Seating at Network

[220Basswood]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 9:34pm

Someone posted in response to a another person's post that so much of the orchestra is obstructed and the person suggested sitting on the stage.

I am buying tickets this week and am now concerned because I was going to purchase center orchestra.

Can people who have seen the show tell me if center orchestra is obstructed? 

 

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 9:39pm

Obstructed is a vague term for this show. Someone with a camera may be directly in front of you blocking your view while Harold is doing the show... but what they are shooting is on a huge screen upstage, and on small screens all around the theater, so... do you consider that obstructed? It is not a normal proscenium show where a chair is put down and an actor sits there blocking a certain vantage point for 20% of the show.

I sat in row E, center orchestra, on the hour right aisle, and don't feel I missed a thing.

[Miles2Go2]

Posted: 1/30/19 at 1:51pm

Is today the first time Network has popped up at TKTS? If it keeps popping up, I’m going to regret redeeming all those Audience Rewards points plus cash to see it in two weeks.

[Mike Barrett]

Posted: 1/30/19 at 2:34pm

I bought awhile back, but in the first row all the way over on stage right, the last seat was an $89 seat, I snatched it. Is the front row on the left (as you face the stage) a bad view?

[JBC3]

Posted: 1/30/19 at 3:32pm

Saw everything fine from L114

[Miles2Go2]

Posted: 1/30/19 at 3:57pm

So you were center orchestra? I’m right orchestra L18. I’ve been assured that most of what I can’t see on stage, I can see on the multiple monitors in the theater.

Posted: 1/30/19 at 5:34pm

After every show I see, i write a review (just for myself, i'm not a writer). SInce so many people are asking about seating, I'll post here that part of my review since it focuses on the seating. Hopefully someone finds it helpful. Here's what i wrote after I saw it 2-3 weeks ago:

 

While normal shows define partial view as not being able to fully see the action on the stage, here that does not apply for then every seat would be partial view. Rather partial view refers to not being able to fully see the main video screen. In fact, that video screen is what the entire production revolves around. If you’re being charitable, you’d commend Van Hove for the meta of it (doesn’t it make sense that a show revolving around the shallow importance of television/ratings over humanity would revolve its production around a video screen?). If you’re being less charitable, you’d say it’s a gimmick and in fact the entire show is a gimmick. One such gimmick is placing the production booth far left and the eating audience far right. I imagine viewers fairly quickly get the idea of television as dinner theater as opposed to a tool for the serious dissemination of information. The problem is that the dinner theater is of course on stage for 100% of the time when its point was made in the countdown before the show starts. To make the show further meta, some of the eating patrons look rather bored and uninterested, perhaps mirroring the way I myself look sometimes while sitting at home watching TV. In fact, I can easily see an argument that onstage seating is the among the worst since it seems pretty obstructed but if you’re looking at it from that aforementioned meta-standpoint, here are people willing to shell top-dollar for an obstructed view just so they can have their (literal) fifteen minutes on the big screen. What’s more Network than that?

Aside from the stage seating, if you’re in the center of the audience you probably get a solid view of the production booth on the left side and the food on the right side but even they are probably looking at the video screen for much of the show. That’s ok though because, other than the one powerful I’m mad as hell scene that everyone will love, the video screen is in fact the show. As for the far left side of the audience, I’ll estimate it at 20%-25% of the overall audience, well they can’t get a good view of the production booth as it’s far left and facing sideways. Not to worry, though, a camera man is standing there filming so you can see everything on that wonderful TV screen and that’s what it’s all about anyway. And as for the right side of the theater? the full production booth is facing them but there’s a cameraman in front of it filming it for the left side so depending on where a right side audience member is sitting, he might not be able to see much either (except for the video screen, they can see the video screen, did I mention that it’s the most important thing anyway?)

Directly after I saw the show I lamented my view which was in the middle of left orchestra and thought if I had been on the right side I would have had a better view and enjoyed the show more. After some thought though, I realized that I actually had the “perfect” view in that I had the view that Van Hove meant the audience to have because the screen isn’t there so you can look at it when your view is blocked, it’s there for you to look at all the time.

Updated On: 1/30/19 at 05:34 PM

[LLW2]

Posted: 1/30/19 at 5:43pm

I loved that review! I wish you would post your entire review even if you wrote it only for yourself.

[JBC3]

Posted: 1/30/19 at 6:46pm

There are so many screens that it would be hard to miss much of the show ... even when you will want to because the book is so bad and the performances other than Cranston's are so weak.