Sometimes, as I'm sure everyone does, in today's internet, I end up coming upon articles I would never have sought out but that randomly interest me.

Anyway, so, on the New Yorks Times website I come along an article about an incident that happened in Las Vegas, and referencing a similar incident in New Orleans in January, in which Patti LuPone (who can be seen here and there in TV and film, but is essentially more or less a big time theater actress) stops a show (Gypsy) while she's in the middle of a song, and berates an audience member, one time for using an electronic device, and one time for taking photos of her during the performance. Amazingly, the New Orleans incident was captured on youtube.




A first Times article poked fun at her for stopping the show, which apparently led to a huge insane backlash from fans, and from Patti herself, promptimg that second article which I listed above, which in turn led to huge support for Patti from 90% or so of the commenters.

I was a little mystified at the outrage myself. I mean, no one endorses interrupting a theater performance with a camera or blackberry or what not - if it's against the rules, it's against the rules (whether those rules are reasonable always could be another story, but not for today) - so setting this up as LuPone against the interrupters is not really right - the interrupters are more of a strawman. What this really should be framed as is - who should be dealing with these interrupters - and the answer to me, and I really can't see it any other way, is the ushers or other theater security personal whose job descriptions specifically include dealing with people interrupting. LuPone's job is to sing, everything else be damned. I'm sure it can be a distraction, but I'm also sure that she's a professional - she's been doing this for a long time and she can go on through it. If she has had problems with people interrupting, she can address the quality of the ushers in between performances, or mention it to someone during the intermission. Did she ever consider for one second her stopping might be ruining it for everyone else who didn't interrupt?

Anyway, I thought that feeling was fairly reasonable, but once I read some of these comments, the contrarian in me really came out. What I saw in some of these comments is the snootiness of many theater goers - sure, there are plenty of reasonable people who just happen to be wrong in their support of her, but some people went as far as to say they wished ticket prices were more expensive to keep out the riff-raff (I'm not sure they said riff-raff, but they were very clear on their disdain for the types of people who now afford theater tickets). Also, there was general rage at the decline of civilization into one with television, and people talking at films, and debasement of human culture that is represented at its best by the high and mighty theater.

Imagine at a baseball game if, when a fan taunts repeatedly a player's family, the fan himself stopped the at bat and went, interrupting the game for everyone, to tell off the fan. That player would be seen as out of line, as well as someone who couldn't take a little razzing - it would look pretty pathetic. If he had a problem, he could have a stadium official talk to the fans. I'm sure the theater snobs out there would say baseball is a sport and base in nature and thus nothing compared to theater, but how can you argue with people who think that. I'll just say it's simply inappropriate to stop the show because of one person. Let other people do their jobs, and if you have a problem with the job they're doing, take it up with them or their supervisors.