File puptcrit/puptcrit.0712, message 69


To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
From: jon green <puppen-AT-mac.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:15:33 -0500
Subject: [Puptcrit] SOM- Audience


Several people took exception to the Philadelphia critic's comments  
about the audience at the Salzburg Marionettes production of the  
Sound of Music.  Well, he was spot on.  I have never seen or heard  
such a disruptive audience.  Of course the problem is not the  
children, it is the "entitled" upper East Side Mothers*.  At last  
Sunday's matinee there were several infants, one year olds and two  
year olds.  These children are just too young to see a broadway  
musical, even one adapted to marionettes.  The older children all  
seemed to have a bag of potato chips that they ate throughout the  
show ( OK, it only seemed as if each and everyone had a bag of chips,  
but there were enough that bags were crackling throughout the  
performance) .  The girl next to me had a bracelet made of jingle  
bells that she fiddled with the entire first act.  When I asked that  
the child remove it for the second act, I was told that this was out  
of the question as she had made it herself.  I had thought that the  
audience at the Saturday evening production of The Magic Flute was  
less well behaved than was acceptable, but the Sunday matinee  
audience was the worst.

I suppose part of the problem here is that there is no longer any  
real sense of an "adult" puppet tradition.  Puppets are for children-  
very young children.  Yes, there is some adult puppetry on the  
fringes, but the average mainstream american cannot fathom that  
puppetry is for anyone older than 12.

*I say mothers because a., most fathers are AWOL at these events, and  
b., when they are present, they insist on more disciplined behavior.

Jon
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