Editorial | The Guardian: Judging the mood of live audiences is not a science, let alone an exact one. Every performance is different. This makes it tricky to assert with confidence that there is a special atmosphere in theatres at the moment. And yet the fact of long absence from auditoriums inevitably adds an extra charge to the experience of being back in them.
2 comments:
Of course it is impossible to really measure the magic of a live audience, but the fact that audiences are palpably excited for theater now that we finally are getting it back isn’t surprising to me. Storytelling is an intrinsic part of the human experience, but the type of storytelling in our bones can’t be fully satiated by experiencing a story curated for you in a movie or a television show or a book. The storytelling passed on through instincts in us is collaborative, and sitting with an audience experiencing something right in front of you is one of the ways we modern humans get close to that style of storytelling. I think that missing it for two years then getting it again is going to create a new dynamic between audiences and performers, perhaps the line will blur further, after all shows that include the audience are often my favorite ones because its like I’m part of it.
It pains me to remember how many sacrifices have had to be made now in order to keep a show running. There is nothing like going to see a musical and feeling the orchestra below you as you watch the performers act on stage, with the lights pouring in and the costumes draping them. It makes me sad to see orchestras slowly fade away. Most productions nowadays pretty much only have a piano conductor and a track, maybe a few instruments if they are lucky. I’m not necessarily saying that “oh well let’s just get more money to fix it” because I know it's not that simple. If it were, this problem would never have existed in the first place. There’s something dynamic about having the musicians collaborate with the people back and onstage that is missing because of these cuts. Who knows, at least people are coming back which is always good news.
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