American vs. English theater critics

'Frank Rich, unaffectionately dubbed "the Butcher of Broadway," reigned supreme as The NY Times drama critic for over a decade. During his sway, the theatre community smarted under his acrimonious notices. When he walked into theatre receptions, the actors walked out en masse. There were even rumors of plots against his life but, as anyone familiar with the New York scene knows, there is no tyrant as immovable as a theatre critic who enjoys the confidence of his editorial hierarchy. After his departure a few years ago, as with the retirement of Margaret Thatcher, Rich became the subject of a fulsome wave of nostalgia. Reading the reviews of blander and less vituperative successors, the seizures he once caused among Broadway denizens gave way to a painful sense of loss when he went on to the Op Ed pages where, in a sense, he found both his true voice ands his true subject. The current critic of The New York Times (and therefore the most effective power-broker in the New York theatre) is Ben Brantley--who is a smooth and urbane writer with both strong credentials and good taste, but a writer so easily pleased one feels he is like the tennis umpire who loves the game so much he is prepared to ignore the occasional foul ball or out-of-bound serve. The Times approach to theatre is, by official dicta, studiously gentlemanly. It frowns upon out-and-out kicks-in-the-pants.' Read on. Meanwhile, Yale Professor Craphogger, in a projectile vom of rancid bile, calls the new musical Spamalot 'a degrading, underhanded, bovine, peasant attack on the nobility of knighthood.'