Theater is Not “On Demand”

• Sarah Parr

Note: This piece was inspired by an article Parr originally published in Case Western Reserve University’s The Observer in 2017.

Congregating in performance spaces has been put on hold for months, and Broadway will be dark through Labor Day at least. So, many theater, music, and dance performances that have been recorded are now available for the masses to see through their television and computer screens. That’s truly awesome. 

But unlike these shows, real live performances are not “on-demand,” and they never will be, so we better not forget that when COVID-19 is over.

Even with all these recorded performances, people can enjoy while they’re quarantining, this pandemic has taught me that we will never take the physical togetherness of experiencing live, intimate moments in artistic spaces for granted ever again.

When that day comes, though, you don’t need me to tell you that some people will continue to act like they have never heard of the term “theater etiquette.” I’ve seen and heard some horrific things during live performances, but I want to examine an unfortunate fad that I’ve noticed increasingly often: leaving when performers come out to take their bows.

A few summers ago, I went to a show in a park for which patrons must provide their own chairs. The number of people who attend is great, parking is a challenge and audience members don’t want to spend a half-hour trying to leave; this is understandable, as we all have busy lives we “need to get back to” even after being transported to another world for a couple of hours. But this does not excuse the rudeness that ensues.

The audience members around you would like to not be distracted and interrupted when showing their appreciation to the performers. And, contrary to popular belief, the people on stage know you’re leaving — they can see you, and performers’ emotions are real. I’m not saying that you need to give a standing ovation every time (in fact, I think you shouldn’t do that) but performers would like to be respected for the work they put into the show and what they did for you (and they’d like to thank you for your attendance). Nevertheless, too many patrons either don’t know this or, perhaps worse, know this but just don’t care. This poses a severe human to human disconnect.

Call me old school, but I think this selfish attitude development correlates with the frequency of on-demand television. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy “Family Guy” on-demand as much as the next person, but it’s important to note the effects that constant binge-watching (and pausing) at our discretion — as well as immediate gratification — can have on our minds, emotions, and actions in real life.

This thought of, “Oh, I don’t have to pay close attention now, I can replay it if I hear the laugh track while looking down at my phone to see if I get anything out of it,” does not make our brains or attention spans work. Television used to be precious — TV was live and shows didn’t repeat. You’d have to pay attention and cherish moments and actually work your memory. Commercials might have even been considered a good mental break from paying close attention to a show.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard friends say, jokingly as well as seriously, something along the lines of, “I have no life — all I do when I finish work is to come home to binge Netflix.” I think my worst pet peeve having to do with this is that we aren’t even using specific show titles anymore; we literally only care that whatever we want is accessible at our fingertips with a click of a button. We don’t have to look through a TV guide, and we don’t have to pay attention to commercials.

When my dad was a kid, he had seven channels on TV, and reruns weren’t really even a thing. You actually had to work to catch things the first time they happened. Now with so much “on-demand” at our fingertips with not only Netflix, but Disney+, Hulu, and more, our impatience, our desire for immediate gratification and the “multitasking half paying attention” attitude we give everything really should not translate to the theater. We are missing out on too much, making those around us miss out as well, and worst of all, disrespecting those who put their lives into entertaining us.

Furthermore, adults aren’t the only victims of on-demand culture. Let’s stop shoving screens down children’s throats to “distract them and make our lives easier” literally all the time, everywhere we go. They need to interact with — or at least see — real life as it happens in order to understand emotions and empathy. After all, who becomes adults and mostly continues behaviors and practices learned at a young age?

I used to play with dolls if my family and I were out at a restaurant. I would draw on the backs of paper placemats. I would play that paper football game with my dad. I understood the human experience because I was working with it and not simply watching it. I wasn’t getting bored with the same old thing and maybe linking that experience of watching endless YouTube videos to that of watching real people on stage.

With respect to society, academics and general health, we could all benefit from a longer attention span, whether it’s showing our respect to a public speaker, focusing to solve a problem or testing our memory to keep ourselves on our toes (and maybe decrease our chances of getting memory-loss related diseases as we age).

I’m not saying that electronics are bad full stop, but when we learn the assumption that content on electronics is the outlet that holds a mirror up to life, we fool ourselves and it is a disservice to all. Living through a pandemic that has shaped all our lives and interrupted anticipated experiences is full of learning new points of view, and I challenge you to think hard about how much of the world you experience through a screen.