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| Christian Carvajal in David Mamet's Oleanna. Photo courtesy Olympia Little Theatre |
Christian Carvajal is an actor,
director, and writer; and an original thinker who throws himself with unbridled
passion into everything he undertakes. For quite a few years he was a theater
critic for the Weekly Volcano. Since
I am also a theater critic and have reviewed many of the same plays, we have
naturally met in lobbies many times, and although we seldom talked in depth
about plays we were reviewing prior to writing the reviews, we have always read
each other’s reviews and sometimes talked about them afterwards.
As an offhand observation, I would guess
that we agree on our assessment of plays about 95 percent of the time, the one
difference being that he has tended to be a tad more critical than I. He has
joked that I always get to be the good cop to his bad cop. But joking aside, he
has said, and I know this to be true, that it hurts him to have to give a play
a bad review. He’s in the business. He knows many of the actors, directors,
scenic designers and theater managers. He knows how much of their lives they
devote to the incredibly hard task of putting on a play—and always with little
or no pay. How can a guy like that, who is more sensitive to others than others
might expect, trash in print an endeavor that others have given so much of
their lives to? Yet as a critic he knew—as do I—that his reviews would mean
nothing if he were not honest, if he were simply a cheerleader for local theater
companies. After all, you pay money to see stage shows and you don’t want to be
told something is good when it’s not.
When he tried to be gently honest, he
and the newspaper he writes for were sent nasty emails, perhaps not always but
enough to make reviewing a thankless job. That may not be the only reason he no
longer writes theater reviews, but it is surely a factor.
Here’s a little something he wrote about
directing Laughing Stock, opening
this week at Olympia Little Theatre:
In
the past few weeks, we've exhausted ourselves to the point of shaking. We've
left literal blood, sweat and tears on the boards at OLT. In a month it'll all
be gone and we'll move on to other projects. So why do we do it? What drives us
to kill ourselves for ephemera? We do it so both we and you can laugh. We do it
to tell and enjoy a good story. We do it because your inexpensive ticket helps
keep OLT's lights on for season 76, but more importantly, because coming
together to share adventures and emotions is what makes community an actual
thing. And my God, this is an emotional show. I feel safe in saying it's
crawled inside all of us. We can feel we've made something special. And part of
what we've made, an important part, is the coming together of "another
little temporary family." And that, Gentle Reader, has been the story of
my life, over and over again. (Read the complete article..)
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