Bunny is having a fantastic run in New York at 59E59 Theaters. And the reviews have generally been just as positive as we’d been receiving in London, praising Rosie Wyatt as “superb” and the one who “should make headlines,” while Jack Thorne’s script is “tight and insightful.” Yet we have also received less than positive comments: Bunny “hobbles along” (presumably a byline too easy to miss), and later the same reviewer “beg[s] for this Bunny to crawl down the rabbit hole.”
The reviewer didn’t like the show (although they still praise Rosie’s fantastic performance). And that’s obvious fine. Clearly there will always be people that don’t like, don’t want to see, or just don’t care about your show. And regrettably sometimes those people will be the reviewers. But how should a producer deal with this negative response?
Simply ignoring it is one answer. And perhaps this was a viable option before the internet, when a review would be published, seen and then forgotten, but with reviews now available for any potential audience member at any time during your run this is not so easy.
What about just taking the positive comments and spinning it into a thumbs up? It wouldn’t be too difficult to just lift quotes about Rosie and pretend that it was a stellar review:
“Rosie Wyatt is sensational as Katie”, OffBroadwayWorld.com
Of course, as soon as anyone clicked through to see what else that reviewer had to say they’d be confronted with a lament that “the material fails to pull the audience inward.” Not ideal.
So the only other option is to embrace the fact that there are lots of different opinions and that this show (as any show, one presumes) is not going to please everyone. I know that Bunny can go down incredibly well with audiences and critics alike. And obviously some people won’t enjoy it. I guess the producer’s job is to find those people who will and get them into the theatre.
After all, no one wants a miserable audience, even if they have paid for their tickets.