From the WSJ Opinion Archives

LEISURE & ARTS

Standing Ovations:
Three Cheers
For Ending Them
Keep your seats. Some performances are only worth a perfunctory clap.

BY JOANNE KAUFMAN
Wednesday, January 29, 2003 12:00 a.m. EST

I went to the theater the other night. What I saw is of no consequence--the name of the show doesn't matter and the enterprise was so insignificant that reconstituted in human form it wouldn't have cast a shadow. Still, when it was over, the audience eagerly gave it a standing ovation.

Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I was at a Broadway show and the audience didn't leap to its feet at the end, the quality of the play, of the performances, score, set, lighting and direction all seemingly beside the point. And don't get me started on galas like the American Film Institute Awards and the Kennedy Center Honors where the audience leaps to its feet more often than a guy who's just downed a six-pack.

This un-thought-through enthusiasm has become--pardon the expression--a knee jerk response. Call it ovation inflation, it is yet one more example of our society's tendency to supersize every experience, emotion and commodity.

"Thirty or 40 years ago I think audiences may have been more discerning," says veteran film and theatrical producer David Brown, "The only time you'd get a standing ovation was for Laurence Olivier or John Gielguld." Sometimes, not even then. When cabaret impresario Donald Smith saw Oliver at the Old Vic in London, "He got a wonderful hand but the people didn't stand and cheer," he recalls. "And I said to the woman next to me, 'I don't understand. There were no bravos and he played so brilliantly.' And she said 'He's supposed to be brilliant.' "

Operagoers will tell you that if there's a standing ovation at the Met, it's richly deserved. "It's also deserved at the New York Philharmonic," says one long time concertgoer "because it's the rudest crowd. It's a subscription audience and a lot of them don't want to be there in the first place." As for the theater, "It's almost standard," says Mr. Brown, whose last Broadway offering, the short-lived, very tepidly reviewed "Sweet Smell of Success" got a standing ovation "every night until the night we closed, which had absolutely no bearing on the box office."

There are all sorts of theories to explain this phenomenon. There's the Cartesian: I spend; therefore I stand. People who lay out upwards of $90 a ticket need to justify, at least rationalize, the expense. "It's for themselves more than for the show," says Gerard Alessandrini, creator of the satiric revue "Forbidden Broadway." "They're congratulating themselves for having spent the money." There's the Caesarean: I came, I couldn't see; I had to stand. The people in front of you rise to their feet, blocking your view of the star's curtain call. In self-defense, you rise to your feet. Thus, those behind you are forced to stand, and before you know it you've got the theatrical version of the wave. There is the Pavlovian: You stand so I stand. "You just feel like a bad sport if you don't get up," says Mr. Alessandrini. And then there's the Sartrean: No Exit. You've decided the show is over, you're on your feet trying to leave, but no one's letting you out of the aisle.

But ovation inflation devalues the currency of praise. So should audiences exercise thrift to give their plaudits more worth?

"It seems to me that we have a choice with audiences," says Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres and Producers. "Do you try to force them to learn the rituals of a theater purist or do you expect that there will be variations of behavior. The purist might say that the standing ovation should be reserved for the top 1%. But who says? Did God say you couldn't stand and clap for the top 50% or 75%?

"As the performing arts broaden their audience base in order to survive and prosper, attendees will not come with the traditional sets of behaviors that audiences of 30 years ago might have had," he adds. "Ovations may just be a way that new theatergoers like to express themselves, and what's wrong with that?"

I could go ahead and agree with Mr. Bernstein. I could argue with him by paraphrasing Stendhal's observation that the more one is pleased generally, the less one is pleased profoundly. Or I could tell him of my opera-buff friend who, years ago, attended a performance of "Lucia di Lammermoor" with a mad scene by Joan Sutherland that sent the crowd into a frenzy of "Brava, brava, diva, diva."

The cheers finally died down and Richard Tucker, who was playing Edgardo, had his two big arias "which he sang very well," recalls my friend. "I was next to someone who'd stood and screamed for Sutherland and only applauded for Tucker, and I said 'Doesn't he deserve a bravo and ovation too?' And the man croaked out 'Yes,' but that he'd lost his voice screaming for Sutherland."

"Next time," suggested my pal, "pace yourself." Perfectly sensible advice. But frankly I prefer mine: Control yourself.

Ms. Kaufman last wrote for the Journal on Liza Minnelli.

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