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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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TT: Why not boo?

March 21, 2009 by Terry Teachout

ambulaspan.jpgMary Zimmerman’s new production of Bellini’s La Sonnambula got booed–loudly–when it opened at the Met the other day. (To hear what happened, go here.) I didn’t see the production, but I was struck by the fact that such booing is surprisingly rare in this country, whereas automatic standing ovations for mediocre performances are very much the rule, at least on Broadway.
I’m not crazy about booing, but there’s one thing to be said in its favor. And what, pray tell, might that one thing be? Pick up a copy of Saturday’s Wall Street Journal and turn to my “Sightings” column to find out the answer. This week’s column also features a modest proposal for a method of allowing unhappy audiences to register their disapproval of a performance without throwing tomatoes. Producers, take note!
UPDATE: Here’s an excerpt:

Is there a kinder, gentler way for an audience to make its displeasure felt? After reflecting on Ms. Zimmerman’s tumultuous curtain call, I came up with a substitute that I call “The Silent Boo.” Since many theater companies now encourage playgoers to recycle their programs, why not place two transparent recycling containers in the lobby after the show, one marked CHEERS and the other JEERS? That strikes me as a neat and practical method of reaping the benefits of booing while simultaneously minimizing its incivility. Wouldn’t your emotional investment in a performance be heightened if you could “vote” on its merits in a simple and convenient manner that was easily visible both to the performers and to your fellow audience members?…

Read the whole thing here.

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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