Back to the Theater

June 2022 finds our heroes road-tripping through the Pacific Northwest again. No RV. No senior dog. Marco crossed the rainbow bridge in November, 2021 after almost 14 years in our care and an illness of about ten days. He was the doggiest of the doggy-doggies but he is not the subject of this blog.

Instead, I am moved, O Muse, to write about live audience behavior. Has the internet also spoilt live performances because those ticket-holders used to individuating their entertainment cannot restrain their unseemly behavior? I listened to the Soquel High School graduation: after each name was read, loud, frenzied cheering resulted. Does any graduating Senior truly base his/her/their self-worth on how much ballpark-style cheering comes during the graduation ceremony? Is graduation really the time, parents and family members, to uncork the rebel yells? Wahoo! Or the air horns? So the reading of names which could have taken twenty minutes takes two hours? Time you will never have again, dear ones, to laugh and play together.

JG and I have been back to the California Theater to see Opera San José. We watched the Irene Dalis opera singing contest. A lady of a certain age sat by herself behind us and put on a show of her own. During the arias, she moaned with theatrical pleasure, ”Ooh! Ah! Oh!” and screamed ”Bravo!” at every Caesura. Yes, a live audience that interacts emotionally with the performers makes the theater magic, but her outbursts of untrammeled passion upstaged the singers. Her stagey moans called attention to herself: nobody feels this more deeply than she. I was distracted and annoyed. Then I thought, she’s reaching out, looking for connection through the arts. But an opera contest by yourself is not a good way to meet people. She must have forgotten her manners during the pandemic years.