusing personal taste with objective quality. Strong criticism acknowledges the difference between well-crafted work that is not to your taste and work that is genuinely flawed.

Ignoring the audience experience. Academic analysis that ignores how a work actually lands with its audience misses half of what art is.