Shakespeare's audiences were notoriously raucous. Folks entered and left during performances, commented loudly on the action and the actors, and ate oranges and hazelnuts during performances. (When the Rose Theater was excavated in 1994, its floor was found to be paved with crushed hazelnut litter.) The Rose, the Globe, and the Fortune were noisy, busy, vital places, far different from today's excessively reverent theaters. I wish it were otherwise. I would be much more interested in live theater if I didn't feel that I was stepping into a museum or mausoleum. Why shouldn't we voice our approval or disapproval? A vigorous environment did not inhibit gentle Will. Nowadays we have more Awe but less Art.
I feel the same about visits to the symphony (but I'm more tolerant, especially on a Brahms or Beethoven evening). The ritual of concert-going amuses me: the various instrumentalists wandering to their places, then the concertmaster, then at last the maestro, the polite applause, the bowing, etc. There's an old story about "the man from Borneo" -- when Borneo was synonymous with the end of the earth -- who was taken to the Boston Philharmonic. After the concert, the M from B was asked, "Which part of the concert did you like best." "Before the man with the stick came on."
Yesterday I went to see our local university basketball team. It wasn't a very good game and my mind wandered to the elements of the ritual: first the warming up, then the teams leave the court, then the Star-Spangled Banner, then the overexcited introduction of the starters, ("at six five from San Bernadino California") and of course the blond perky cheerleaders with their theatrical enthusiasm and familiar tumbling routines. And the band, playing their hearts out during the TV timeouts. It's all so very schematized and overdetermined. But exciting nevertheless.
Both the symphony and the basketball game are highly ritualized, but I have to admit that on the whole, I'm more comfortable at the arena than at the concert hall. Especially when I have to cough; nothing more awkward than trying to suppress a cough during a pianissimo passage -- especially for those of us who are inordinately sensitive to social censure.
I wish the symphonies could incorporate some of the vitality of basketball. At the arena, the members of the band swing their trombones to left and right. Why couldn't the violins and violas give us a little of that? And then we have the tuba cheer, where the tubists come on court and whirl in rapid circles. What an opportunity for cellos and double-basses to show off their skill and add some visual excitement to the performance. The cheerleaders regularly climb each others' shoulders. Why not the woodwinds?
And the audiences? They can participate by eating oranges and hazelnuts. And shouting approval. "Go woodwinds!"
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