There was a story from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last week concerning English actress Georgie Grier whose one-woman show Sunsets attracted a grand audience of one. A tweet with pictures of a tearful Grier after the show prompted considerable sympathy and the following night she found herself performing to a near full-house which she joked felt the equivalent of "Wembley".
Some believe the first night was really a publicity stunt designed to attract a bigger crowd. Maybe it was, but it still highlights the important role patrons play. I mean just imagine if you put on a show and no-one turned up.
At least Grier could see her audience, which was not the case when the pantomime Little Red Riding Hood was performed at Terry's Theatre in London's West End many moons ago. The panto attracted two customers, both of whom were sitting hidden away "up in the gods" otherwise known as the gallery. The couple declined an invitation to move down to the stalls where the performers could see them. It meant the cast had to present the whole show in the 800-seat theatre without seeing anyone in the audience.
This ruled out the usual entertaining pantomime exchanges between the audience and actors like "look out behind you!" or "Oh, yes it is!" and "Oh, no it isn't!" And the only hissing and booing reportedly came from the stage where the cast were upset with the management for the poor promotion of the panto.
The show must go on
Talking of small audiences reminds me of going to a Bangkok hotel in the 1980s for a mid-day performance by the American soul group the Drifters. They had been at their most popular in the 1960s fronted by the great singer Ben E King with Save The Last Dance For Me being a big hit.
After King moved on to a successful solo career the Drifters experienced numerous personnel changes with assorted splinter groups. By the time they performed in Bangkok there was only one veteran from the original group. At the concert the audience was to put it politely "thinly distributed". To their credit the group put on a decent show but it was uncomfortable viewing and must have hurt them deeply playing to such a sparse audience.
Coughing up
Audiences have a lot to answer for. All it takes is for someone in a theatre with an incessant cough to totally spoil the whole production. British critic James Agate who attended scores of productions once commented: "Long experience has taught me that in England nobody goes to the theatre unless he or she has bronchitis."
Performers who are particularly affected by an ailing audience are those who give piano recitals. American concert pianist Artur Schnabel did not mince words, observing "I know two kinds of audience only -- one coughing and one not coughing."
As Oscar Wilde once observed: "The play was a great success, but the audience was a total failure."
Audience participation
We've all probably experienced in a theatre or cinema having one's enjoyment spoiled by noisy people sitting just behind. Usually a glare is enough to shut them up but that does not always work. US theatre critic Harry Taylor Parker was so annoyed with people behind him who insisted on nattering away that he stood up, turned to them and sarcastically remarked: "Those people on stage are making such a noise I can't hear a word you are saying."
The audience can sometimes help though. Commenting on one particularly unfunny Broadway comedy, critic George K Kaufman observed: "There was laughter in the back of the theatre, leading to the belief that someone was telling jokes back there."
At the movies
In Thailand there was a period in the 1990s when mobile phones were becoming increasingly popular and those who acquired them brazenly showed off their new status symbols whenever possible. It was not unusual to be in a Bangkok cinema and find yourself listening to loud phone conversations and louder ringtones. It was sometimes hard to follow a film because the audience was yakking away on their phones.
The Post's film critic at the time experienced a number of confrontations as he tried to explain to patrons that the idea of going to the cinema was to watch films, not to play with their precious phones. One culprit responded indignantly with "the film is so boring what do you expect me to do?"
The Cisco Kid
The noisiest audience I experienced was as a kid when I attended "Saturday morning pictures" at the Glendale cinema in my home town. My mother wasn't too keen on me going to the "flicks'' as she thought it attracted all sorts of undesirables, and she was absolutely right. But I popped down to the Glendale sometimes on a Saturday morning for three hours of great entertainment. However, things could get a bit rowdy amongst the young audience and wild sweet fights erupted with toffees, gobstoppers and fruit gums flying all over the place.
We were treated to assorted western heroes, my favourite being The Cisco Kid and his sidekick, Pancho, with Cisco being dubbed "the Robin Hood of the Old West". As the opening lyrics to the Cisco Kid hit song inform us "The Cisco Kid was friend of mine". And I can confirm he didn't object to rowdy audiences.
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