Should criticism include an assessment of whether a piece of theatre is actually any good?

If you have a chance, please check out this pieces from our friends at the Guardian. It's pretty fascinating stuff, if one is interested in the role of a reviewer in a community.
I'll post the article by Andrew Haydon below, but follow the link above for the complete dialog.
BG--

In Britain, we all know that a theatre review will tell you if something is worth seeing. There will usually be a star rating - marks out of five for at-a-glance dismissal or praise. In mainland Europe, however, the situation can be very different. Last week, I attended a series of seminars on criticism in Helsinki alongside the Baltic Circle festival. In our group there quickly emerged a real schism between critics who felt that an actual judgment of a play's success or failure was not the aim of theatre criticism, and those - including myself - who couldn't quite sign up for such a radical departure.

It seemed perverse to me for a critic to have an opinion on whether something was good or not and to withhold that information. Furthermore, I couldn't quite see what could replace such information. Then I had one of those moments where you suddenly completely understand the other side's point of view. The seminar group was discussing a piece we had seen at the festival with which none of us had been especially impressed. Once we had moved past registering our myriad grumbles, we started discussing what it might have meant.

Our tutor, the Slovenian critic, editor and all-round great guy Rok Vevar launched into a startlingly intelligent, eloquent explanation of the piece, interpreting the meanings of various movements and sequences, deftly invoking Lacan and Zizek, the history of dance notation, and ideas of the self-narrating subject whose present and future are defined by their past. In short, Rok made the piece fascinating. Even though he hadn't liked it at all, he offered an analysis of the piece that was far more interesting than watching it had been.

This raised a question: if we had read Rok's analysis before we had watched the piece, would we have enjoyed it more? I would still argue not. Certainly there would have been more to think about, but Rok hadn't particularly liked the piece as he watched it either. My concern remained that if one simply presents a beautiful interpretation of the piece without any mention of the fact that it isn't much fun to watch, one isn't doing one's readership any favours.

At the same time I was aware that perhaps British criticism had been way too co-opted into the PR industry. Have British theatre critics, along with pretty much every other branch of journalism, been tricked into moving away from serious analysis into giving things the thumbs up (where possible) in order to sell tickets? As far as theatre PRs go, aren't the occasional raft of poor reviews worth taking on the chin so that the raves can be harnessed? While some shows might take a pasting, there are plenty of others that can be bolstered by quotations plastered over every available bit of space in front of house. This would be harder if the reviews in question were lengthy interpretations invoking Zizek and Lacan.

Similarly, when compared with a rigorous, extensive and articulate interpretation of a play, the way that some British critics simply shut down and refuse to engage with writing or direction starts to look like the height of ignorance; they don't understand, moreover they don't care that they don't understand - parading their ignorance as if it were a gold standard in taste and judgment.

On the other hand, this interpretative school of criticism can fall prey to finding meaning where there is none - dignifying work of little or no intellectual merit with critiques so intelligent and eloquent that the work seems praised when it would benefit more from someone pointing out that it wasn't any good.

I am interested to see if there is a synthesis possible. Is it possible to involve more intelligent, creative interpretation in reviews while at the same time still letting readers know whether the damn thing is actually worth seeing or not?