Criticism: the unholy craft.

They are the two immortal tramps, Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and they have found themselves in a shouting match of ever-ascending insult, starting with such pleasantries as "imbecile" and "cretin," until one of them launches the final fire-blasting coup de grace. Upping his voice to full shout, he looks at the other and triumphantly hurls at his partner one of the most dreaded words in any language--" Crritic.!"

Having written professional criticism for nearly 59 years, and having reviewed in my time most things from the opening of plays to the opening of doors, it seems, I have developed a compassion for not only the criticized, but also for the villain in that equation, the critic. It is certainly not easy to be criticized--in my time I have suffered a few slings and arrows--but to be honest, it isn't easy to criticize either.

Generally speaking, critics do not wish to inflict pain, but they do. They say (well, we say) we are merely offering an opinion, providing an insight. Critics may imagine they are offering an objective opinion (is there such a thing as an objective opinion regarding the arts?), but unless it's totally unqualified praise, it will probably seem highly subjective to the artist. However critics, if they are serious about it, are writing not for the artist but for their readers. Their function is not only to judge but also to provide some meaningful, hopefully insightful, link between the artist and the audience. It should be an act of explorative explanation.

Agreed, art is hell--or the making of it is. But its criticism is also far from easy. First, it involves the acquisition of knowledge in order to formulate that informed opinion the reader expects from the critic. This is particularly true of dance criticism, where there is no ready text available for study or reference. Of course, for all the performing arts one needs the hard-won, and nowadays expensively earned, experience of putting one's bum in as many seats as possible, and often simply standing. I had been attending dance constantly for almost 13 years before I started to write professionally. It was a lengthy apprenticeship, but when my chance came, like a kid getting his first job in the corps de ballet after waiting in the wings, it seemed worth it.

Being a critic requires the ability to frame an informed judgment and analytical opinion which has to be readable. Unreadable critics are like harps without strings and will soon lose their place in the celestial choir, for editors love readability. And being readable involves being witty, often at the artist's expense. All critics know that they are going to get more response--and definitely more praise--for a witty bad notice than for the more difficult-to-write witty good notice. Critics are usually big-ego animals with an often unhealthy need for admiration. Let's back up here: This can be controlled. Critics should just resist the sometimes easy temptation to be mean. Note to critics: Remember that no one actually tries to dance or choreograph badly. If, in your possibly lonely opinion, an artist has inadvertently achieved that unlucky result, it need not occasion a display of verbal fireworks. Tell things as you believe they are, but with care and grace, not smart-assed loathing.

There is one other difficulty that responsible critics bear into the arena. It's what the critic Laura Shapiro earlier this year in a fascinating analysis of Twyla Tharp called "the curse of memory." Dance critics can be bedeviled by the past. It is so easy for our minds to move into reverse gear--ah, but you should have seen Fonteyn, or ah, but you should have seen Farrell, and we probably all should have seen Taglioni! But our remembrance of times past can be deadly for audiences and critics alike. It's better to treat past performances as guideposts rather than guidelines. To narrowly judge a present performance in the framework of an earlier dancer, and even worse (as Shapiro acknowledged) to permit one's almost proprietary love of certain works to overcolor one's current assessment, may be as unfair to the past as it to the present.

No, it's not easy being a critic, but we all have our opinions in our own right, even when just expressed to a neighbor. But for the professional critic the fundamental task is to build a bridge between the artist and his audience. Easy? No. Rewarding? Enormously. And it's also not a bad way of making a modest living.

Senior Consulting Editor Clive Barnes also covers dance and theater for the New York Post.