Sir?…Excuse me, sir? Can you hear me? Sir?
Oh, good. I see you put your hearing aids back in your ears. I saw you in the first row, taking them out 45 minutes through the show, presumably so you could sleep undisturbed.
In the first row.
So you wouldn’t have to hear the actors… despite sitting in the first row.
Everyone saw you do that. At least, everyone on my side of the theater. The theater is set up so that one half of the audience is seated facing the other.
And you, sir, were seated in the first freaking row.
We also saw you poke, pester, and complain to the woman seated next to you, presumably your wife–someone obliged to put up with your childish bullshit. She smiled at your snarky eye-rolls, your audible sighs and groans, your angry shrugs and leg-crossing. The person on your other side also seemed to patiently endure your immature antics. You likely felt it more important for them to hear your reckless displays of old-man annoyance than the dialogue on stage.
And to top it all off, during a quiet moment just 20 seconds before the play’s final line, you loudly stated, “This is Hell!” for the whole theater to hear. My mouth went wide. You were a mere two feet away from the actors. You made their bows very uncomfortable.
At no point did anyone in the audience tap you on the shoulder and ask you to be more respectful. At no point did the Signature Theater staff find your behavior worth noting. If you were a person of color, a 35 year old woman, or a teenager, your actions would have been met with more policing. That, sir, to use the million dollar buzzword, is privilege.
When I arrived to my seat in the theater that evening, an elderly couple to my right was in the middle of a conversation about how young people have no theater etiquette. “It’s a shame,” the husband said. “No one teaches them how to behave anymore.” Woe to us, the lost generation! Alas, the under-30 audiences who just can’t seem to understand that live performance entails shutting your trap for 90 minutes and putting away your phones!
Never mind that every time a cell phone goes off during a performance, I can safely bet that the culprit’s a Blanche Devereaux look-alike with brightly-hued hair, or a large Rex Tillerson type with one of those snap phone cases attached to his belt. Never mind that I’ve seen middle school groups behave with more courtesy and enthusiasm than some season subscribers. No, it’s the young ones who ruin it all.
Everyone was talking about your rude behavior on their way out of the theater, but to my surprise they didn’t condemn it. A group of friends nearly jumped at each other with big smiles and jaws dropped, recapping the awkward final moments of the show. I saw a chance to commiserate and quickly summed up my thoughts (a basic 10-second summary of this article). They replied, “Well I thought it was hilarious.”
It takes a village to ruin a curtain call.
Now look, sir. I know what it’s like to hate a show. You just happened to attend a play by the notoriously divisive Annie Baker. Her stuff’s not for everyone. But that’s the extent of my sympathy for you here. Unlike her longer plays, “The Antipodes” clocks in at a mere 90 minutes, so let’s not presume that it was a terrible test of your stamina. That shouldn’t matter. I’ve longed for many an hour of my life back, finding the dirt under my fingernails far more attractive than whatever plodding development was happening on stage. But I’ve maintained a semblance of adult composure, at least until intermission when I wake myself up with some candy, or in worst cases, quietly leave the show.
If there are rules to spectatorship, and I want as few of them as possible, they would be: 1) respect the rest of the audience and 2) respect the actors. You got away with breaking both of these rules because your behavior was perceived as entertaining. Because you’re in a position of power to judge others and not turn that judgment on yourself. Because the staff and audience of the theater doesn’t see your presence in the theater as an anomaly or an intrusion.
I hope your future experiences at the theater are happier, for your sake and mine…and the actors’. In the mean time, I hope I’ll have something ready to say the next time some old, white person complains about my generation’s rude, undignified behavior.
Update: I’m shutting down comments after leaving them open for about a week. I started feeling like they were a bit repetitive and some were quite hateful. I took them seriously, even the hateful ones, and responded to them with as much seriousness and thought as I could muster.
lettersfromthemezz.com 
May 14, 2017 at 9:39 am
I understand the point of your little story, which is to call out someone for not following proper theatre ediquette. Having been both on stage and in the audience numerous times, nothing is worse than a rotten apple such as that guy.
But you shamelessly used it to throw in race bait and make it about how “white people are the worst”.
I don’t know if you do that often (I found a link to this piece via Facebook) but if you want a website dedicated to politics, I would recommend a site name change. It’s hard enough to attract new people to the beauty of live theatre, and it’s social stigma like this that makes my average everyday white friends think it’s not for them.
I look forward to reading your other articles, I just hope you can keep it about theatre.
May 14, 2017 at 10:44 am
Hi, thanks for taking the time to comment.
I don’t make a generalization like “white people are the worst” in the article. I did when I shared it on my personal site, but that was a little cheeky. What I DO do is contextualize this man’s behavior within a space where race and age are already being used to judge/evaluate certain theater goers. I’m just flipping the tables a bit.
As for your white friends and my branding problem, I care more about the latter than the former. It’s possible that my blog description needs a little retouching, but for me the arts and politics are already deeply entwined. Your white friends can read it if they want, or if they’d like to hear someone else’s perspective on theater than the folks at NYT or Broadway.com or w/e. I know plenty of people yearning for more diverse and critical theater coverage than what’s already being provided. I don’t see how my post would deter anyone from seeing The Antipodes or live theater in general. We keep saying we want to bring younger, more diverse audiences to the theater, but then we offer them the type of treatment that alienates them and belittles them
May 14, 2017 at 9:51 am
So did YOU say something to him? Or just write a passive aggressive post on the internet later on?
May 15, 2017 at 10:59 am
Joe’s already defended me on this below, but I’d also add that even if I did have the opportunity to confront the man personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a “passive aggressive” post (my definition of passive aggressive is different than what I’m doing, which is clearly stating my feelings about it). Isn’t that what writers and critics do? Publicly addressing situations and behaviors and exploring it in a distanced space, whether it’s a blog or a newspaper or a book? There’s clearly more to your judgment of this post than what you’re accusing me of.
May 14, 2017 at 10:14 am
She states in her piece that she was seated on the opposite side of the theater from him. Was she supposed to scream across the theater during the show?
May 14, 2017 at 10:35 am
This is ignorance from a racist ass. I am 100% for audience etiquette. BUT…. Suppose that white man had Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia and his wife brought them both out for a tiny breather from the daily stresses and non-stop caregiving years, months, weeks, days, hours, seconds. Get your facts before you judge others. Don’t be so narcissistic and selfish. Yours is rude, undignified behavior.
May 14, 2017 at 10:55 am
Hi, thanks for taking the time to comment. There are plenty of reasons why this man could’ve been behaving the way he did. And I think your impulse to give him the benefit of the doubt is good. I’d hope you’d do the same for others, because I consistently hear how terrible other audience members of a certain race, age, or class are without this benefit.
It was not my impression that this man was anything but a grumpy person who clearly wanted to leave. And he was more or less free to do so.
I also think the most important part of this post is it’s contextualization within an already discriminatory space where young, diverse audiences don’t always feel welcome.
May 14, 2017 at 1:46 pm
As a young Black actress and regular theatre attendee, thank you.
May 15, 2017 at 10:53 am
=)
May 14, 2017 at 4:21 pm
This article could just as easily been written – and been just as powerful -without using the words “old” or “white.”
May 14, 2017 at 7:31 pm
Thanks for taking the time to comment. To ignore the race and age factors in this situation would have been negligent. This mans behavior makes more sense to me when contextualized in this discussion
May 14, 2017 at 9:14 pm
It couldn’t have. This is explicitly an article about demographics.
May 14, 2017 at 5:11 pm
Jesus Christ I’ve never seen more racism than from people who claim to be fighting for equality. You are doing more harm to your cause than you could ever possibly understand. And this is coming from a hardcore alt-liberal, Bernie loving democratic socialist.
May 14, 2017 at 7:28 pm
I’m not sure how it’s racist to acknowledge and criticize an already racialized space like the theater where young, diverse audiences regularly feel unwelcome.
May 14, 2017 at 5:42 pm
The author is right- it is almost always older white people who exhibit the worst behavior at the theatre, and yet suffer no consequences, all the while constantly complaining that it’s young people that don’t know how to conduct themselves. To all of you crying “racism” or “reverse racism” or whatever the fuck- the point is that because of this man’s age, race and gender, he is coddled and indulged in his terrible, rude behavior, whilst people who are younger, browner and female-er are constantly and openly shamed and literally policed for much less. The fight for equality demands that we acknowledge inequality when we see it. But I have yet to meet a “hardcore alt-liberal, Bernie-loving democratic socialist” who is comfortable doing so when it comes to examining the privileges of white men, so this comment is unsurprising. And this is coming from a hardcore feminazi cunt. xo
May 14, 2017 at 5:47 pm
P.S. When I saw The Antipodes, an old white man TWICE approached the wall of La Croix on the set before the show started and started pulling out the cases and trying to open them. There was an actor sitting on the set seven feet away from him. When a house manager finally approached, he merely removed the case of seltzer from the man’s hands and put it back where it belonged. People giggled. The man was never reprimanded or even spoken to, and was permitted to sit down and watch the play. I was incensed.
May 15, 2017 at 10:53 am
oh boy. I’d love to hear this discussion from the actors’ POV. I’m sure they put up with way worse than most.
May 15, 2017 at 7:14 am
Thank you for this. I am a black actress who has been treated like crap and reprimanded by older white theater patrons from just taking my seat because they assumed I didn’t know how to behave in a theater. And like you said, most of the time when I have witnessed atrocious behavior it’s been from that very demographic.
May 15, 2017 at 10:52 am
Yup. I’ve seen firsthand how differently younger people of color are treated like obnoxious children in the theater and some of them no longer go because they hate the environment.
May 15, 2017 at 8:37 am
I empathize with both sides of this… as a performer and an audience member. But you lost credibility with me as soon as you used ageism and racism to underscore your point. Bad behavior is bad behavior, no?
Great writing, and especially blogging, can and should be provocative — but this was… mean. You are entitled to your opinion and it is your prerogative to use your platform as you see fit, but as a first-time reader of your writing, I don’t think I will be looking forward to more of your posts .
May 15, 2017 at 10:49 am
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I don’t see how it’s racist or ageist of me to show the very real ways in which age and race manifest themselves in terms of how audience members are treated or discriminated against. My purpose here was not to complain about one singular instance of rude behavior but to contextualize it within an already racialized space that makes young, diverse audiences feel alienated.
May 15, 2017 at 1:06 pm
Thank you for writing this. Please don’t pay any more attention to the willfully ignorant–or blissfully contrarian–people who are going to try and drag you by throwing around terms like “reverse racism”. What you’re bringing up is a very valid point. Theater is built on a perceived message of inclusivity, yet theater audiences have remained largely homogeneous, and it’s not hard to see why anyone who isn’t a middle-class-or-higher white person may feel unwelcome in a theater audience. This is confounded by the fact that older white people frequently engage in bad audience behavior–talking, cell phones, candy wrappers, crinkling of plastic bags, etc–without repercussion, whereas a people of color have been scolded for laughing or clapping too loud at a show (read Dominique Morriseau’s essay on this topic for American Theatre Magazine if you haven’t already). And that says nothing of the constant gaslighting of the younger generation that you mention in your article.
As long as mostly older, mostly white audience members are given de facto carte blanche to behave however they want in the theater, articles like this will continue to be relevant.
May 15, 2017 at 5:14 pm
Thanks for writing this.
I’ve noticed that frequently the more typically privileged the audience member — and I say this as a white person — the worse their audience behavior is. I don’t think it’s malicious, I think they’re not used to being in spaces or situations where their needs are not prioritized. They pay for a receive a lot of services and they think that entitles them to receive a pleasurable experience. They have no practice deferring to other people’s comfort or other people’s dignity. The most egregious audiences I’ve experienced have been older white audiences in shows where the ticket prices were sky high. You would think they would Honor the sense of occasion — since they clearly had paid and participated to get there — but it was almost the opposite.
Part of the problem is that these people’s bad behavior isn’t checked — they aren’t made to see themselves from a different point of view — and so they continue to perpetrate it.
This is obviously not true of All white people or All old people Obviously but it’s a pretty common trend I’ve noticed across different performing arts mediums.
Sorry this guy was a nightmare
May 20, 2017 at 7:01 pm
Dear Cupcake-
You are not a part of the solution- you are part of the problem.
I am an asian female (Korean to be precise).
You clearly have an ax to grind- which is your prerogative. But when you act in a racist way….guess what? It makes you a racist. And you are a racist.
I could complain about the group of black high school students who ruined HAMLET for me by texting, making out and talking though the show. But their race was not the issue: their manners were. I could complain about the hispanic male at MISS SAIGON who asked me if my “asian ass knew its way around a pole like the hos onstage.” His race was not the issue- his misogyny was.
The rude, older white man you write about did not call someone the “n” word or tell you to pick some cotton. He was rude. You obviously have deeply rooted animosity toward white people- especially men.
People of color are being killed by the police on a regular basis and not being held accountable. The people of Flint are STILL drinking poisoned water. Women (especially those of color) are raped and devalued hourly. There are ALL these problems and you feel justified in spewing your bile that tells us more about you?
You have a persecution problem. As you defend the electronic fecal matter you spew as you keep going back to this Fox News-like phrase:
“I also think the most important part of this post is it’s contextualization within an already discriminatory space where young, diverse audiences don’t always feel welcome.”
“I’m not sure how it’s racist to acknowledge and criticize an already racialized space like the theater where young, diverse audiences regularly feel unwelcome. ”
Were you forced to sit in a special balcony for “coloreds only”? Was there a special water fountain?
I’m guessing “no”- and I’m sure you’ll reply some drivel about “an already discriminatory space where young, diverse audiences don’t always feel welcome” in my response- because after all, asians are to be devalued (you know, like Chris Rock did at the Oscars? I did not call him BLACK Chris Rock because the color of his skin wasn’t the problem- it was his casual racism.)
You are NOT anyone else. You are you. You could write a play about how it feels to part of be a young, diverse generation looking to art for inspiration and solace. Or you can continue to pat yourself on the back for being so special and superior.
If I “wrote” as you did and had a headline about “Young Black Urban Teens”, I’d be raked across the coals. Prejudice is prejudice and you, my dear, are as guilty of racial bias as any police officer stopping a middle easterner for looking arabic. The theatre has led the way for racial inclusion in ways no other art from has. Perhaps you should spend less on tickets and more on therapy.
When you watch a role written for your ethnicity given to a black actress yet know you will never be seen in “Fences”, when you’ve been refused entrance to a theatre because of the color of your skin or your age, be sure to let us know. Till then- shut up. (Oh, and when you eat candy while bored at a theatre- does your wrapper annoy anyone? Because should someone older or white complain- it would just be another example of how special and persecuted you are in an already discriminatory space where young, diverse audiences don’t always feel welcome)
May 20, 2017 at 8:15 pm
Well now. What a comment. I think you’re crucially wrong in a few ways:
1) You seem to think that there has to be explicitly racist actions (like a “coloreds only” sign) in order for a space to permit or condone racially-charged behaviors. I don’t believe that is true, and I think you agree with me especially since you cite many instances of this happening.
2) You seem to think I think that this man was racist. I don’t. He was not racist to anyone. I also do not say that he was rude BECAUSE he is white. I do not say that all white men are rude. What I DO say in my article is that he has the privileges that come with being white and male because his rudeness was not addressed by other audience members or the staff.
3) You ignore the part where I mention that the discussion about theater etiquette tends to blame young people, and particularly colored people. My targeting of this white old person exists inside this conversation. I think it’s absolutely pointless to discuss race outside of the power relationships it allows.
4) If you wrote about the way a hispanic male stereotyped asians (to use your example) and then started ranting about how all hispanics should never be allowed in the theater, then yes, that would be racist. But my treatment of this situation works because a- I don’t grossly condemn a whole race of people and b- because this interaction exists within a power dynamic with a clear history and context. I don’t think it’s wrong of me to point out this man’s race or age, because race and age is exactly what these situations are founded on.