Before

After

Last month, in the latest installment of our semiregular Ad Nauseam series, we wrote about the misleading use of a quote by New York Times critic Ben Brantley on a sign for the Off Broadway revival of The Fantasticks—and criticized the show’s producers for allowing the deceptive ad to be displayed. Now we offer them our congratulations for doing the classy thing: After years on display, the old sign has recently been removed, and replaced with a more honest one that touts the show’s positive notices in The Wall Street Journal and am New York. Kudos to The Fantasticks, then, for straightening up and flying right.

As a reviewer, you expect that your opinions will occasionally be taken out of context. Advertisements will quote your nicest-sounding line of praise and leave out the criticism that surrounds it; that is par for the course. There is an important distinction to be made, however, between that common practice and the grossly misleading “quotes” from Ben Brantley of The New York Times that currently adorn the front entrance of the Snapple Theater Center in Times Square.

Like most reviewers, including this one, Brantley didn’t care much for the mothball-scented revival of The Fantasticks, which opened in 2006. He did, however, find space to praise the performance of one actor, Tom Jones (who is also the show’s librettist). “Unlike much of the rest of this production, he feels like the real thing,” wrote Brantley, later adding that Jones “gives a perfectly pitched, disarmingly sincere performance that captures why The Fantasticks became the enduring favorite it did.” Brantley also recalled having seen the original production many years ago, when he was a child, and generously allowed the following: “And who knows? There may be a few 9-year-olds out there…who will conclude that The Fantasticks is the last word in theatrical sophistication.”

On the doorway to the Snapple Theater Center, those sentiments have become the following: “A perfectly pitched performance that captures why The Fantasticks became the enduring favorite it did. The Fantasticks is the last word in theatrical sophistication.”

I’m sorry, but we must call shenanigans on this. Brantley’s talk of a “perfectly pitched performance” did not apply to the show as a whole, as the ad implies, but to the performance of a specific actor who only appeared in the musical very briefly, years ago. And there is a world of difference between saying that something is the last word in theatrical sophistication and saying that some hypothetical 9-year-olds might think it is the last word in theatrical sophistication.

Shame on whoever sliced this review so deceptively, and shame on the producers of this show for allowing this ad to be displayed. Our sympathies go out to any tourists who might be seduced by this trickery into seeing The Fantasticks—and to Ben Brantley, whose taste they would have good reason to mistrust after doing so.

It gives us no pleasure to kick off Upstaged’s Ad Nauseam series—dedicated to pointing out misleading or deceptive theater advertising—with a look at some recent ads for Irena’s Vow. Our negative review of this Holocaust drama occasioned a certain amount of controversy, including a lengthy nondenial denial from playwright Dan Gordon, and we do not wish to appear as though we were out to get this production. Moreover, ironically, it was not long ago that we actually found ourselves publicly defending Irena’s Vow against charges that it was misusing a Time Out review in its advertising campaign.

What Irena’s Vow is up to now, however, strikes us as indefensible. For some time, the show has been running quotes above its daily ad in The New York Times‘ alphabetical Theater Directory (which, though it looks like editorial content, is actually paid advertising). Here are some sample spots: “GIVE YOURSELF THIS GIFT!—NYTimes.com” (April 10); “BEST PLAY IN YEARS!—NYTimes.com” (April 11); “AN EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCE!—NYTimes.com” (April 15); “SEE THIS SHOW!”—NYTimes.com” (April 16).

The casual reader might conclude that The New York Times had flipped for this show. In fact, however, Charles Isherwood’s actual March 30 Times review called Irena’s Vow “theatrical hokum” that was “efficiently manipulative,” “banal” and “ham-fisted,” noting that this supposedly true story “sometimes feels like bad fiction.” So where do all those rave reviews from nytimes.com come from?

The “Readers’ Reviews” section, that’s where: anonymous comments from anonymous people on the Times site. Exactly who wrote these raves is anyone’s guess. Take the one from March 29, headlined “Best Play I’ve seen in years”—a sentiment paraphrased into one of the ad quotes above. This reviewer signs himself “georgebraunstei.” Who could that be? Could it, for example, be Hollywood lawyer and sometime producer George G. Braunstein, whose site currently includes a plug for Irena’s Vow, and who collaborated with Dan Gordon on the obscure 1975 movie musical Train Ride to Hollywood? Or is it someone else? Is the Irena’s Vow ad using a quote from a friend of the author, or just a completely anonymous stranger with no established critical experience or credentials whatsoever?

Either way, it is pretty shady to simply identify the source of the quote as “NYTimes.com,” when the quote in question does not reflect the editorial position of The New York Times or its website. And since Irena’s Vow received many good and quotable reviews, but has chosen to use these ones instead, it seems reasonable to conclude that the show intends to create a false association between the good reviews it quotes and the editorial stature of The New York Times. We are baffled that the Times would allow this to continue. Its readers, like Irena’s Vow’s audiences, deserve more scrupulous attention to truth.