Theatre Manners

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Title:     Theatre Manners
Author: George William Curtis [More Titles by Curtis]

An admirable actress said the other day that the audience in the theatre was probably little aware how much its conduct affected the performance. A listless, whispering, uneasy house makes a distracted and ineffective play. To an orator, or an actor, or an artist of any kind who appeals personally to the public, nothing is so fatal as indifference. In the original Wallack's Theatre, many years ago, the Easy Chair was one of a party in a stage-box during a fine performance of one of the plays in which the acting of the manager was most effective. It was a gay party, and with the carelessness of youth it made merry while the play went on. As the box was directly upon the stage, the merriment was a gross discourtesy, although unintentional, both to the actors and to the audience; and at last the old Wallack, still gayly playing his part, moved towards the box, and without turning his head, in a voice audible to the offenders but not to the rest of the audience, politely reminded the thoughtless group that they were seriously disturbing the play. There was some indignation in the box, but the rebuke was courteous and richly deserved. Nothing is more unpardonable than such disturbance.

During this winter a gentleman at one of the theatres commented severely upon the loud talking of a party of ladies, which prevented his enjoyment of the play, and when the gentleman attending the ladies retorted warmly, the disturbed gentleman resorted to the wild justice of a blow. There was an altercation, a publication in the newspapers, and finally an apology and a reconciliation. But it is to be hoped that there was some good result from the incident. A waggish clergyman once saw a pompous clerical brother march quite to the head of the aisle of a crowded church to find a seat, with an air of expectation that all pew-doors would fly open at his approach. But as every seat was full, and nobody stirred, the crestfallen brother was obliged to retrace his steps. As he retreated by the pew, far down the aisle, where the clerical wag was sitting, that pleasant man leaned over the door, and greeted his comrade with the sententious whisper, "May it be sanctified to you, dear brother!" Every right-minded man will wish the same blessing to the rebuke of the loud-talking maids and youths in theatres and concert-halls, whose conversation, however lively, is not the entertainment which their neighbors have come to hear.

Two or three winters ago the Easy Chair applauded the conduct of Mr. Thomas, who, at the head of his orchestra, was interrupted in the midst of a concert in Washington by the entry of a party, which advanced towards the front of the hall with much chattering and rustling, and seated themselves and continued the disturbance. The orchestra was in full career, but Thomas rapped sharply upon his stand, and brought the performance to an abrupt pause. Then, turning to the audience, he said--and doubtless with evident and natural feeling: "I am afraid that the music interrupts the conversation." The remark was greeted with warm and general applause; and, waiting until entire silence was restored, the conductor raised his baton again, and the performance ended without further interruption.

The Easy Chair improved the occasion to preach a short sermon upon bad manners in public places. But to its great surprise it was severely rebuked some time afterward by Cleopatra herself, who said, with some feeling, that she had two reasons for complaint. The first was, that her ancient friend the Easy Chair should place her in the pillory of its public animadversion; and the other was, that the Easy Chair should gravely defend such conduct as that of Mr. Thomas. No remonstrance could be more surprising and nothing more unexpected than that Cleopatra should differ in opinion upon such a point. To the personal aspect of the matter the Easy Chair could say only that it had never heard who the offenders were, and that it declined to believe that Cleopatra herself could ever be guilty of such conduct. Her Majesty then explained that she was not guilty. She was not of the party. But it was composed of friends of hers who seated themselves near her, and when the words of Mr. Thomas concentrated the gaze of the audience upon the disturbers of the peace, her Majesty, known to everybody, was supposed to be the ringleader of the _emeute_. The story at once flew abroad, upon the wings of those swift birds of prey--as she called them--the Washington correspondents, and she was mentioned by name as the chief offender.

It was not difficult to persuade the most placable of queens that the Easy Chair could not have intended a personal censure. But the Chair could not agree that Thomas's conduct was unjustifiable. Cleopatra urged that the conductor of an orchestra at a concert is not responsible for the behavior of the audience. An audience, she said, can take care of itself, and it is an unwarrantable impertinence for a conductor to arrest the performance because he is irritated by a noise of whispering voices or of slamming doors. "I saw you, Mr. Easy Chair," she said, "on the evening of Rachel's first performance in this country. What would you have thought if she had stopped short in the play--it was Corneille's _Les Horaces_, you remember--because she was annoyed by the rustling of the leaves of a thousand books of the play which the audience turned over at the same moment?"

The Easy Chair declined to step into the snare which was plainly set in its sight. It would not accept an illustration as an argument. The enjoyment at a concert, it contended, for which the audience has paid in advance, and to which it is entitled, depends upon conditions of silence and order which it can not itself maintain without serious disturbance. It may indeed cry "Hush!" and "Put him out!" but not only would that cry be of doubtful effect, but experience proves that a concert audience will not raise it. If the audience were left to itself, it would permit late arrivals, and all the disturbance of chatter and movement. To twist the line of Goldsmith, those who came to pray would be at the mercy of those who came to scoff; and such mercy is merciless. The conductor stands _in loco parentis_. He is the _advocatus angeli_. He does for the audience what it would not do for itself. He protects it against its own fatal good-nature. He insists that it shall receive what it has paid for, and he will deal with disturbers as they deserve. The audience, conscious of its own good-humored impotence, recognizes at once its protector, and gladly applauds him for doing for it what it has not the nerve to do for itself. No audience whose rights were defended as Thomas defended those of his Washington audience ever resented the defence.

"No," responded Cleopatra, briskly; "the same imbecility prevents."

"Very well; then such an audience plainly needs a strong and resolute leadership; and that is precisely what Thomas supplied. A crowd is always grateful to the man who will do what everybody in the crowd feels ought to be done, but what no individual is quite ready to undertake."

When Cleopatra said that an audience is quite competent to take care of itself, her remark was natural, for she instinctively conceived the audience as herself extended into a thousand persons. Such an audience would certainly be capable of dispensing with any mentor or guide. But when the Easy Chair asked her if she was annoyed by the chattering interruption which Thomas rebuked, she replied that of course she was annoyed. Yet when she was further asked if she cried "Hush!" or resorted to any means whatever to quell the disturbance, the royal lady could not help smiling as she answered, "I did not," and the Easy Chair retorted, "Yet an audience is capable of protecting itself!"

Meanwhile, whatever the conductor or the audience may or may not do, nothing is more vulgar than audible conversation, or any other kind of disturbance, during a concert. Sometimes it may be mere thoughtlessness; sometimes boorishness, the want of the fine instinct which avoids occasioning any annoyance; but usually it is due to a desire to attract attention and to affect superiority to the common interest. It is, indeed, mere coarse ostentation, like wearing diamonds at a hotel table or a purple velvet train in the street. If the audience had the courage which Cleopatra attributed to it, that part which was annoyed by the barbarians who chatter and disturb would at once suppress the annoyance by an emphatic and unmistakable hiss. If this were the practice in public assemblies, such incidents as that at the Washington concert would be unknown. Until it is the practice, even were Cleopatra's self the offender, every self-respecting conductor who has a proper sense of his duties to the audience will do with its sincere approval what Mr. Thomas did.

(_April_, 1883)

[The end]
George William Curtis's essay: Theatre Manners

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