Kenneth Peacock Tynan (1927–80) was one of Britain’s foremost theater critics, regarded by many as “the greatest theater critic since Shaw.”
Tynan was born in Birmingham as the illegitimate son of a self-made mogul. Though his father wanted him to become a lawyer, his mother often took him to the theater. He wrote his first review at the age of 16. After graduating from Oxford, Tynan became a critic for the Evening Standard and then The Observer, where he served from 1954–63. He took a two-year hiatus as the drama critic of The New Yorker. He declared that a good critic recognizes what is important on the stage; a great one “perceives what is not happening.” Tynan was both.
In 1963, Tynan became the literary manager of the National Theater. As a skeptic of commercial theater, Tynan wielded enduring influence in the selection of the company’s repertory.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Kenneth Tynan
Not content to have the audience in the palm of his hand, he goes one further and clinches his fist.
—Kenneth Tynan
Topics: Audiences
A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.
—Kenneth Tynan
Topics: Criticism
A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.
—Kenneth Tynan
Topics: Critics, Criticism
Art and ideology often interact on each other; but the plain fact is that both spring from a common source. Both draw on human experience to explain mankind to itself; both attempt, in very different ways, to assemble coherence from seemingly unrelated phenomena; both stand guard for us against chaos.
—Kenneth Tynan
The greatest films are those which show how society shapes man. The greatest plays are those which show how man shapes society.
—Kenneth Tynan
No theater could sanely flourish until there was an umbilical connection between what was happening on the stage and what was happening in the world.
—Kenneth Tynan
Topics: Theater
Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.
—Kenneth Tynan
Topics: Criticism, Art, Artists, Arts
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