I only started going to the symphony, ballet and opera two years ago. Before tonight, I felt like an amateur. That is, I only began clapping when everyone else clapped. Oh, the shame if one should accidentally clap between movements!
Today, however, I graduated to Audience Snobbery. I went to see the Guangzhou Ballet perform at the Regent Theatre. The ballet was generally good, some very nice bits but that is not the point of this account.
The point is this — It was the most terrible audience that I have ever had to suffer. Obviously, the people there were mostly first-timers. Shocking. And it wasn’t even that they clapped in the wrong places. There were children all over the place and they kept running around and bouncing on their booster cushions. People crackled open plastic-wrapped snacks. Crackle, crackle, crackle, it was awful. And there were people sitting in front of me and they stretched their arms right into the air during the performance. The nerve! The rudeness of it! Coughing, murmuring, people wandering around playing God knows musical chairs, others waving around glaring white mobile phone screens, it was all there.
The last straw was when two little girls behind me started counting the ballerinas coming onto the stage. “One, two… There’s another one. Fifteen. Oooh, sixteen, eighteennineteen… No, no, it’s eighteen! Another three… That makes, um, um, twenty-one…” I could not endure it any longer so I turn around. “Excuse me, could you please be quiet?”
Waven, sitting beside me, sighed in relief and nodded her approval.
During the interval, Jon started laughing. “This is so not a ballet audience. It feels more like a sports match. Every time the dancers do something that looks a bit tricky, people cheer and woohoo! You’d never get that at the Australian Ballet. I keep expecting someone to yell, ‘YEAH! You go, girl!’ Ahahaha… So not a ballet audience.”
*roll eyes* Too right. Clueless. Absolutely clueless.
Signed,
Ms. Joan
BEnvEng, DipLang(Chinese), BSnob
Sounds like fun. Did they hand you a form guide and some pies at the door as you walked in?
Me? I’m studying hard for my MSnob… majoring in spoilt-snot apparently unintentional rudeness. Strangely enough, when you become a more specialised snot, everything kind of goes backwards.
Perhaps an example… lets say you’re at a fancy French restaurant. You’re looking through the menu trying to decide what to order. The snob thing to do, would be to ask for say, the fish, and ask to see the fish (in a posh english accent). However, the ultra-snob thing to do would be to ask for the goose liver (pate) and ask to see the goose, again in a posh english accent and with a completely straight face, oblivious to the fact that this is totally unacceptable.
Other useful things to remember. When the subject of working (especially for money) comes up, you must act as if completely oblivious to the concept (or not need to act, as the case may be). Behave as if having maids and horses etc. is completely normal… anyway, back to my thesis.
Posted by Daniel
Yeah that night was hilarious 🙂 I have a sudden urge to go to an authentic ballet just to make sure I haven’t been unduly influenced by the proles 😛
2C
Posted by Anonymous