I am, I confess, a consummate eavesdropper. It's rare that I can resist the urge to crane my neck or reposition my entire body to catch uttered tidbits of other people's lives -- in restaurants, airports, grocery stores, and especially in concert halls. While it's probably fair to say that most people would be quick to turn around and shush a fellow audience member talking through a performance, as a reporter who frequently covers the performing arts, I relish this kind of behavior. For me, gauging audience reaction is part of the job, but it appeals to me for other reasons too.
Recently, at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, Miami's gorgeous (if financially-troubled) new Cesar Pelli-designed complex, it started with a woman in her sixties complaining, in a distinct New York accent, about the fact that Miami is decidedly not a walking-around town. "I used to walk home from work everyday, from 57th St. to 72nd St., and three avenue blocks, too!" And then, "I do miss New York, very much." I liked her already. (In Miami, it's acceptable -- admirable even -- to admit to missing New York.)
The performance was a spectacular contemporary dance piece called Rota, by the Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker and her troupe Companhia de Dança Deborah Colker. Throughout the entire evening, this woman and her friends, who were sitting behind me, continued talking, decidedly not sotto voce.
"It's like they're not real, I can't take it!"
"How do they do that? It's so different!"
"Beautiful. Gorgeous. Sexy ... very sexy."
"Oh my God, I can't believe what I'm seeing. Look at this!"
"I never saw anything like it!"
And so it went, at fairly regular intervals, for an hour and a half. And I loved it. The performance was fantastic, without question, but listening in on these ladies as they experienced dance like they never had before, was thrilling.
A week later I was back at the Carnival Center for opening night of the Miami City Ballet, a wonderful company, performing George Balanchine's Jewels. It was really lovely, but, except for the applause that erupted during several particularly impressive maneuvers, and an occasional whisper of "beautiful," everyone was dead silent. I know that's how it's supposed to be at the ballet, and the truth is, there probably wasn't anything happening that much of the audience had never seen before, but don't tell me ballet doesn't inspire passion. It also inspires "proper" etiquette, and I missed my talking ladies. When Isanusi Garcia-Rodriguez leapt across the stage in such striking form, I wanted to hear someone yell out, "Yeah!!!", instead of the comparatively sedate gasps of appreciation. I wanted to have the guts to be that person.
Why can't high culture be more like sports? Or jazz? When something gets me in my gut -- whether it's an impossible three-point shot from downtown, or an awe-inspiring improvised upright bass solo -- I want to express it, and I especially want to hear other people express it. Not only do I want to hear people clap between movements at the symphony, I wouldn't particularly mind hearing someone yell "Right on!" after a stellar piano cadenza at Carnegie Hall.
That kind of enthusiasm is infectious, folks. Everyone's always talking about how to make high culture appeal to a "younger, more diverse demographic." Maybe here's one answer: If you like what you see or hear, speak up.
I've done my share of entertainment reviews for the MSM, have read plenty about the "talking in the theatre" syndrome that is increasingly (and sadly) endemic to today's culture, and am appalled that you could babble this nonsense.
(Unless, of course, this is all some kind of Colbertian put-on and I'm so angry that I couldn't see it and failed to laugh...)
SHUT UP!
Performing on stage is not simply robotically going through motions. Because no two nights are the same, you have to be acutely aware of everything that is going on around you. Is the floor a bit warped from the increased humidity today? Is your scene partner having a bad day? Perhaps the audience is all sitting house left. You have to be aware of all of these things in order to do your job well.
That means if you're talking in the audience, I'm going to hear you...because I'm actively trying to hear what's going on. And if I'm concentrating on tuning you out, I'm not concentrating on my job.
Now, that doesn't mean the audience should be rows of statues. A dead audience is more difficult to perform before than an absent one. What it means is that you need to be able to give your feedback to the performers without distracting them. That's why there are accepted places for you as an audience member to show your appreciation. The performers will know it's coming at those times and it won't pull them out of the moment.
Note, it goes both ways. A performer needs to be aware that the audience want to show their appreciation and you need to give them their chance. A big problem of new actors is not knowing how to handle the audience's laughter. You have to give them the chance to laugh and not step on their reaction...otherwise you'll train the audience not to respond at all...and you've got your dead audience again. All the moments where you were expecting the audience to respond will be flat and it throws off your timing because you're waiting for something that isn't coming.
We promise to let you show your appreciation if you promise not to spring it on us when we're not expecting it.
'High culture' demands an audience's attention in a way that pop culture simply doesn't. I'm discovering this first hand from studying and performing classical music now after years of playing rock.
It's making me a much more demanding listener -- and I would be seriously ticked off if I was listening to a great classical singer and some selfish ass was whooping and hollering over the music. Similarly, dance is not just a visual experience, but an auditory one too. You need to listen to the music to appreciate how the movement blends with it, and cries of "Yeah!!!" from the audience ruin that.
Why would you trample on a moment of perfection? We get so few of them in our lives!
I was remembering the first time I took my little sister to the symphony. Being older, I had been to the symphony plenty of times and understood the culture of the scene. Being younger, and excited, my little sister was beaming with excitement at the prospect of seeing world-class musicians perform some of her favorite pieces (she couldn't wait for the Rachmaninov in particular).
I clearly remember that at the very first note, she almost burst with excitement, her face was ruddy, eyes wide open, mouth a little agape...
Then I remember as the first movement triumphantly ended, she burst into applause, for the shortest of split seconds, then sulked into her seat for the rest of the performance upon being deridedly looked at and scoffed at by the more "cultured" people in attendance.
I tried to reassure her that it was alright, that she had not embarrassed me one iota, and that it was everyone else's problem if they were offended, etc.
To this day I wonder if that experience may have turned her off from being a patron of the arts.
Etiquette in high culture is tied to the collective intelligence that realizes that vocal appreciation will be shortly followed by vocal criticism. Our ability to reign in baser aspects of ourselves (even those that are such mundane pleasures) are in essence the definition of civilized. Sometimes it's not about selling out in the effort to 'include' more people - it's about having standards that people have to live up to in spite of themselves.
If we learn restraint at expressing elation (in context of course), perhaps it'll be easier to learn restraint in expressing disdain at other times. And just perhaps, society will be ever more civil for it. The decorum Etiquette entails and quality of class it bestows is the distinction between the erudite, cultured, high-school music teacher and Paris Hilton: proof that money cannot buy class.
I was recently at a wonderful chamber music concert and for nearly the entire concert the man behind me continuously marveled out loud to himself and anyone around him just how bad the performers were and why everyone else was applauding them since they were so awful.
It was a decidedly unpleasant experience. I'll take people who can keep their mouths shut over people like that any day.
A child just learning to read said to his mother on entering the parking lot of an apartment complex, "Only ten ants can park here."
Incidentally John Stuart Mill wrote that eloquence is heard and poetry overheard.