I went to see my sister in a production of The Nutcracker. First off she was absolutely beautiful. Visibly nervous but still really stunning. She is so grown up and looks so elegant and graceful on stage. She was particularly breathtaking as the Snow Queen. Well, as I sat there at this matinee performance I was totally bombarded by images of struggling parents. They were fighting furiously to keep their children contained. From the woman two rows ahead whose children all moved a few rows ahead to see a bit better. Instead of enjoying the performance her attention was fixed on her daughter whose constant bobbing from seat to seat was clearly a distraction to the people behind her. Eventually she removed her child from the auditorium but first had to catch her. Then the man behind me had a rather loquacious young girl of maybe 3 years old. Her constant commentary was enough to pull my focus while my sister pirouetted on stage. Her father consistently requested that she stop talking. There were about 15 idle threats that he would take her out of the theatre and in a shocking turn of events he never quite managed to do so. At one point after insisting she be quiet she proceeded to ask him a question at which point he answered her quite cordially. Then again asked her to be quiet. He actually dialogued with her throughout the entire show setting a prime example of appropriate theatre etiquette. The list goes on and on from the ones who were screaming to the ones wandering the rows and being chased. I mentioned this to my father and his two sisters while we sat at t.g.i fridays enjoying a nice post show meal (mine included a huge pomegranate margarita) and their answer shocked me. They all responded with such a sense of detachment that it was "a family show". Now, I understand things have really changed in the last 20 years but I was surprised that these people who raised me to have respect and courtesy for others. Who taught me the value of not ruining someone else's experience. They have all given in to the degradation of civility. I am really saddened by this and I know that things will only get worse before they get better. So for now I can only hope to instill in all of the children that cross my path through the work I do that they at least need to hold the experience of going to see a live performance in higher regard and hopefully we can start to raise the next generation a little better than we have the present one.
