Quite the Disparate Responses

The Flick is an off-Broadway show I reviewed and didn't like (my review here LINK).  Outside of me,

From The Flick.

the reviews were fairly rave.  It is an interesting show, but it didn't work for me at all, the silences were too long and, at 3 hours, it took a long time to say too little.
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Not only did it get great reviews, but the playwright (the EXCELLENT Annie Baker) won a Blackburn Prize and a Horton Foot award - big deals in the art world.
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Well today we find that the audience feels a bit, bamboozled at all the accolades.  Today, the NY Times ran an article on the play about how the Artistic Director of the Theater sent a letter out apologizing to the patrons.  The show has annoyed season ticket buyers by being so long, so slow and yet got amazing reviews.   The Times critic (the wonderful Christopher Isherwood (not that one)) worries that audiences for Off-Broadway are making demands that force pablum to them.  Off-Broadway should be the source of new and tenacious works.  I agree, but that doesn't mean they are all good.
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I didn't like The Flick, but I have seen about a million shows that were worse.  Playwrights Horizon shouldn't be apologizing, but reminding them that their stated business purpose is getting new works from authors.  Sometimes it is going to be amazing (they premiered Driving Miss Daisy, Sunday In the Park With George, Next Fall and last year's best play Clybourne Park two years before it went to Broadway.