Death before recliners!

So I went and saw a play the other night, and some things struck me. About the experience, that is. Like, nobody threw anything at me. Anyway, first, I want to make it clear that I'm not reviewing this play. I don't review things. You didn't ask me what I thought, and that's fine. I'm bringing this up because it's a thing I did, and we're friends. Right? ...right? I mean, at best we're friendly acquaintances? No? Wow...well, I appreciate you're honesty...I guess.

In fact, you'd be surprised by how disinterested everyone is in
my thoughts about the play. Or in theatre in general for that matter.

Someday I'll stop kicking it while
it's down. That day is not today.

Anyway, you probably don't know this about me (after all, we're sub-acquaintances), but I like theatre. Spelled "re," you know, the pretentious way? Like throwing a "u" into colour or favourite. Oh, and doughnut. Going to see theatre, yes, but also like, doing theatre. Community theatre. Yeah, I'm one of those. "But uh...why?" You might ask? I don't know, because it's a growth industry. Like newspapers and video rentals. And yes, I totally get that theatre, as a form of entertainment, is not exactly on fire right now. I'm fine with that.

To a point. So the show I saw, a production of James Goldman's The Lion in Winter, was good. I, in no way, want to suggest that this show or the theatre company that produced it, didn't put on a perfectly good production of one of my favorite plays.

Also, you've got to admire a regional theater company that takes on a play most
people know from a movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole.

Above: this, but with old people.

That said, as I sat in my seat in row H (they went up to J) watching the audience file in, I was struck by the fact that until about five minutes before curtain, I was the youngest person seeing the show that night. And I'm not particularly young. The average age was, and I'm giving you my best estimate here, seventy? And with a hundred and eighty seats in the theatre, that works out to roughly twelve thousand, six hundred years of life experience in that room. An ice age of theatre goers would perhaps be the collective noun the for the audience that night. 

I wonder if DJ's would be surprised
to know how disinterested everyone
else is in what they do...

And that's great. I have no beef with the seventy-plus crowd. I'm delighting that they're attending live theatre, it was just a little disheartening to me that that was the overwhelming demographic last night. That's not to say young people didn't attend. A whole--what's the collective noun for zoomers? A rizz? Sure, let's say a rizz of zoomers sat next to me talking loudly about their DJ gigs and marveling that the show wasn't by Shakespeare. Which, fine. Not everyone has a bachelors in theatre, many people chose to get real degrees. 

Dank? Really kids?

Anyway, it was around the moment that the twenty-something--let's call him Aiden--next to me nodded off about ten minutes into act I that it occurred to me that not everybody is into it. Theatre, I mean. The youths just aren't theatre stans. They just don't find it...uh, dank. Am I using that right? Dank? Look, I'm sorry, I just can't with the internet list of Gen Z slang, my point is while me and the ice age were super into Henry and Eleanor sniping at each other for two and a half hours, the kids were not.

That's not to say all the youths, surely there are still theatre kids out there. But for some reason, it's mostly for the olds...huh? What? Oh, did it sound like I was setting up some kind of solution? Because I wasn't. I mean, I wish I knew how to fill seats, I just, don't. I'm open, you know, if you have any ideas.

Movie theatres have resorted to food service at your seat and chairs that recline
almost horizontally. But I think theatre, as an art form, would rather die before 
letting audiences lounge their way through Clybourne Park or whatever.