The three approaches at the bottom are quite helpful, though they are more attempts at hedging bets and minimizing the inevitable damage than they are surefire fixes. This isn't to say that they're not worthwhile, just don't expect them to completely defuse the situation and work like a charm.
If you really didn't like the play there's still likely no way to come out of this thing smelling like roses: even if you Diplomat/Anti-Narcissist/Pal it up like a champ, it's still possible that your friend (the one who thinks you're a narcissist for either saying, or not saying, what you think) is going to hate you despite your efforts, at least temporarily. This is because after the show it's just as much about what's going on in the artist's head as in the viewer's.
More often than not, the artist hates you much more for disliking their work in the first place than they do for the way you express yourself; they simply can't help it any more than you can help disliking their output, and there's likely no way you can frame the truth in order to make them happy. That's why the playwright has just as much of a responsibility to read the viewer's cues as the viewer does the playwright's in their post-play contact, and a graceful artist must take partial responsibility for guiding the conversation away from things they will personally take issue with hearing when they sense that their friend is floundering.
For many people, lying to friends is very hard to do, especially when it's about something big, something that matters. And this is a good thing, a big part of what makes them worthwhile friends in the first place – that, along with the fact that they showed up for the play in the first place because they care. Requiring a friend to lie to you is asking a lot, and when a habitually honest person tries to lie in order to spare their (understandably raw and hypersensitive) friend's feelings, they are almost guaranteed to come across as twenty times the asshole they would have if they'd simply told the difficult truth in as polite a manner as possible and battened the hatches.
I'm not saying they shouldn't/can't try to lie if they think they can pull it off; but when an artist sees their friend crazily going through all sorts of awful social gymnastics when it comes time to weigh in on content, it is important for them to understand that these contortions are for their benefit and that they are almost certainly dealing with a person who is in every bit the crisis that they are.
On How To Tell A Playwright You Didn’t Like His Play
The three approaches at the bottom are quite helpful, though they are more attempts at hedging bets and minimizing the inevitable damage than they are surefire fixes. This isn't to say that they're not worthwhile, just don't expect them to completely defuse the situation and work like a charm.
If you really didn't like the play there's still likely no way to come out of this thing smelling like roses: even if you Diplomat/Anti-Narcissist/Pal it up like a champ, it's still possible that your friend (the one who thinks you're a narcissist for either saying, or not saying, what you think) is going to hate you despite your efforts, at least temporarily. This is because after the show it's just as much about what's going on in the artist's head as in the viewer's.
More often than not, the artist hates you much more for disliking their work in the first place than they do for the way you express yourself; they simply can't help it any more than you can help disliking their output, and there's likely no way you can frame the truth in order to make them happy. That's why the playwright has just as much of a responsibility to read the viewer's cues as the viewer does the playwright's in their post-play contact, and a graceful artist must take partial responsibility for guiding the conversation away from things they will personally take issue with hearing when they sense that their friend is floundering.
For many people, lying to friends is very hard to do, especially when it's about something big, something that matters. And this is a good thing, a big part of what makes them worthwhile friends in the first place – that, along with the fact that they showed up for the play in the first place because they care. Requiring a friend to lie to you is asking a lot, and when a habitually honest person tries to lie in order to spare their (understandably raw and hypersensitive) friend's feelings, they are almost guaranteed to come across as twenty times the asshole they would have if they'd simply told the difficult truth in as polite a manner as possible and battened the hatches.
I'm not saying they shouldn't/can't try to lie if they think they can pull it off; but when an artist sees their friend crazily going through all sorts of awful social gymnastics when it comes time to weigh in on content, it is important for them to understand that these contortions are for their benefit and that they are almost certainly dealing with a person who is in every bit the crisis that they are.