Pet Peeves

For a truly memorable night at the theater, there are a few guidelines to consider.

By: Stuart Duncan
   A long time ago, in fact in 405 B.C., Aristophanes had one of his characters ask the question: "Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, at which the audience never fail to laugh?" (It was in Frogs.)
   Well, playwrights are still cracking the same tired jokes and audiences are still laughing, but in the process we apparently are spawning a country of television-saturated nomads who think nothing of arriving late, wandering around the lobby rather than taking their assigned seats and frequently snoozing once they do sit down.
   A few years back, the opening-night reviewers attempted to rebel against the consistently late curtains in New Brunswick. At exactly 20 minutes after the announced curtain time, the man from The New York Times stood up and marched up the aisle toward the doors. Roughly 20 others did the same. We were met by concerned ushers and a few of the staff, assured the show would start immediately. Sure enough, in less than a minute it did, leaving about a third of the audience in the lobby.
   It hasn’t improved much since then. Shows in New Brunswick seem to hold opening-night curtains forever. McCarter Theatre in Princeton is starting to catch the disease as well. Contrast that habit with Hopewell’s Off-Broadstreet or Actors’ NET of Bucks County across the river in Morrisville, Pa. Never a split second late.
   If you wish to try a little experiment, get opening-night tickets (not a bad idea anyway — you get the opportunity of making up your own mind before some hack tells you what you should think — and often there is an opening-night party you can talk your way into).
   At precisely the hour (usually 8 p.m.) take a good look at how many are in their seats. If it is a professional theater, chances are all the reviewers are there (by tradition) and perhaps even half the audience.
   Television manners also seem to control behavior at the outdoor summer sites. By far, the worst is Washington Crossing Park and its attractive theater. There the emphasis is on families, and parades of urchins insist on marching up and down the aisles during the show, either on their way to the still-open snack bar or to the facilities because of their visits to the aforementioned snack bar.
   Talking in the audience is more rare, however. One dinner-theater performance was completely ruined this past year when a table of inebriated patrons felt that their dialogue was funnier than that of the actors on stage. I still have wonderful memories of a performance many years ago at McCarter that bears repeating.
   It was back in the days when the University still ran the theater (before Emily Mann and Nagel Jackson, even before Dan Selzer and Milt Lyons). The touch of the University on the arts, in those days, was deadly. It was a production of Oedipus Rex, and the translation was by Robert Flagles, who much later would come up with a terrific translation of The Odyssey. The set looked as if it might have been transferred from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, reaching far up into the heights.
   A local actor of considerable note, Karl Light, was playing the title role, and he was strong and confident. We reached the point where he was to introduce his new wife, Jocata, to the Greek chorus. He climbed the flight of stairs to the massive wooden doors. They opened, and out stepped Etienne Sturhahn ("Pat" to all her many friends) as Jocasta.
   Now my wife and I were sitting in the midst of a gaggle of University secretaries, comped into the performance to make the "house" look bigger. Karl came to the line, where he announced his new wife, and one of the girls a few rows ahead of us blurted out: "His wife? My God, she looks old enough to be his mother."
   I’m sorry, I lost it. That’s what comes of knowing how the darn thing ends. I made a promise to stick to laughing at the stale jokes on stage.