I think it might be time to finally call out the lazy and low grade use of the word ‘visceral’ in reviewing.
And before you think I am slinging mud at other publications, I think we might be guilty of this here at Fringe Review as well
.”Visceral”, in my humble and perfectly non-visceral view, has become rather badly overused in theatre reviewing, particularly at fringe festivals, because it sounds more precise than it often is.
If you can feel my grump creating an irritation in your belly, if you find your breathing turns into a gasp, then you will be finding my writing here as visceral.
Its specific meaning comes from ‘viscera’, “the internal organs, especially those in the abdomen. So visceral literally means relating to the internal organs. The metaphorical meaning follows directly from that: something experienced as an immediate bodily or instinctive response rather than primarily an intellectual or considered one.”
Just so you know, I looked that bit up.
So in a fringe theatre review, visceral, when used properly, and not in a fairly crappy hackneyed way, describes something that seems to hit the body before the mind has time to interpret it. I have to admit I rather like that.
You recoil, tense, feel nauseated, become physically excited, find your breathing altered, shudder, and even get hiccups – experience an almost involuntary bodily reaction.
So here is the quote I have found almost literally the same in several reviews. Shit, I hope they’re not all using the same AI. I suspect it is actually more the cliches that are buried in our fingertips when we type reviews…
“The sound of the blows produced a visceral response in the audience.”
“The combination of bass frequencies, darkness and the performers’ proximity made the scene genuinely visceral.”
Now here’s the problem. Reviewers increasingly use it to mean almost anything vaguely powerful:
intense, emotional, disturbing, energetic, physical, raw, shocking, passionate, immersive, uncomfortable, violent, moving.
Now the real problem here in my view is that those things aren’t necessarily visceral.
A quiet monologue about bereavement (and there are more than a few of those at this Fringe) might be profoundly moving without being remotely visceral.
An actor screaming while covered in fake blood isn’t automatically visceral either.
A dance performance isn’t visceral simply because bodies are moving vigorously.
And describing acting as “raw and visceral” often tells you almost nothing: raw and visceral. Those two words seem to have become reviewish bedfellows in many reviews.
There’s also an emerging problem with sentences such as:
“A visceral exploration of grief.” Yep, I have seen that one at least three times. Well I have a problem with it).
What does that actually mean? If the reviewer means the production embodies grief physically, they should tell us how. If they mean it was emotionally upsetting, visceral is probably being used decoratively rather than accurately.
The irony for me is that a genuinely visceral theatrical experience should be unusually easy to describe without using the word “visceral.” The reviewer can describe what happened to them:
I found myself physically shrinking backwards in my seat.
That tells me considerably more than:
I laughed so much I farted.
Yet both can express the truly visceral nature of a performance.
So I’d put visceral fairly high on the current FringeReview cliché list, alongside raw, powerful, poignant, haunting, fearless, electrifying, tour de force, thought-provoking, masterclass, compelling, spellbinding and the almost indestructible rollercoaster of emotions. That is, unless we start using it properly.
As an editor as well as a reviewer, I find it causes me physical pain which means that reviews become visceral which really is us disappearing up our own arses.
And the greatest tragedy occurs when I read it in my own writing. That happens more rarely these days. hope. Harumph. Sigh.
The test I’d apply to ‘visceral’ is very simple: What happened in or to the body? If the reviewer cannot answer that question, there’s a good chance they actually mean intense. Or something else. But not visceral. Gulp.
Paul Levy is editor of FringeReview.
