In 1976, Welsh actor Richard Burton won a Tony for his stunning performance in “Equus.” Teenage Matt Wolf was captivated by the power of stage performance. Now a London theater critic and NYU professor, he’s spent his 40-year professional career writing for both American and British publications. Between the shows he sees professionally as a critic and the ones he sees with his classes, Wolf sees about 200 shows a year showcasing not only the wide dearth that London theatre has to offer but Wolf’s passion for it as well, which is what draws him to teaching; the opportunity to share that passion for theatre and arts.
So far this semester, he’s been able to see “Back to the Future: The Musical” and “An Interrogation” alongside one of his classes.
Q: What makes the London theatre scene unique?
A: The tradition here is state-funded theatre which allows for buildings like the National Theatre. The subsidized theatres are these incredible ocean liners of theatrical endeavor that carry a lot of passengers to continue that image. So there’s an expectation on the theater here to deliver frequently and to a high level that I don’t think is as entrenched in the States.
Q: How does working in London, especially in the cultural journalism scene, differ from working in New York or the States?
A: The volume of work is greater in a good way, just because there’s a lot more theater across the year than there is in New York. I think cultural journalism here is valued, that people may not be able to pay for it, but they don’t question it’s right to exist. There’s a regard for cultural journalism in the UK that goes with the regard for culture.
Q: You’re a co-founder in 2009 and current editor of the Arts Desk website What inspired it?
A: At the time, there had been a periodic cull of the arts writers at British newspapers. If our office is just an informal network of people connected by their laptops or their desktops, we’ll call it the Arts Desk. Then why not? So we started really to, well, first of all, provide a gap in the market to provide work for ourselves, to make sure that we kept getting the tickets.
Q: What’s playing in London now that’s underrated?
A: Cymbeline at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe. It’s a rarely seen late Shakespeare play. This is a production that is quite political and very female-oriented, which the play itself doesn’t do; they’ve done a lot of gender-flipping,
Q: “Equus” was the first play you saw. Why did that impress you?
A: Richard Burton was a film and theater legend. I just thought it was a pleasure to listen to his voice, to be in the same room as his voice. It bounced off the back wall, and it was like taking a kind of luxurious bath. I was a teenager at the time, and I remember thinking that this was something you couldn’t get on the screen because you were in the same room as that voice.
The critiquing came later, I think with theater, you can believe in, advocate for the form, but that production in 1976 showed me that the theater was a blessing and the place I wanted to be.
Edited for space and clarity.