DAVID HARE AGREES WITH ME.

DAVID HARE AGREES WITH ME. I have previously posted here and here on the New York Time critics who suffer because they don’t like the theater. The New York Post (the newspaper of record in our household for forty years) has on Page Six today this account of an encounter at a dinner between the distinguished British playwright David Hare and the Jill Abramson, the managing editor of the New York Times. “Abramson was seated next to Hare and immediately launched into a speech about the supposed superiority of the Times’ theater coverage.” Hare replied, “‘You must be kidding. The Times has contempt for the theater, especially Broadway, and especially plays.’” Abramson’s reply implied that it is not important that a New York Times theater critic like the theater: “Listen, it is not our obligation to like or care about the theater. It’s our obligation to arbitrate it. We are the central arbiter of taste and culture in the city of New York.”