Theatrical was not the term used by me, neither was it the term used by the person who gave a minor criticism of his singing.
what the person said was this, "the first time I heard Ewan sing this ballad, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up," the person then said" i saw him a fortnight later and he sang the song in exactly the same way, and i was disappointed".
at no point in the conversation was the term "theatrical" used.
this person then gave their opinion that a song should be sung differently on each occasion, this person clearly thought that Ewan had not done that on these two occasions, the persons only criticism was that the interpretation in their opinion was exactly the same each time,in fact the person gave high praise tho the first rendition.
having said that here is an observation of mine which i think has some relevance,I have noticed that i when have been to see the the same performer twice and been dissapointed on one occasion, i have tried to analyse why.
my analysis has been this.1. it might have been my own mood.2. the performer themselves may not have been in such a good mood for performing
it is expected of professional performers, that they always perform very well, we pay good money too see a high performance , this is an impossible expectation, every performer is human not a machine that can be programmed to turn out excellence on every occasion.
a performer may have had an accident or a row with their partner etcetc before performing thay do their best but they will still be affected.