sit down, would ya!?

I attended Richard III at the Great River Shakespeare Festival last night. It was a good show. Well done. There were a couple moments when I fought off sleep (did I mention it was Richard III?) but overall it was quite engaging.

Actually, my only point of contention regarding the performance itself was the end battle scene which I felt just fell flat, and the famous "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse" line seemed to come from nowhere and with no purpose.

I actually had a bigger problem with the audience, and this is something I've been noticing quite a bit, lately. They gave the performance a standing ovation. I'm not sure I could tell you the last time I went to a show where the audience DIDN'T give a standing ovation. (Help me out here, Kootch...did you guys get one for Rumors? I seem to think you did.)

Now I was raised to think of a standing ovation as a special honor for a truly spectacular performance. The best you've ever seen. Today we give standing ovations for our kids' recitals. Why do we do this?

Last night's show was good. But I expected it to be a fairly high quality production (that's how they have imaged themselves) and while they didn't disappoint, they didn't exceed my expectation, either. It was not the best production of Richard III I've ever seen, and even if I'd never seen Richard III before, it was not the best producion in general that I've ever seen. And yet, of course, the vast majority of the audience almost immediately gave them a standing ovation. Now, except for the lady to my immediae right, who clapped her hands as if she were a non-swimmer trying to tread water, and who actually was yelling "Bravo," it was probably not the best production most of these other people saw, either. But there is first that herd mentality happening. 'Other people are standing, I'd better stand, too.' And there is a perceived perception that one generally does stand up at the end of a play today.

I'm here to say, "Sit down!"

You don't really honor anyone or encourage their best work when you offer the highest praise all the time.

I had a vociferous conversation with a parent at our dance school about this. She's always the first to jump up to offer a standing ovation to the kids in the dance programs. She said, "As a mom, I know these are just kids, and I know they've worked so hard and they deserve a little gratitude." I agreed, but added that not a single one of those kids exceed our expectations. In fact, many of them came in below what we pushed for. Did we expect a lot? Absolutely. Did we expect more than they were capable of? Not if they worked hard. Certainly they deserved our praise, but not our honors.

It's tough, keeping your ass in the chair when everyone around you is standing. I'm sure that those near me must think I'm an intolerable curmudgeon (and maybe I am), but let's save the standing ovations for those times when we truly are awed by a performance or blown away by a production.

As you sit here now, can you recall ever seeing a play that absolutely amazed you? Where you couldn't stop thinking about it afterward? That's the play you should stand for. For everything else...applaud.

Now maybe, for some people last night, the production touched them, and it was the best thing they've ever seen. Great. Then by all means, stand up! Let the actors know! But for the rest of the herd...SIT DOWN!