"I've been flamed big time on here for my own real opinions by the small group of bullying thought police on here, who can't fathom that people might have a different opinion than their own;"
They fathom it only too well. They just don't want to hear it, or even more important, they don't want others to hear it. That's why they try to shut you up. They HAVE to shut you up.
Perhaps they feel threatened. Maybe they're insecure. Who knows? ... Actually, who even wants to know?
Eventually, the truth will out. That prospect frightens them? So be it.
When you post your opinion, you have to expect reactions. I think most of your opinions elicit negative reactions because many of us consider them to be outrageous. This wasn't your first rodeo. You've created a persona here.
As for inception, he/she adds insults like mental defectives to describe people who appreciate art that he doesn't, to his/her opinion. He's bound to hear about that.
"Carson has combined his passion for helping children with his love for one of Cincinnati's favorite past times - cornhole - to create a unique and exciting event perfect for a corporate outing, entertaining clients or family fun."
I don't really make it a habit to go to closing performances as a rule, so I don't have the perspective to know whether every show becomes a multiple standing ovation, crazy lovefest. I don't think it is the rule. I've certainly been to final shows where the performance happened, the audience was enthusiastic, but only the curtain call became a quick standing ovation and celebration, etc.
I have been to a few final performances but I've never witnessed anything like what is being described in the Bridges thread. The only mid-show standing ovation I've ever witnessed was at the final performance of Drowsy after As We Stumble Along. I've been to closing nights where there wasn't even a speech - the cast just hugged and walked off stage.
There was a great quote on the now-cancelled Necessary Roughness on USA - "don't yuck my yum". Don't tromp all over something that I enjoy just because you don't like it. You have the right to not enjoy something and I have the right to enjoy it. I'm sure other people enjoy things that I don't. That doesn't give me the right to attack them about it. If we all liked the same things the world would be a very boring place.
"All our dreams can come true -- if we have the courage to pursue them." -- Walt Disney
We must have different Gods. My God said "do to others what you would have them do to you". Your God seems to have said "My Way or the Highway".
I did suddenly remember, at the final performance of The Beautiful Game in London, Hannah Waddingham received a lengthy standing ovation after Our Kind of Love (and rightfully so). She finally had to acknowledge the audience in order for the show to continue. It was actually rather wonderful to witness.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
There was definitely a lovefest like that at the Priscilla closing, but it was similarly joyous/festive, where the crowd latched onto a line in the show that turned into an ovation, then a louder ovation, then everyone standing, then the actors visibly getting overwhelmed a bit by the reaction, then we all sat down and the show continued.
I had someone visiting from out of town, and they had never been to a Broadway show before, so I did have to tell them this wasn't the normal reaction. They did enjoy the enthusiasm, though. I think they wanted every show to be that immersive/emotional/powerful.
But those are the only two I've ever witnessed, and I've been to way more closings than those.
In recent decades this has morphed into a sort of cultism in which adulation and veneration-- for both hits and flops -- manifest themselves in the most overwrought and over-the-top fashion: crying, cheering, becoming emotionally distraught en masse, even for ordinary, second rate, and awful shows.
Just looked into this thread for the first time, and, I'm sorry but this notion is a FRAUD.
There has ALWAYS been cultism in the theater. Over 150 years ago--when After Eight was just a baby--there was much worse "overwrought and over-the-top" behavior between the fans of American-born Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest
and his rival, the British actor William Charles Macready.
Their rivalry became so severe that it led to a riot in which 25 people were slaughtered on Astor Place, near the current Cooper Union, just a few blocks from where the Public Theater now stands.
The American Forrest had been playing Macbeth to a cultish following at the Bowery Theater.
The Astor Place Opera house booked the British Macready to perform the same role at the Astor Place Opera House.
A mob of ten thousand assembled outside the Opera House while inside Forrest fans pelted Macready with rotten eggs and old shoes.
Macready refused to go back for two nights, but a petition signed by Herman Melville and Washington Irving persuaded him to return and on May 10th, he went back onstage.
The organizers of the riot had spent the two days stirring up anti-British sentiment in the city and 20,000 angry Americans assembled outside the Opera House and began to throw bricks and cobblestones.
Police were unable to quell the riot, and the Seventh Regiment of the New York Militia was called in. When they were unable to get the crowd to disperse, they fired on the crowd, killing 25 people, including innocent bystanders.
The Opera House was renamed Clinton Hall and stood until 1890, which After Eight undoubtedly remembers well.
As you and PJ well know, I am not referring to theatregoing of 150 years ago, nor in Shakespeare's time, nor the opera, nor grand guignol puppet shows, nor anything else that is if no relevance here.
I'm talking about the conduct I witnessed at countless other shows in the past far superior to the things people are whooping and weeping over today, and where audiences enjoyed themselves thoroughly, while comporting themselves properly, courteously, and non-ostentatiously.
That's impossible! This sort of thing never happened before Wicked! Or was it Rent?
Phantom?
Les Mis?
Cats?
Oh, wait...no! I'm thinking too much. Anything more than 10 years(?)...20 years(?)...30 years(?)...40 years(?)...50 years(?) ago...doesn't count! It didn't happen! The only truth is what I choose to recall and nobody can change that with facts!
Oh, I'm reminded of the hysterical pearl-clutching over how Rock of Ages would specifically be responsible for permanently changing Broadway audience behavior AND that said behavior was the likes NEVER BEFORE WITNESSED in a Broadway house. Because Broadway was simply unclaimed vacant land before March 31, 1943.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
Wow, PJ, thank you for that brilliant post! I had no idea about that story, and found it fascinating to read.
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
He's not absurd but you're an old fogey. I am too. I'm probably older than you are, after 8. But times have changed. In many ways that I lament about. But time marches on. I'll bet it would do you some good to let loose for once and whoop and holler in a theater!
So who cares, so what? (To quote a show I'm sure you hate.)
You and I will be dead soon, my friend, DEAD. (You probably sooner then I, actuarially speaking since by all arithmetic you are 15 to 35 years older than I am.)
Are you really planning on spending the brief remainder of your life telling people who are younger than you are that things were better before they were born?
First of all, they don't care. No one cares.
Secondly, that sounds like a hideous way to spend the brief and diminishing days you (and I) have left.
Why not, instead, post about some JOY you find in life and the theater? Or a museum. Or a concert. Why do you consistently go see things you KNOW you won't like? Why not go see something you might like for a change--and try to spread a little joy about that?
Your sour-puss attitude has made you, to most the posters on this board young and old alike, a parody of yourself, a cartoon version of the Bitter Old Man--so much so that intelligent posters have wondered if you are, perhaps, a fiction, invented by someone with too much time on their hands.
BECAUSE NO ONE CAN ENVISION ACTUALLY LIVING A LIFE LIKE THE ONE YOU PAINT OF YOURSELF WITH YOUR ENDLESS KVETCHING.
The theater of every era holds riches, if you will just look for them.
Have you seen Audra as Billie Holiday yet? Have you seen Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig? Have you seen A Gentleman's Guide? (Actually, yes, you've posted favorably about that one.) Have you seen anything at 54 Below? Did you see the Sweeney with Emma Thompson--OH, SORRY! Right--it's Sondheim--you'll die before you ever admit there's any artistry there. Have you seen the performances in Raisin in the Sun? or Beautiful? or Bullets or Act One?
So what if there are problems with the writing or the direction--there are so many rich and wonderful performances to see on and off Broadway this season...SO MANY! But to post bitterly time after time after time after time that things ain't what they used to be...LET IT GO!
Which, by the way, is a terrific song: "Let It Go," written by two people who not only are among the most talented songwriters around--they're also married and they love each other and they love the theater--and isn't that WONDERFUL?
And if you don't like the way Idina sings it, go onto YouTube and look up the way Jeremy Jordan sings it...and if you don't like Jeremy Jordan, then go ask any 10-year-old girl to sing it for you, because they know the song by heart and they love it!
And if neither Jeremy Jordan or 10-year-old girls singing doesn't make you feel good, then I give up.