I sat next to the most perfectly expressive old lady at Next to Normal this week!
Usually I’m annoyed at anyone who goes beyond clapping or an out-loud laugh, but for some reason I totally fell in love with this octegenarian, who had such gorgeous, honest reactions that I didn’t mind at all that they were loud.
If I was choosing a show for my 80-year-old grandmother to see, I imagine that Next to Normal wouldn’t be first on my list. While it's one of my favorite musicals – I’ve seen it six times now – I figure Grandma would probably prefer something like The Phantom of the Opera or A Little Night Music (i.e., a show with considerably fewer instances of the F-word). But, I think my mind has changed by the tiny lady in my row the other night; she was my Grandma’s age, and didn’t miss a beat. She even laughed heartily at language that was admittedly clever, but also most definitely risqué, which made me laugh along with her.
I was delighted that this LOL (Little Old Lady) managed to react in a way that was audible without interrupting my enjoyment of Next to Normal. During the applause following Marin Mazzie’s “I Miss the Mountains,” she turned to her seat partner and said aloud “My goodness, isn’t she WONDERFUL!” When the family’s secret was revealed in the birthday cake scene, most of the audience sat in stunned silence – but the LOL grabbed her chest and uttered a gasp audible enough to cut through the theatre, indicating just how deeply absorbed she was into the world of the show. During “Didn’t I See this Movie,” she was doubled over with laughter, nudging the woman she had come with, obviously catching the references to Frances Farmer, Sylvia Plath, and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest". And in perhaps the most touching moment of all, when the curtain came up for bows, LOL grasped the armrests and pulled herself up to shaky feet, shouting “Bravo!” while wiping away tears. I didn’t know which to watch, the actors bowing or this woman who was so completely taken with their performances. I felt proud that N2N had attracted such a devoted and engaged member of the audience, and it reminded me that our fellow viewer can make, as often as break, a theatre-going experience.
I'm also reminded of a group I met the first time I saw Passing Strange, during that show's first week of previews on Broadway. There were five of us in total, and in fact we met in the lottery line down the street at In the Heights. All of us were disappointed not to get picked to see Heights, but we had begun chatting while we waited for the drawing, and decided to go en masse to see if we could get five tickets to something else. We were a motley bunch: two college-student gay boys, a pair of middle-aged tourists, and me. We dubbed ourselves "The Unlikely Theatre Club," and traipsed gleefully en masse over to Strange. None of us knew much about the show, but we happily forked over our money and settled into our orchestra seats. And by intermission, we were all holding hands, weeping and marveling over this incredible piece of theatre.
Fans - myself included, I'll admit – spend a lot of time complaining about audience members who get on our nerves. The chair-kickers, the sing-along-ers, the candy-crinklers, the (shudder) cell-phone-answerers. Once, I sat next to a woman who, in a distinctly “outdoor voice,” translated the entirety of RENT into Italian for a non-English-speaking friend. On another occasion, I had to ask an usher to move me to another section of the theatre, due to a fan's distractingly potent body odor! There are countless articles to be written about lack of decorum in the audiences of Broadway shows. But, lucky for me (and all of us), the positivity exuded by the crowds vastly outweighs the negative stuff. We just have to remember to look for it.
Do you have a story of an audience member you didn't know before the day of the show, who enhanced your own experience at a theatrical performance? Post your story in the comments, and I'll choose my favorite and send a BroadwayGirlNYC prize pack. (To win, be sure you're following me on Twitter, and include your Twitter ID in the post!)
