On Standing Ovations

Let's not talk about theatre right off the bat, though we're headed in that direction. Let's start, instead, with the universal metaphor of romance, and the issue of putting out. Adults have lately lamented the adolescent sport of having sex on the first date -- oh, c'mon, it's not even a date, with the implied traditions of request, acceptance, and destination, but rather a superheated meet-cute. Since our middle-aged memories have conveniently wiped the sexual revolution of the '60s off of our collective disk, we can afford without hypocrisy to say, How sad, how devalued, to have a physical relationship with an almost-stranger.

Now that I have your attention, we can move on to my real subject, the seemingly requisite standing ovation at any show on Broadway. What do instant sex and on-your-feet applause have in common? They rob the act of meaning, an leave us fumbling for a superlative when we really fall in love.

[No, I am not a member of the abstinence movement, but I do still refer to it as making love, rather than as having sex.]

I saw two plays on a recent trip to New York: one, a piece of serious drama that required absolute attention for its almost three-hour running time, and the other an entertainment, starring a celebrity from another coast, no names need be mentioned. They had in common a link to an actual moment in history, and nothing more.

No, that's wrong. At the end of each play, members of the audience jumped to
their feet in a standing ovation. In fact, more people hopped up for the celebrity show, particularly when the famous guy took his bow.

I'm told that the Brits don't do it this way. They keep those derrieres firmly planted in their seats for almost everything; they regularly demolish actors' egos by applauding politely while they still have laps. When they do stand up, it means something. It means what a standing ovation is supposed to mean, which is that the people who are on their feet feel they've seen something remarkable, something memorable, something worthy of a special accolade. By withholding the standing ovation, they make sure it matters when it happens.

And, I'm told, they don't cave to peer pressure. Everybody in the hall might be standing except for that stony couple in the fifth row, but they're not getting up, regardless. It's as though you?re born with a finite number of standing ovations in your personal inventory and if you blow them early, you don't get to stand up for that marvelous play you see when you're 60.

The first time I was in a theatre and everyone stood up, I took the patriotic stance. Us wonderful Americans, I thought. We're such enthusiastic fans. We stand out of gratitude for hard work, we stand out of joy at being in a theatre where the biggest special effect is a headset mike, we stand because we love life and we're not as emotionally constipated as the Brits.

Lately, though, I worry that we stand because we've lost our critical faculties; we stand because we've been entertained, without considering whether we've been entertained well. Maybe distraction for its own sake has value, in this era of foreclosures and nuclear threats and war; maybe people simply appreciate the chance to live in someone else's universe, if only briefly. But clap for that, and save standing up for the great stuff.

Save love for the times it matters. Otherwise, the object of your affection won't know how deeply you feel. Being indiscriminate makes everything matter less.

Comments

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

The standing ovation is also a way to blackmail the performers into doing more. It's like throwing more fish to the seals to get them to push their noses against their squeaky rubber squeeze horns. And it's also like making that dude from back east dance in the dust outside the saloon in Dodge City, while you shoot bullets at his feet.

[spinstahbabe]

If I'm not chomping at the bit to LEAP to my feet when the curtain falls to show my appreciation for a truly exceptional performance, I stay seated.

[mrkdds]

Encore! Encore!

[sarasson]

I believe the ladies of "The View" get a standing ovation each and every day they go to work. For what?? Every dinky celebrity that walks out on the stage gets one as well. I heard Joe Torre, a baseball manager, received a standing-o at a recent D.C. honoring of Billy Crystal. C'mon, he's good at his job, but so is most everyone else. It really doesn't mean anything anymore.

[EWFish]

Nice post. I too have felt like a curmudgeon in refusing to stand for a performance which I found fine but not standing-O-worthy. Maybe when you're paying north of $100 for a Broadway ticket, you've got to convince yourself you saw something worth rising to your feet. I've been thinking of writing a post on the similar subject of the rock-concert encore, which seems to be withering away through mutual acknowledgement by both artists and audience of its phoniness. Might encores actually move back to meaning something someday?

[StephenSmoliar]

I agree that it is really all about the money. When you fork over the price of a ticket, you really want to convince yourself that you got value for your investment, even if you have not the foggiest notion of what constitutes "value." The performing arts provide the best example of large masses of people who neither know nor care about such value. Can we generalize that to sex? I'll let someone else address that question!

[jdoiter]

Rather than thinking of a standing ovation as a spontaeous gesture of the audience to show its appreciation, I think that most of us do it because it gives us the opportunity to move our asses after sitting for so long. After two or more hour of sitting, our butts are numb.

[OtayPanky]

That's the best PuffHo piece I've ever read.

BRAVO, otay?