Every person has his own likes and dislikes.  These preferences give each critic his own personal review and every reader his personal judgment of a review.  For example, my partialities caused me to favor Subversive Tongue and a Sharp Focus on Identity Politics by Eric Grode over No Search for Profits, but Troupe Finds Hits by Patrick Healy. 

            In Eric Grode’s review he opens with “IF Caryl Churchill, Franz Kafka and Ali G were to goof around one night and play their music too loud until the Department of Homeland Security came knocking on their door, they might emerge (eventually) the next morning holding something like the script to “Invasion!”  This subjective and opinionated statement inspires, to me, an interest to further read the article.  Those statements show that Eric Grode had some sort of connection to the play.  When someone watches theater show, they expect to develop some sort of connection so they won’t be sitting for hours counting the minutes to pass by.

            Contrasting Eric Grode’s, Patrick Healy displayed no connection to the play causing his review to be less appealing.  He opens with“WHEN artists at the National Theater here began creating their World War I drama “War Horse” five years ago, they placed cardboard boxes over the heads of actors to imagine stand-ins for the show’s horse puppets, which were still being designed.” To me he turned something relatively funny into a dull fact.  He barely touches upon the ideas surrounding the play and talks, instead, about the monetary issues of the National Theater.  This type of review contains no emotions or relation to the play.

            To me theater is all about the emotion.  When actors act they have to display emotion, which in turn creates new emotions in the audience.  Eric Gorde showed emotion with his opinionated observations, but the same cannot be said for Partick Healy and his factual statements.  For that reason I felt Eric Gorde’s review was the better of the two.