I received a puzzled phone call today from one of our readers. She wanted to know, after reading my less-than-impressed review of Douglas Carter Beane’s Mr. & Mrs. Fitch: If it was so bad, why did I give it three stars? And lo, a reason to explain our star-ratings system was born.
It can be a tricky business, assigning the rating, but here’s what Team Theater agrees on.
A five-star review goes to a piece the writer feels has a strong chance at making his or her “ten best” of the year.
A four-star review means the reviewer comfortably recommends the show. There is a wide range within the four-star bracket: They can be shows we think are worthy but that did not excite us unduly, or they can be works we enjoyed very much but about which we had reservations.
A three-star review (ah, delicate three! how we long for a three-and-a-half star option!) indicates a production that we do not recommend outright, but that has certain strengths that offer compensatory pleasures. The reader may wish to see the piece because of a certain performance, or because the play is important or rarely done. In the case of Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, the delightful presence of John Lithgow, the gorgeous set and the barrage of bons mots were all pluses…but were overbalanced by the tremendous minus of its structural ineptitude.
The two-star review determinedly does not recommend the show.
The single-star review portends a whole barrel of ill and means that the reviewer would probably include it on his or her “worst of the year” list—and that the show may feature in self-pitying monologues given by said reviewer on the downside of our glorious profession.
The zero-star review has only been used once, and only by the unabashed Adam Feldman. We don’t normally think of it, but we do retain it as a nuclear option.
