The recent debate over unruly audience behaviour began, very rightly, with warnings against drunken disorder in auditoriums after horror stories of rowdy musical theatre audiences taking the idea of “dancing in the aisles” a little too literally.
But fast-forward to the latest social media outcry I spotted, over popcorn-munching at the ENO’s Rhinegold, and the conversation begins to assume the same shades of class snobbery and cultural elitism that the industry is trying so hard to shake off.
Civility towards performers, staff and other audience members must surely be a requirement at any live show. We should not need a “respect campaign” as has been mooted by the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre, to remind us to be considerate, nor even a limit on the sale of alcohol which will hit theatres where it hurts: they are in economically straitened times enough as it is.
But the debate hits its toffee-nosed peak with discussion on eating in the auditorium, in my view. Crunching or chewing can be a distraction, especially in the confines of the older, tighter West End venues, but theatre is a group activity and there will always be other people’s noise in any collective space.
“The focus of a large group of people creates a unique intensity,” wrote Peter Brook about the audience, and in theatre the intensity is born out of a collective liveness. The group experience is what we come for – and that includes jostling in the foyer, coughing, rustling and, yes, eating or drinking.
So I wonder if the consternation about snacks is about the noise itself or the kind of people who eat popcorn while watching the Ring cycle? I have heard some slyly mentioning cheaper ticket schemes that bring what is insinuated as the hoi polloi into these hallowed halls and stalls.
Related to complaints about audience behaviour are moans about younger people and their mobile phones, standing ovations and even clapping between scenes. What is this criticism saying? That there are some who don’t follow the right protocols, presumably learned at finishing school?
Some have talked about the effects of the pandemic on young audiences: that they can’t sit still or go two hours without swiping their screens. Phones do not necessarily have to be the devil, if they are switched to silent and dimmed to energy saver mode. For some, they are a necessity: I went to the theatre some years ago with a friend who had been given news about a parent’s cancer diagnosis that day. Things could change by the hour, she was told, but she had come to the theatre as some respite. A man nearby barked at her when the light from her phone came on from checking for updates, which seemed like a peculiarly aggressive gesture, given the context.
More recently, a teenager sitting near me at The Merchant of Venice 1936 was reading from his phone on dimmed light at times and watching the show attentively at others. This is maybe how some young people consume culture. But his phone’s tiny light did not impinge my enjoyment so who am I to complain?
And if audience behaviour is changing, do we acknowledge that and make certain accommodations? After all, we talk of wanting pluralities in the audience – of age, class, culture. The industry, you could argue, has partly driven this change itself with the rise of relaxed performances, which retrain us in audience norms, to some degree.
Any audience, to my mind, should be mindful of the actors’ flow and concentration as well as each other but we should also remember that theatre is essentially a dialogue, and that audiences – from the ancient Greeks to those at a Christmas pantomime – remain active. Have we forgotten the apple throwers at The Rivals in RB Sheridan’s day? And what about the groundlings at the 16th-century Globe who were sold pippins, oranges, nuts, gingerbread and ale during a show? These forefathers make us look positively precious in our outrage today.
As for the popcorn at The Rhinegold, maybe those eating it could do so more quietly and we could allow them their right to enjoy it? My own most treasured memory of opera is watching La Bohème, a few years ago, at the Puccini festival in Tuscany, where Italian families were opening up tuckboxes of food. They also came and went as they pleased and spoke in muted tones. Admittedly it was a large-scale outdoor auditorium with natural acoustics, but sound arguably carries even more in such an atmosphere. The point is that no one minded, and it did not mar Angela Gheorghiu’s dazzling performance as Mimi. Group behaviour is culturally defined, and sitting among some audiences I find myself acknowledging that total silence is not the only response to a piece of theatre. Where I found a Japanese audience at a contemporary theatre in Tokyo to be extraordinarily quiet – there was no clapping even at the interval – the more voluble audience at Torre del Lago seemed just as respectful.
As someone of South Asian heritage, I know that encouraging interjections from the audience is welcomed by performers during poetry readings in Pakistan. Whoops of approval in productions such as Inua Ellams’s Three Sisters or Natasha Gordon’s Nine Night at the National Theatre also show that audience response can be culturally coded. My sister-in-law’s father, from Tennessee, recently came to London and accompanied me to Moulin Rouge!, where he exclaimed his responses and, by the interval, had made friends and found fellow Americans in a show of southern conviviality. The crowd as a whole was relaxed, some exclaiming, others quietly checking phones. It was, in fact, one of the friendliest audiences I have sat among in a long time. If live performance is about connection and the shared experience, this kind of informality can surely be part of it.
Those raising concern over rowdy behaviour have said that the worst incidents are also very rare. In which case, we don’t need an overhaul of the ice-cream stand or a protracted inquisition into who or what is to blame. But perhaps there is need for a reminder that there is more than one way of being a “good” audience.
Arifa Akbar is the Guardian’s chief theatre critic
