Enough with the standing ovations!
May 24, 2012, 10:52 AM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 1:37 pm
Just another standing |
Whether it’s a painfully poor local Shakespeare company
or a national tour, it seems like audiences automatically
offer up standing ovations for even the most mundane of
performances.
It’s gotten so bad, a New York
Times writer was
prompted to write at his amazement when he went to a
recent show and there wasn’t a standing ovation.
“It has absolutely become devalued,” observes 97.3 KIRO
FM’s John Curley, filling in for Luke on the Ross and
Burbank show.
Curley, a trained actor with extensive major theater
experience, believes it’s become reflective of audience
emotions, not their respect for performance that prompts
the automatic ovations.
“The audience so much wants to be liked by one another
and also by the actors themselves that they give that over
and it almost has no value. It’s almost like tipping a
barista. What am I giving you a dollar for?!”
Audiences also are guilty of group think, according to
Curley.
“I did a little research on this (standing ovations).
Once one fifth of the audience stands, the others feel
they
need to stand.”
Some are simply heading briskly for the exit, counters
co-host Dave Ross, himself a trained thespian who
regularly performs with the Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan
Society. And while not tooting his own horn, he does
think actors who make greater sacrifices deserve a
standing ovation despite the quality of the performance
(which of course, in the case of his company would never
be in question.)
“I think, for example, Gilbert and Sullivan deserves a
standing ovation because all the actors, in addition to
putting on a great performance, have also had to hold down
their day jobs during the intense three month rehearsal
process,” Ross says.
Curley says some actors deserve a standing ovation
based solely on the body of their career work, such as
when he saw the great Christopher Plummer perform in
Othello.
“And he wasn’t necessarily that great. It was a
matinee performance but it didn’t matter. It was
Christopher Plummer and you were there with Christopher
Plummer in the theater,” Curley says.
Luckily for Curley it’s not always an issue when he
performs.
“I have been in a play where the audience has walked out
and there was no one left in the theater. People would
leave and eventually there would be no one seated there
anymore and we would stop acting,” Curley laughs.
Josh Kerns/My Northwest.com
