In a delightful sense, everybody`s a critic.
”So?” we were asked walking out of ”Romeo and Juliet,” which we had just seen on opening night a few days ago at the Goodman Theater.
We answered in a fairly detailed fashion. We are a vociferous sort. And while answering this question, we heard a number of similar soliloquies taking place and realized, for the umpteenth time, what a hotbed of do-it-yourself criticism is any lobby after a play or movie or concert.
We remembered one night a couple of years ago at the Goodman when, after watching ”Galileo,” the successful musician Dennis DeYoung wondered aloud and in spectacularly funny fashion why the play`s star, Brian Dennehy, had not used DeYoung`s Italian father-in-law as his role model.
”He should have called himself Double G,” said DeYoung, breaking into a heavy Italian accent. ”The sun, the earth, the moon. So, they move around. Whatsa difference?”
Certainly anyone has the right to criticize (or praise) anything they please. But we have found the most interesting lobby critics to be those people who somehow have a personal stake in what they have just seen-a minor league baseball player after ”Bull Durham,” an unmarried Italian woman after ”Moonstruck,” a chorus girl after ”Pal Joey.”
And that`s the reason we were very excited when, as we were leaving a new movie theater on Michigan Avenue a few days ago, we ran into Bert Haas.
Haas is the pleasant and professional young man who manages Zanies, one of the city`s oldest and most successful comedy clubs. So much a part of the comedy world is he that when it came time for him to take a bride, as he did almost a year ago, he married Sally Edwards, a talented stand-up comic.
Haas and I had just seen ”Punchline,” the new Tom Hanks-Sally Field movie about the life of stand-up comics.
”So?” we said.
”As a movie, it was weak,” he said. ”My biggest complaint is that there was so little development of some of the characters. You had all these part-time comics (some of whom have appeared at Zanies) introduced and then never developed. The movie tried to show how tough the life of a stand-up is and never really did. And it wasn`t funny.”
What about as an exploration of a world you know well?
”Ridiculous,” said Haas. ”The comics were supposed to be working a showcase club but every night it was the same eight people. Any showcase club would have 30, 40 different acts a week. And if the comics were as bad as they were supposed to be in the movie, why`d the owner keep having them back and why did people keep coming to see them? These are the sort of acts that go on at 4 a.m. when everybody`s gone home.
”And before the big contest, Hanks and Field talk about doing new material. No way, for a contest you do the tried-and-true. And Field winning the contest and a shot on Carson with a bunch of dirty jokes-no way. That stuff could never get on TV.”
So, was there anything you did like?
”I`m in awe of Hanks,” said Haas. ”I think he`s a great actor.”
What about Hanks the comic?
”I think he could do a good job of faking it,” said Haas. ”I`ll tell you this: He can work at Zanies any time he wants.”
