Mofongo on Broadway! — Page 4

"It was extremely offensive for some of us and shame on you for labeling those who felt offended as "troublemakers"."

If you are offended, it's your own problem. Don't project it on other people.


I can't belive three pages have gone by and no one mentioned the audiences at The Color Purple.

I saw it a few times and every performance was interupted by some black person screaming or talking back to the stage.

Does that make me racist?

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Actually drinks in the theatre don't bother me, within reason, though I admit when I first encountered it (probably in London where they've been doing it for at least 12 years, when I was first there), it did surprise me. Eating in the theatre--anything more than maybe some small, preferably unwrapped candies or cough drops, does seem terribly obnoxious and disrespectful to me. But I admit part of that is undoubtedly just what I'm used to--popcorn can be annoying but I accept it at a movie, but I still don't at the theatre.

TheatreDiva, Color Purple was mentioned. I admit growing up in Western Canada which has a huge Asian population, but is otherwise pretty much white, and then moving to a largely black area of Montreal--the first time I went to see a movie (I think it was the teen version of Othello, O), I was kinda amazed to see that the stereotype of black audiences talking back to the screen actually seemed to largely be true. But I got used to it-- I agree with what Gaveston said. If anything I realized they seemed more invested in the film than I was. This gets into a lot of tricky areas, but at least some of it is a cultural thing and it seems wrong to go to a theatre event that obviously is meant to appeal particularly to that audience and then expect them to behave a different way. (Ugh I already kinda regret saying that--it's hard to word). I'm sure the cast of Color Purple expected that kind of reaction and took it in stride.

It was not at all. You flew of the hinge and interpreted that way.. but there was nothing offensive about that post. He said the audience was loud, self centered, eating, consisted of families and was mostly latin. That was HIS experience when he saw that show. It was not a good theater experience for him. Nothing offensive about that. Evita will definitely be attracting a international and large latin crowd. Nothing offensive about that either.

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I did. It was not that different. I don't mean to upset you and I apologize for going on the attack. I guess it is me calling the kettle black. But seriously I didn't find it offensive.

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Then please tell us what he said that was so offensive.


Because I don't see anything that he said is bad at all, it's just his observation.


Also, I do think that 'those' black people who can't keep their mouths shut should stay at home.

That goes with any other nationality that goes into a theatre and is disrespectful to the other audience members.

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Exactly. I was offended by the implication that they were not behaving because of their cultural background.

And if that was not the OP's intent, then I apologize for being overly sensitive.

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That is exactly what I found offensive too. I mean I wouldn't call theaternut racist, I don't know him. I wouldn't even call what he wrote racist. Just a little insensitive.

EDIT: The post which explains what I was saying exactly to seems to have gotten deleted?

Updated On: 3/13/12 at 08:10 PM

Goodness. The only bad experience I've had seeing theatre was seeing "The Color Purple", when a bunch of African-American patrons decided to yell at the performers about homosexuality being a sin, and then yell "they probably deserved AIDS!" at the Broadway Cares: Equity Fights AIDS thing at the curtain call. I didn't use it to judge any one race group, chalked it up to a poor upbringing and lack of theatre etiquette from the offending party.

Updated On: 3/13/12 at 08:16 PM

Yeah Eric. That might be the issue. But if your going to have Ricky Martin in Evita you will have a core latin audience. So I didn't take it in the wrong way. So maybe the title of the thread is what set people of. But I think everyone needs to stop being so sensitive.

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WORD

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Interesting discussion. I recall only about 6 weeks ago, how many people were perturbed that a lot of "show queens" acted up at the early CARRIE previews, reportedly only there to have a "gay old time" when others wanted to explore the material anew, devoid of camp. There's an old rule of the theater: the audience is always right. They can like what they like: they pay to enter, they plunk down hard-earned dollars to either enjoy or reject the material and its performance. Their etiquette is expected, to be sure, but their taste is relevant only insofar as the frequency with which they hand the box office staff their credit card.

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"henrik, are you sure Elizabethan audiences were all that hegemonic or had been for such a long time? Elizabeth I was only two generations removed from all-out civil war and faced a few armed rebellions herself, not to mention an ongoing struggle with her subjects over religion."

Gaveston, I didn't mean that Elizabethan audiences were at that point in history part of a hegemonic nation, I was only referring to the irony - in the context of this thread - that in that example we are talking about audiences who were English - and the English are seen as being hegemonic, orderly, regimented, decorous, orthodox in conduct, even, to allude to the more stereotypical (not only about the English but about white Anglo Saxon Protestants (a group which has its origins in the Elizabethan era), unfeeling and undemonstrative rather than letting themselves go}. Perhaps it was a belabored point, and, admittedly, a trivial one, but I didn't mean to imply what you thought I meant.

Updated On: 3/14/12 at 11:51 PM

Oh, theaternut... that was just not well thought out or articulated at all. Even this title, ouch, just painful.