…and even if you’re desperate to get home, don’t leave as soon as the performance ends. We DO notice, and it IS rude.
And here I thought it was only St. Louis. I guess that people don’t understand that giving the highest acolades (SP?) for a so-so performance doesn’t leave anything for a truely outstanding performance.
Damn this thread for getting “Give Your Baby A Standing Ovation” stuck in my head! shakes fist!
And there’s still ways to tell who gave the best performance: the volume of the applause.
Algernon properly excludes school performances from this discussion (“that’s my baby up there!”), but shouldn’t we also exclude TV talk shows and State of the Union addresses? After all, the audiences aren’t standing of their own volition, but are goaded into it by producers.
But the same thing happens at the majority of concerts I go to (mostly classical and jazz), and yes, people are usually over-rewarding a less-than-stellar performance. I thought it was a Seattle phenomenon–people here are generally polite and often seem unaware that the arts scene, while not bad, isn’t as “world class” as it pretends while fundraising–but I see from reading this thread that it’s more general than that.
I can’t explain it, but I wonder if it has something to do with (1) the changing role of live performance in an age of mostly uninspiring TV, movies, DVD, etc. and (2) the generalization (through marketing) of the sort of arena-show frenzy that became standard for rock concerts a few decades back. Shows are exciting! Everyone “knows” that, and behaves accordingly…even at the symphony. Just a thought.
This trend may be due to rock concerts. Even in venues with seats, the audience usually stands up for most or all of the show.
I spent about 5 months as an usher for Cirque du Soleil (2 different shows) and I’d say about 75% of the time the audience gave a standing ovation. I’m not sure why the other audiences didn’t, considering the show is exactly the same each performance, but there were definitely differences in the audiences. Most laughed in all the right places and applauded in all the right places.
One thing I did notice is if no one starts the applause or is the first to stand up, then it usually doesn’t happen. There were quite a few times when myself and other ushers and staff would clap after an act because no one else was clapping, and that would get the ball rolling.
It seems like applauding is just what people do after sitting down for a while. I’ve even been in situations where some people will clap at the end of a professor’s lecture in one of my university classes… because, I think, they’re sitting in an auditorium and that’s what you do before you leave an auditorium. Like people who clap at the end of a movie. I can see the natural progression to standing ovation being just what you do.
I’m one of those who withholds applause if I don’t think it’s worth it, but I’ll leap to my feet if the spirit possesses me. Like that Elvis impersonator I saw at the Westward Ho when I was in Vegas last week. He was GREAT!
ZJ
A couple of weeks after the 9-11 attacks, my friend and I attended an pre-season hockey game in Las Vegas. During a break in play they played that “I’m proud to be an American” song while an image of the flag waved on one of the scoreboards. Everyone stood and cheered (myself included), it was really a nice moment. Except it went over so well they decided to do it twice more during the evening. To me, that seemed like overkill (or contrived or too much of a good thing). Anyway, I applauded but didn’t stand for the the last two and my friend was certain someone was going to accuse me of being unpatriotic and take a swipe at me (no one did).
Gaba makes very astute points. But I also think these quick-to-rise boneheads are applauding themselves for the following reasons:
1) tearing their sorry asses away from their HDTV
2) paying $100.00 a ticket for the most mediocre of entertainments
3) dressing up (maybe)
4) enduring civic engagement
5) convincing themselves they had a G-R-E-A-T time!
Political “standing ovations” reaaaaaaaly grate me - in the UK we are about to start the spring party conference season, and it seems that each party would like to out-do both each other and the previous year’s conferences in terms of their enthusiasm and willingness to show their support for the “grand and exalted leader” of the day.
Grim
What really gets me all confuzzled is applause and yes, the occasional standing O at MOVIES. Was the print exceptionally clean and well-focused that the audience wanted to applaud the projectionist, who nowadays, is apt to be a kid from the popcorn counter who goes up to the booth and presses the big reg “play” button?
I have attend various professional theaters in Chicago, and I haven’t noticed excessive standing ovations. Maybe 20% or so of the plays I’ve attended in the last couple of years get one.