I am way behind my blogging this week since I have been going to the theater almost every night. I saw Carter’s Way at the Steppenwolf and Carousel at the Court Theater earlier this week; I have TUTA’s Uncle Vanya tonight, and then A Steady Rain (which continues to build deafening buzz about a possible off-Broadway move) at the Royal George and William Yang’s performance piece Shadows at the MCA over the weekend. I still have to write about Next Theater’s The American Dream Songbook (which I felt had a very strong first act in Leonard Bernstein’s operetta Trouble in Tahiti but got a little inconsistent in the second act with the contemporary revue) which I saw over the weekend. However, I don’t know if it’s the increasingly nicer weather, or the end of Daylight Savings Time, or there’s some lunar eclipse in Pluto or what, but it seems like undesirable theater-going behaviors and antics are back in full swing (after being in hibernation for most of the winter). I have a lot of pet peeves when it comes to the theatergoing experience (and various BFFs have seen me in action hissing at, shushing, nudging, giving dagger looks to various annoying audience members, and in one instance at the Lookingglass, tapping my playbill on a loudly-snoring broad’s seat to wake her up!). I feel that even as theatergoing is admittedly a communal experience, it is also, like many art forms, an individual one. Each audience member needs to have the mind and emotional space to process the impact of the text, the visual design, the musical score, and the acting that he or she is currently experiencing. In order to preserve this space for fellow audience members, there are expectations around behavior when watching live theater- respectful and civil, not like someone sitting down on the couch with a bag of Doritos and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon to watch “Jackass”. There has been a lot of debate on the theater blogs about the annoying interruptions made by cell phone rings and text messaging (and of course, a cell phone rang last Wednesday night in the middle of a dramatic scene in Carter’s Way- geez!). But in addition to these, I was just flabbergasted by the obnoxious behavior of many of my seatmates in this week’s plays - why would this woman sitting beside me at Carousel wait till the first few bars of “If I Loved You”, one of the most beautiful songs in American musical theater, before loudly snorting her inhaler? I thought she was going to suction my Dries Van Noten scarf and the hair extensions of the woman sitting in front of her up her nose! Why would this guy sitting behind us again at Carousel not unwrap his candy during intermission but rather wait until the first song of Act II? And why would he continuously crumple the candy wrapper all throughout the song? Why were these women providing running commentary to the drama in Carter’s Way and punctuate their Books-on-Tape narration with shoutouts like “You Jerk!” or “Oh No -Get Away!” Where did these theater hooligans come from? Would they be doing these shenanigans in the middle of a meeting with their boss and co-workers? Or while in synagogue or church service? or during a Yoga class? Or in their condo asociation meeting? Why do some people think they can get away with uncivil, impolite, inconsiderate behavior in the theater and not in other communal settings?
Mar 14
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