Most theater productions will never become available again, no matter how great the quality, because of copyright and technical reasons. However, theater critics around the world are leaving behind a written, often detailed record, as witnessed by the articles on The Theatre Times. Frequently illustrated, these theater reviews—ranging from sketchy to thorough—bring back descriptions of works on live stages for everyone, now and in the future.

Coming from Europe, my perceptions of life were shaped by a wide range of European and American playwrights. Now living in the U.S., I noticed the occasional denigration of American culture by Americans, who seem to favor European works the way the ruling class in Czarist Russia and Poland spoke French or Germaninstead of Russian or Polish as if their mother tongues were inferior to the foreign culture-associated languages they adopted.
​
It’s against this background that I would like to honor the work of one of our most thorough theater critics in Philadelphia, J. Cooper Robb, who unfortunately passed away recently, with this Open Letter to my late colleague about a subject that I wanted to discuss with him, except that I discovered this controversial topic of perceived “inferiority” only now while reading every single one of his many theater articles online—alas, too late for his personal response.

Dear Cooper,

I always liked reading your articles. They differ from the majority of regular theater reviews. You often went further and presented holistic views of the theater world—something I valued, let alone your immense knowledge of the theater and the people who make it all happen.
​
I appreciate this wonderful write-up about your life in the Philadelphia Inquirer. As soon as I learned that you had left us for good, I searched the Internet and read every article of yours I could find, including all your regular submissions to TheaterMania: what a treasure, ranging from 2001 to 2011. I certainly miss your previews and especially your theater essays.

Cooper, I regret that I did not have the opportunity 16 years ago to read an article of yours in which you got pretty tough on “certain critics”:

“Demeaning the American theater is something of a parlor game among certain critics, who point to the theatrically rich cultures of Ireland, Germany, and England as proof of the United States’s inferiority in this area.” (TheaterMania, Jan. 14, 2003)

Frankly, I never met anyone who made such a claim, even though I wouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps some other theater critics might respond in detail to your concern that certain Americans might value European theater at the expense of American theater.

However, I am aware that quite a few Americans who travel to Europe at times seem to take on a touristy perspective, which tends to favor Europe’s old culture over America’s modern civilization—a situation that quickly can lead to a “Touristic Bias: Why Americans Overrate Europe, and Europeans Underrate America.”

Similarly, Operavore of WQXR, New York Public Radio, asked, “Can America Keep Pace With European Opera?” Another search reveals that much has been written about “What differentiates Europeans from Americans: the cultural gap across the Atlantic.”​

Just one telling example: The much-talked-about Christopher Shinn, a U.S. playwright, and director who made major breakthroughs at London’s Royal Court Theatre, succinctly described some of the main differences between responses to new plays by actors and directors in New York and London in the Guardian:

“New York actors and directors are much more directly critical of a new play in rehearsals than London actors and directors are. In London, I cannot remember a single moment when an actor openly criticized–even implicitly–my text. Any note a director gave me was given privately, quietly and tentatively.”
​
Cooper, I have come to the conclusion that you were more cosmopolitan than you might have realized. You presented drama from all over America, Africa, Asia, andEurope in thoughtful and caring ways.

MAKING IT BIG:

“The Philadelphia Theatre Company is producing the first family production in their history with their staging of storyteller David Gonzalez’s The Frog Bride. For this contemporary adaptation of an old Russian fairy tale, Gonzalez employs a jazz-funk score and video projections to bring a modern slant on the classic coming-of-age story about a prince who goes in search of a wife and instead returns with a frog.” (Nov. 30, 2006)

SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL:

Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria returns to Philly at Temple University’s Liacouras Center. Visually dazzling (Dominique Lemieux’s costumes are a sight to behold), the show’s new “arena” staging includes two especially wondrous acts: the breathtaking aerial ballet “Russian Bars” and the fast-paced “Power Track,” in which a group of athletic tumblers perform daring routines on a trapeze [. . .]. (September 30, 2009)

A DIFFERENT DREAM:

Hedgerow Theatre continues their summer tradition of presenting a farce from Brit playwright Ray Cooney with the theater’s production of Cooney’s Chase Me, Comrade! Inspired by the defection of Russian ballet star Rudolph Nureyev, the story follows a Russian dancer who seeks refuge with a British government official. Featuring Cooney’s usual frenzied pacing, the play is a madcap romp of mistaken identity and barely controlled chaos. (July 31, 2010)

SOUTH CENTRAL:
​
Lantern Theater opens their season with Anton Chekhov’s classic tragicomedy Uncle Vanya. The story focuses on the long held resentments and secret longings among the members of a Russian family who are reunited at their once glorious pastoral family estate. In conjunction with their production, Lantern hosts a mini Chekhov Festival with special pre-show performances of the playwright’s short farces, as well as discussions with Chekhov scholars and even a Russian themed dinner party. (October 31, 2010)

Do American theater critics carry a bias in favor of European drama over U.S. drama? Some may, most others probably do not. You reported about theater by European playwrights or European-based plays with the same balance as you reported about American theater—and I want to thank you. I’m sure many of your readers felt good about your work as they could trust your assessments and buy tickets to shows you had recommended with confidence.

Cooper, I salute you for all you’ve done for the theater world in general and the many Philadelphia stages in particular and wish you Bon Voyage on your journey into timelessness.
​
I shall miss your writing.

​ Cooper Robb, an immensely knowledgeable and prolific American theater critic, who recently passed away, left behind many articles, especially in Backstage Magazine and TheaterMania, filled to the brim with facts and insights about contemporary theater. It includes a rare interview with Czech-born British playwright, Sir Tom Stoppard.

The Wilma, as it’s affectionately called in Philadelphia, brought more European and more experimental theater to the city of brotherly love than any other company, winning numerous Barrymore awards, the Philadelphia equivalent of the Tony awards in New York.This husband and wife team, two theater producers and directors—refugees from (then) Czechoslovakia—stunned the city with one innovative production after another. They presented more Tom Stoppard plays than any other theater in the US, thanks to the friendship of the Zizkas with the playwright.

Robb: Once you talked to (Russian dissident) Victor Fainberg, it all sort of came together for you?

Stoppard: Yes, Victor and other people. I was marginally involved with various activities, which were concerned with the incarceration of Russian citizens in mental hospitals.

As a matter of interest, I’ve just written a play about Russians in the 19th century (The Coast of Utopia) and, in researching that play, I’ve discovered that the practice of calling a dissident mad had this precedent in the 1830s and wasn’t invented by the Soviets. However, the Soviets put it into general use and that practice took on a much crueler form in the U.S.S.R. with quite a number of instances of people like Victor being put into asylums.

Robb: Did The Coast of Utopia change your perception of Every Good Boy?

Stoppard: Yes, in the sense it gives you a deeper understanding of where dissent came from. It’s interesting to follow the story of dissent right through to Lenin. I think Lenin was born the year that Alexander Herzen died, Herzen being the main character in The Coast of Utopia.

Robb: Every Good Boy features one of your most musical texts. Was that a conscious decision?
​
Stoppard: I can’t claim to have made a conscious effort to make it more musical. I write the way I write pretty much whatever I’m doing, though of course the subject and tone changes. I remember that it was very difficult to do it at all until I began, and then I did it quite quickly. André played me some piano parts, though I didn’t know essentially what (the music was) until the orchestra started rehearsing, and then it was, of course, very exciting for me.

I also remember that the orchestra (the London Symphony) initially was not thrilled with these actors colonizing their space. They hadn’t been involved with anything like it. This was real theatre with three acting areas and a dramatic momentum involving half-a-dozen actors.

Trevor Nunn made this brilliant choice to begin (rehearsals) by letting the orchestra sit as an audience while the actors performed the play without music. The orchestra liked what the actors were doing, and from that moment they became wonderfully cooperative and enthusiastic. People who were formerly wondering if they could play the violin with three inches less space were suddenly volunteering to move chairs to help out an actor. It was very touching.

Robb: The play describes Alexander [Ivanov, a political dissenter, imprisoned in a Soviet mental hospital, who won’t be released until he admits that his (non-existent) mental disorder made him make accusations against the government] as a discordant note. Do you think there are too few discordant notes being heard in the United States and England?

Stoppard: I think it’s more important to note that discordant notes are part of the social and political system here [in the West]; it’s not something that gets you put in jail.

At the time I was writing Every Good Boy, I think the point I really wanted to make was that although things went wrong in the West and freedom was not perfect, and there were certainly abuses occurring, when you contrast them, you find that what is an abuse of the system in the West was a system in perfect order in the East. I would say that if I had a self-conscious message, that was it.

But the play conducts itself on the level of a black comedy, which is very frequently the response of the real dissidents, the ones who are getting it in the neck.

Robb: You obviously have a special rapport with the Wilma. Could you describe your relationship with the artistic directors, Jiri, and Blanka Zizka?

Stoppard: The Wilma is one of the very few theatres in America where I have a friendly, personal relationship. Essentially, from the time I met them at a theatre conference, I admired them. I admired the way they ran their theatre, their policy. I don’t mean doing the plays of Tom Stoppard, but I like their policy of doing new work.

And I like the fact that they’re successful, in the sense that they have a very dedicated constituency around them. And believe me, you have to earn that.
​
*For the complete interview, originally published by Backstage Magazine, click here.

**For the companion article about the work of an important American theater writer, click this link to “Perceptions of each other’s cultures: An Open Letter to theater critic and educator J. Cooper Robb.”