Theater Critics Need to Stop Commenting on Performers’ Bodies

by Chris Peterson

Critics need to stop commenting on performers’ bodies. Full stop. This should not be a controversial ask, and yet here we are again.

Earlier this year, in a review of West Side Story at LA Opera, critic Bondo Wyszpolski of Easy Reader News decided it was okay to body-shame actress Gabriella Reyes, who was playing Maria.

After calling her “plump”, he said,

“When we see Maria at work in the dress shop she’s wearing skintight jeans and, look, this is one of the worst costumes they could have put her in. If she’d been wearing a loose smock, for instance, her plus-size figure might have been nicely camouflaged. “

And that is exactly the problem.

There is a difference between critiquing a performance and deciding that a performer’s body is now part of your review. There is a difference between talking about vocal delivery and just using your platform to humiliate someone. There are still critics who act like they are entitled to do the latter, especially if they can dress it up in the language of “honesty” or “standards.” They are not.

If you want to say two actors lacked chemistry, say that. If you think the direction did not convince you of the relationship, say that. But once you are writing about how a woman’s figure should have been “camouflaged,” you are no longer analyzing theater. You are body-shaming a performer in public and calling it craft.

And it gets even worse when you realize this is not an isolated lapse.

In his 2023 review of The Secret Garden at the Ahmanson, Wyszpolski complained that director Warren Carlyle had enlisted Black actors “for the sake of politically correct diversity,” then wrote that Derrick Davis as Archibald Craven made “about as much sense as putting Brad Pitt in the role of Jackie Robinson,” and described John-Michael Lyles as someone who looked like he should be “rafting with Huck and Jim down the Mississippi.”

So yes, if the name sounds familiar, that is why.

At some point, we have to stop pretending these are just awkwardly phrased opinions or old-school critical bluntness. They are not. They reveal a worldview. One that says certain bodies are a distraction, certain races are a disruption, and certain performers must justify their presence before they even open their mouths.

That mindset has no place in thoughtful theater criticism.

A performer’s body is not yours to “fix” in a review. Their size is not a production flaw. Their race is not an error in judgment. And the idea that critics should get to publicly sneer at people’s appearance because they bought a ticket and have a byline is ridiculous.

I do still believe that theater criticism matters. Good criticism can illuminate a production, challenge artists, and deepen how audiences engage with the work. But when critics veer into body commentary that has nothing to do with the storytelling, they are not elevating the conversation. They are cheapening it.

Enough.

Critics are free to dislike performances. They are free to dislike productions. They are free to write sharp, even brutal reviews when the work warrants it. But they are not owed the right to dehumanize performers along the way.

If your review cannot make its point without mocking someone’s body, maybe the problem is not the performer. It is you.