THEATER CRITIC CLOSE-UP: JACKIE DEMALINE

Philosophy: When I'm reviewing, I respond to what's on stage, which I hope is what everyone does. People always ask, but what about the audience reaction?

A theater audience is a collection of individuals, each responding to the plot, a character, a relationship, dialogue, a mood, the emotional content -- so many possibilities -- in a completely individual way. Every person brings his/her own life's experience into a theater. No two of us will respond exactly the same way to what's on stage. We can't. We've had different lives.

hope that every review contributes to a larger mosaic from which readers can extract a philosophy. What's important is consistency in that philosophy.

f you're using a review to base your decision on whether to buy a ticket, then knowing we don't respond to the same things is as valid as knowing that we do.

For me, context is important. How does this fit in the theater's season, in an actor's body of work, a designer's, a director's? How does it relate to everything else available for audiences?

Cost is important, too. Local ticket prices range from about $10 to $60. To me, $60 is a lot of money. It matters.

do have high expectations of Playhouse in the Park because it has demonstrated it can stand with the best regional theaters nationally. And I have them in general because people -- potential audiences -- have too many choices to settle for something that's just OK. Live performance has to bring you something that you can't find anywhere else for it to become a priority.

The most important questions I ask myself during a theater experience are: Does it move me? Excite me? Stimulate me? Provoke me? Tell me something I didn't know before, about myself or the world I live in? Does it hold up a mirror at an angle I've never tried so that things I do know suddenly have new revelations? Make me laugh? Make me cry? Make me mad? Make me uncomfortable? Make me think?

These are essentially the same for everybody. The only difference is I have to figure out the why behind my answers.

Pet peeves: Not enough paid employment for what has become a critical mass of first-rate local actors including (but not limited to) Dale Hodges, Annie Fitzpatrick, Pam Myers, Michael Bath, Bob Rais, Naomi Bailis, Tony Davis, Regina Cerimele, Greg Procaccino, Sherman Fraser, Mark Mocahbee, Jim Stump, Buz Davis, Scott New, Kelly Germain, Nicole Franklin-Kern and Jared Doren. If they can't make a living here, we'll lose them.

What I would most like to see this year: Audiences.