Intermissionless Shows — Page 2

If intermissions were necessary to provide a break in a show under 2 /12 hours, then we would complain about not having them at the movies. Which, understandably, no one ever does.

Unless the show is considerably longer than that, the decision to have an intermission should be an artistic one. A great many plays are best suited to a two act structure and a first act curtain. And a great many plays have no place for one. It's all in the writing. The play's the thing.

Can anyone imagine what VENUS IN FUR or GOD OF CARNAGE would be like as two acters? No. Because they work as full length one act plays (I'm not bringing up these examples to provoke a discussion of whether these plays work or not; I think we can all presume that anyone who hated them in one act, would hate them more in two). In comparison, many plays, regardless of their overall merits, benefit greatly from the two act form and the peak that tops the first act (the first act curtain of the ON A CLEAR DAY revival may well have been the best thing in the show).

Still other plays work best in a three (and occasionally, even more) act structure.

Updated On: 8/28/12 at 05:26 PM

I actually think intervals should be longer. They're always a mad scramble to try and get everything done.

"I think we can all presume that anyone who hated them in one act, would hate them more in two)"

Not necessarily, as one would feel freer to leave during the intermission.

I love when I hear a play I'm going to is 90/100 minutes with no intermission. And I'm talking new plays, not revivals like Virginia Woolf or Death of a Salesman.

It's almost a bad omen when you find out a new play is going to be 2 and a half hours. Sometimes you get lucky and find an August: Osage County, but most of the time you are stuck with a play that is too long for it's own good (and the good of the audience). This is especially true at places like Playwrights and Second Stage.

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I did a number of years in stock houses and it was de rigueur to insert an intermission into MAN OF LA MANCHA or any piece that had the temerity to try and go without one. And khakis is right: it was all about bar sales: those watered-down cocktails represented a good percentage of the house's profit margin.

Nonetheless, I think theaters should stick to the original script. If there's no intermission (as in FOLLIES and A CHORUS LINE), it's a good bet that very smart people were unable to find a place for one.

And now that patrons can take their cocktails to their seats and so few people smoke, what's the point of an intermission anyway?

Don't know if this has been stated, but at least on Broadway, theatre owners charge producers a additional fee on top of the rent if their show is intermissionless, due to perceived loss in food/drink sales, the revenue from which goes to the landlords.

If Springsteen can go 3 and a quarter hours without intermission, so can B'way.

But adding intermission to a Mamet show might make it reach 80 minutes. If the intermission is long enough.

Concerts are a pointless analogy. No concert tour plays 8 performances a week for a long stretch with 1 day off per week. I don't think even Bruce Springsteen could do what he does every single night, twice a day two times a week, with a one-day weekend, for months at a stretch.

That said, with ticket prices climbing so high and the economy doing so badly, do people really feel like they're getting their money's worth on a 90-minute Broadway show? Is it really worth that kind of outlay for so little?

And now with curtains at 7:00 for so many shows, you're getting out at around 8:30. It's still light outside much of the year, and your evening at the theatre costing several hundred dollars is over. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I just remember back in the day when I was excited about shows and would road trip to NYC with friends for Spring Break and spend the week seeing as much as we could cram in. I would have hated to be "done" for the evening that early.

I'd say my three favorite things I've seen in the past year or so were "Götterdämmerung" and "Satyagraha" at the Met, and "A Quiet Place" at City Opera. All were well over 3 hours (the Wagner was nearly 6) and I was never bored for a minute.

In fact, I've wondered why the Producers of these short shows don't pair them with something else - a curtain raiser, a second shorter one act showcasing a newer writer, something. I just don't see how in this age of "austerity" and a sinking economy that hundreds of dollars for the equivalent of one-and-a-half TV drama seems like the kind of thing that won't sustain itself.

But hey, I never imagined people would willingly go see "Spider-Man", so what the hell do I know? And "Hedwig" remains one of my favorite theatrical experiences ever, and I don't even think that hits 90 minutes. But that was also off-Broadway, and I never paid more than $25 to see it.

I was, of course, kidding about The Boss, who does at most 4 shows/week (and I saw 3 of 'em last week). But we really have been turned off by Mamet whose last two shows didn't total 3 hours, for that kind of money.

I know here in the UK that bar sales and sweet sales etc are really how the theatre makes money, they don't really get anything from ticket sales. They get the fee of the production booking to the venue but the actual venue needs sales to survive. If a show has no interval they are charged more for putting the production in there.

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Actually in musicals having the intermission roughly around 2/3rds in is pretty standard. I believe Oscar Hammerstein II talked about Act I should be roughly 90 minutes (though lately they seem to be shorter), and then II amost half that--45/50 minutes. That's partly due to one problem with intermissions. Afterwards, audiences tend to be harder to keep interested for a long time, and kinda restless during Act II, so a lot of it is down to structure.

I agree that 90 minute shows priced like 2h45min shows feel like rip-offs.