Part of the Show

A show has two parts.

Either you're putting on the show or you're part of the audience.

Showmen try to blur the lines and do, but when I'm in an audience I want to sit and watch.

Do you remember when somebody would get in front of us, when we were children, and scream to the group "Good morning!" and no matter what the kids said or how they said it, the person up front would say "I can't hear you," trying to get the group of kids to scream louder?  My patience level was directly affected by how long they kept that up before getting to their subject.

It always bothered me, because I know they could hear us the first time.  And why do I want to sit and listen to somebody who is just going to lie to me?

Last night I was sitting in an audience, and some nice people had kindly set out about 100 chairs in a loose half circle facing the presenter.  I think before the people in the audience arrived, the setup looked nice and adequate.  But those who set up the chairs failed to think that most people attending are bigger around the middle than the space of a chair.  So once the audience started filling up, people were uncomfortably close to one another.  And it started to get hot.  An empty room is at one temperature, and then when it starts to fill up, with bodies crowded in, people started sweating.

A gentleman came over and sat to the left of me and his sleeve brushed mine.  I scooted a bit to the right. The gentleman to the right of me, one seat away, was breathing really loudly and shook my hand hard and way too long.  Again, I'm there to sit and watch, not actually do anything, like meet people.  His perception of being in the audience was different than mine.

The gentleman in front of me seemed to be translating every sentence to the person on his left.  He probably didn't think he was loud.  He wasn't that loud.  But he was speaking about 50 percent of the time while the presenter was speaking and every once in awhile he would turn to speak to the person on his right, who clearly didn't want to talk at all.  I'm pretty sure this bothered many of the people around him, but everyone is different and maybe some people didn't notice.  I wanted to pick him up and walk him outside the door, pick him up by his shirt collar and throw him down the hall.

I did not.


The other day, I was in an auditorium where the seats are bigger, and they are there all the time.  So we didn't have to rely on anyone's judgement that day of how close to seat the seats.  It's a comfortable room. But it's still an audience.  There were two ladies who came in my row and asked me if they could sit there on my right.  The one next to me shook my hand.  Instead of settling down to anonymous silence as I would with, both ladies agreed with the speaker, verbally and loudly, and often. They laughed and commented when there was a joke.  They almost yelled "Oh no!" when the speaker said something designed to make the audience pause.  They groaned in response to the speaker.  They made many verbal assents along with the speaker and one of the ladies was extremely loud.  The lady on my right didn't like it at all.  I don't know who could tell how much I didn't like it, but I tried to endure without giving any sign that I was cringing and having a difficult time concentrating.

The gentleman behind me started to laugh.  He didn't laugh the whole way through, and it didn't seem to be a response whenever the loud lady said anything.  But I figured in another mood I would be laughing so maybe that was why he was.  The loud lady stayed oblivious, as far as I could tell.  I think she lives there.  Her companion, the kind of loud lady, didn't like the fact that the man behind me was laughing.  Maybe she knows that the really loud lady is a nice lady and she's gotten used to her friend being very involved in any story she hears.  So she turned around and looked at him with a look of disapproval almost every time he laughed.  Yet, whenever her friend the loud oblivious lady did something, she would join in.

What I wonder is going through these people's minds?  There are people who can't hear well.  And they tend to speak loudly without knowing that they are.  And there are people who draw attention to themselves on purpose and people who don't realize it but catch almost every eye with their unkempt appearance, or quick gestures or something that stands out about them that they themselves are used to.  And attention itself is a funny thing.  Sometimes someone is doing everything they can to get you to notice and you just don't.

Obvious and oblivious are in the perception of each one of us.

When I give a show, I want people to watch and listen.  When I'm on the other side, in the audience, I want to watch and listen.  But some want to talk all through the movie and probably don't know they're doing it. Some want to provide feedback to the presentation whether there is a real person up there or it's just a screen.  I think about the people growing up with cameras with them at all times.  Taking a picture of something is a different way of apprehending it and so is writing about it.  There is an artifice to being in public and there is another layer of it when describing it.

What is it like to not remember a time when most people had cameras with them?

Some people are more aware of the feelings of those around them than others.  I stand in front of a crowd and see people who look so bored, who come up to me and tell me how great I did.  Did they not notice that I noticed that they kept looking at the clock?  Is it probable that they look at the clock when they're not bored?  Is it likely that if the show has a good end people remember it as being good all the way thorough?  

What was it like to know only about 25 people and to listen around the campfire?  Some campfire attendees were listening to the Iliad and some in other parts of a non-connected world had to settle for a recitation of how many berries somebody found and how many times Junior did something funny that day.  Some campfires had more than one storyteller and started a culture of it that got better and better.  And some people take pictures of what they had for lunch and share it with the world.