Things I Hate about the Theatre

Just to demonstrate it isn’t all prams and nappies. I often while away the evenings thinking of things to hate, and I must say, theatre has been a terrific friend to me in that pursuit. I once went to a lot of theatre, but now I don’t go out as often, and I have to pay for my own tickets, so I prefer to actually enjoy myself. Other people I know go to the theatre, and then they tell me about it, and I get really angry. Sometimes, just being sent a list of theatrical productions no-one is even asking me to attend can set me off.

Anyway, for some considerable time now I have been devising a list of things I hate about the theatre and I’ve decided that it is by now almost thorough enough to publish. Doubtless, I’ll need to add to it. Perhaps the next time someone says “I hear they’re making that into a musical” or “there was this hilarious bit where they came down into the audience”…

Anyway, so far, here is the list:

1. Actors, and their big loud actorly voices, and their serious, I-am-listening-to-you-look-at–my-serious-listening-face faces.

2. When a play starts with someone walking energetically to the front of the stage, then gesticulating, then exclaiming something.

3. When a play starts with the whole cast scampering joyfully/wandering as if childishly enchanted around the stage.

4. Any play featuring a set made up of lounge room furniture.

5. Any play where the actors don’t move.

6. Any play where the set is made up of a single object that is moved around from scene to scene to represent different things.

7. Climbing apparatus which the actors keep hanging off or moving across while speaking.

8. ANY PLAY OR PERFORMANCE WHERE A CAST MEMBER SPEAKS TO, TOUCHES OR INTERACTS WITH ANY MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE. This is in capital letters because I firmly believe all right thinking people agree with me and this practice should actually be made illegal except in cases of dire emergency.

9. Random nudity.

10. Any play where a female character pours water from one vessel to another for an extended length of time.

11. Costumes made from garbage bags.

12. Any play more than 100 years old where the cast ride around on motorbikes and are dressed in costumes that allude to “West Side Story”.

13. Shakespeare, where the genders are re-aligned, the language or costumes are modernized, the implied sex is made explicit or a minor character is suddenly given all the lines.

14. Any set of any play which is largely yellow, orange or metallic.

15. Any play about the working class/Western suburbs, written, performed, directed and attended by people from the Eastern and Northern Suburbs.

16. Any play more than 2 hours or less than 35 minutes in length.