The current state of affairs of the American theater world is somewhat bleak. (Isn’t that just the most delicious opening ever?) One of the main reasons is that movies have been taking theater’s milk money since about 20 minutes after Muybridge filmed that horse. While I’m not inclined to make the case for either side (though I would advocate a Pat Day/Roger Copeland cage match to settle the issue), I would indicate that theater has the distinct advantage in one aspect — the review.

A theater review is always written after a fool like me has seen a production in its entirety. Film reviews are written in the same way, but, in contrast, consider the teaser trailer. Before a movie these days, it is not atypical to see five or six trailers for films opening anywhere from two weeks to six months from then. The film is cut down to a three-minute pill designed to entice audiences to eat their jujubes a little slower and say, “That looks pretty good! I’d be willing to pay $14 to see that!” This is what has become film review shorthand for most casual moviegoers.

The trouble with this practice is multiplicatous. A trailer can serve to give away what three minutes were worth seeing and make a film look worth seeing when it is only three minutes worth of entertainment spread over two hours. For an example, watch the trailer for that new Will Ferrell soccer movie. A trailer can also do nothing much at all. For example, after seeing the trailer for Spanglish, I learned that the movie stars a smiling Adam Sandler and that it was going to try and be moving; it made me yearn for Sandler screaming at golf balls and nothing more.

The best outcome I can imagine for a trailer is to confuse the bejesus out of the audience, leaving them questioning their roles in the world and unable to remember their phone numbers. This was one of the many successes of Kung Fu Hustle. After seeing the trailer, I had no idea what the hell the movie was supposed to be.

Was it going to be a spoof or were they going to try and be somewhat serious too? Is this the second coming of Hot Shots or of Kung Pow: Enter the Fist? What’s my phone number? I knew I just had to see it, if only to satiate my curiosity. And after seeing it, I still have no idea what it was about but I know that it was $2 well spent.

Now, imagine what the practice of the trailer would do to the theater world. How can one trim down a strong production of King Lear or Topdog/Underdog to three minutes? I would guess it would be like watching the trailer of a film like Rosemary’s Baby — a little silly and a little disappointing. Recently, I saw what it could do a small student production like Line when I caught a few minutes of it during a Thursday in Stevenson.

From what I saw, director Jon Levin did little to ensure that the cast would be heard in Stevie’s miserable acoustic environment. The cast looked thrown together, under-rehearsed and, maybe, a little intimidated. Based on this unintentional trailer, I opted to forgo Line in favor of whatever else it was that I was up to last weekend and, judging from word-of-mouth afterward, I made the right choice. Yet again, an insufficient shorthand did me right.

By the way, that new Star Wars looks great and not disappointing at all, eh?