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2. How often do you give a production a perfect four-star review? 

3. How many zero-star pans have you doled out? 

To answer: 1) that’s like asking a parent to pick their favourite child, so I can’t and won’t answer that; 2) maybe a handful each year; and 3), thankfully, none so far in my career as a critic. 

That first question aside, there seems to be a curious fascination with star ratings. Readers tend to like them. So too do those who work in the arts (especially when a four-star rave can be plastered on their marketing material). 

But, like most other critics who are told to slap stars atop their reviews, I have a love-hate relationship with the system. 

On one hand, these ratings help some consumers decide what they should see. Stars are to a review what a lede is to a news story: both prime the reader for what’s to come and complement the writing that follows. 

At the same time, the system is a blunt instrument. How can something as complex as art be assessed on a linear scale? It can’t — at least not completely. 

Star ratings also feed into the hyper-commodification of art. Especially today, so many of our cultural experiences are reduced to hot takes, thumbs up and thumbs down. 

What’s missing is analysis. Yes, a critic’s role involves rendering judgment. But as important, if not even more so, is engaging in a deeper conversation with the art. What does the work truly mean? How, if at all, does it respond to the broader context in which it exists? Getting to explore those questions is the most satisfying part of my job.

Stars have appeared alongside movie reviews, in various publications, since at least the late 1920s. The º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøStar’s film critics were the first in the newsroom to adopt the system, in 1993. Our theatre and restaurant critics followed several years later, in 1997. 

Back then, the newspaper employed a five-star scale, without half-star designations. It’s a system still used today by numerous publications, particularly in Europe.

The Star then moved to its current formula of awarding up to four stars, including half stars, in 2005. But that change, aligning us with other major newspapers across North America, didn’t reduce our readers’ confusion with the system. (It may have exacerbated it, if anything; it’s always astounding how many people tell me the four-star system is “stupid” and that we should move to review shows out of five stars again.) 

Part of the problem is that not all star ratings are created equal. It goes beyond the four-star/five-star debate. In the hospitality industry, for instance, stars can help distinguish a luxury hotel from a budget one, but can’t really tell you the quality of each.

Likewise, a restaurant would probably be over the moon to receive one star from the Michelin Guide, but a theatre company getting that same rating from me would likely be cursing my name under their breath.

Even among critics who cover the same discipline, we each interpret the scale differently. For me, most shows fall within the two-and-a-half to three-star range. A three-and-a-half or four-star rating is reserved for the best pieces of art: the equivalent of a “critic’s pick” designation in the Globe and Mail or the New York Times, which use that other system. Conversely, you can be pretty certain that any work I award two or fewer stars is one that I did not enjoy.

But you’re not likely to see me ever go below one star. (Though it’s happened in this paper, it’s usually a once- or twice-in-a-career event.) A zero-star pan — an infamous doughnut review — should only be reserved, I believe, for shows that are not only bad, but are also created out of bad intentions. It’s a high bar to meet such a low standard. 

All that is to say, though, that the star-rating system is exceedingly arbitrary. People shouldn’t read too much into them. And yet, they always do. 

Most disappointing is when I see readers think that a show’s worth is tied to the number of stars it received. I understand the urge to draw that connection. After all, ratings are plastered everywhere, from aggregate websites to production posters. 

But it’s important to remember that star ratings don’t convey anything except one critic’s opinion. We’re most definitely not the be-all, end-all arbiter of artistic merit. 

Similarly, I tell readers not to decide whether to see or skip a show based on its rating. Art is subjective: there are shows I love that some readers will loathe. And vice versa. It’s only by reading a review that a reader will have a sense of whether they would enjoy a show or not. 

So what to do with star ratings? Keep them? Or retire them, as some publications have done? 

I’m not sure. (The decision, anyways, isn’t mine to make.) Stick with them and you’re stuck with all the problems that have existed since star ratings were introduced. Remove them and I fear many readers won’t even bother engaging with reviews anymore. 

But every time I grapple with these questions, I’m reminded that performing arts criticism is itself imperfect: we’re trying to capture something that’s live, ephemeral and inherently emotional with mere words. There’s always going to be something crude about that.

The star-rating system, if also imperfect, at least is a tool that helps critics bridge the divide between readers and the art they’re assessing. If more people engage with art and arts criticism because of it, then that’s all for the best. 

With files from Astrid Lange