Theater Was Anything but Polite

November 23, 2016 6:46 AM

In 1801, Washington Irving wrote of attending the theater in New York City, where he was assaulted by apples, nuts and gingerbread thrown from the “gallery gods” — the people sitting in the cheap seats at the top of balcony — onto the heads of those in the audience below.

Related: Broadway Has Always Been Political

posted by roomthreeseventeen (11 comments total)

Even Pirates of Penzance was political. It opened on Broadway as a call for the US to get serious about respecting copyright.
posted by ocschwar at 7:29 AM on November 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is why you position shock troops on the Loge.
posted by clavdivs at 8:33 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

The trick was to make the top balcony seats very expensive too.
posted by fairmettle at 8:46 AM on November 23, 2016

I hear stuff like this about Ye Oldene Thymes and mostly it just makes me glad that theater-going habits have changed. I'm fine with the politeness toward other theater goers, in the general sense. If a specific person shows up in the audience who deserves derision, then of course derision he should get.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:46 AM on November 23, 2016

"The public, in the final resort, govern the stage.”

That is fucking gold.

Also weirdly hard to find original source.
posted by ethansr at 8:52 AM on November 23, 2016

Throw the gingerbread at the actors! At least then they'll have something to eat!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:44 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

However, do not throw raw fish to the chorus boys just because they look like penguins. Smells get magnified under those lights.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:48 AM on November 23, 2016

The audience frequently felt free to substitute its own voice for that of the script being spoken onstage.

A young Thomas Servo and Crowe T. Automaton with their human companion gained quite a following for their treatment of bad plays in those days.
posted by dr_dank at 10:41 AM on November 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith describes how the people in the balcony would spit on those in the more expensive seats at the neighborhood theater.

In 1999 there was a Boondocks strip in which Granddad asks Huey if he'd rather see the new Star Wars film in his old neighborhood or the new one.

When I toured the rebuilt Globe in London the guide told us that the nobility would sit behind the actors onstage and igore the dialogue.
posted by brujita at 6:03 PM on November 23, 2016

Actors and theater managers were held accountable to a vocal public — a public that did not vote merely with its feet but with eggs, rotten apples, peanut shells, pumpkins and even, according to one account, the occasional sheep carcass that was tossed onstage

The latter two items demonstrate a remarkable commitment to governing that goddamn stage. Or something.

I mean, sitting there with a sheep carcass or a pumpkin in your lap, waiting for just the right moment to throw it...

The next time I'm annoyed by someone sitting behind me clacking their dentures during a performance, I'll just thank my lucky stars that it's not someone with a dead sheep in their lap, gently stroking it and whispering "Soon...soon...."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:06 PM on November 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

someone with a dead sheep in their lap, gently stroking it and whispering "Soon...soon...."

"If Lady Bracknell doesn't freakin' nail that handbag line, well, let's just say she's gettin' mutton for Christmas. 'Handbaaag,' my ascot."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:16 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]