Do we really want more opportunity for our germs to frolic together? And if masks will continue to be worn in congregate indoor settings for the foreseeable future, shouldn’t we limit the amount of time each of us must spend inhaling stale cloth?Īs for theatergoers’ diminishing attention spans, an argument can be made for or against giving today’s phone-antsy audiences a breather. With the next chapter of the pandemic comes a fear of returning to the roles we all used to perform, even among friends.įrom a purely public health standpoint, the convention of the intermission is starting to look like pre-pandemic folly. But longer durations have become more common.Įntertainment & Arts As we return to normal, a new plague: stage fright in the theater of daily life The 90-minute play was often in reality closer to 100 minutes, not counting the delayed start. Perhaps the most noticeable trend in recent years has been the lengthening of acceptable running times for intermission-less drama. Broadway audiences have been willing to pay top dollar for the discomforts of daylong performances of “Wolf Hall,” “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” “The Inheritance” and the National Theatre’s revival of “Angels in America.”īut these are promoted as special offerings, distinct from the playgoing rule. Marathon dramas, those endurance tests that turn a play into an Olympic event, can still draw a crowd. Shorter has become synonymous with sweeter, though the epic hasn’t gone entirely out of fashion. In my theatergoing lifetime, I’ve witnessed the ascendancy of the 90-minute, straight-through drama, a form better suited to modern schedules and attention spans. Vaccinated people will get 85% of the tickets for the Bowl’s 2021 season, which includes Christina Aguilera, Yo-Yo Ma and “Black Panther” live. Putting aside COVID-19 anxieties, does anyone believe that TikTok, Twitter and four years of Donald Trump in the White House have increased our capacity to sit quietly in a room together? Our restlessness predates quarantine.Įntertainment & Arts Hollywood Bowl reserves 85% of seats for vaccinated guests. But this illusion will be hard to sustain as playwrights gravitate toward more compact forms and directors look to condense classics as artfully as the National Theatre’s “Romeo & Juliet” film that aired on PBS’ “Great Performances” in April. It’s hard to imagine even the most die-hard spectators wanting to spend more time than necessary crowding into lobbies between acts for overpriced wine and snacks or waiting in bathroom lines in unsavory cramped spaces.īroadway, flying a retrograde flag, is dragging out its warhorses (“The Phantom of the Opera,” “Jersey Boys”), hoping to convince at least its former customers that nothing has changed. The vaccines appear to be miraculous, but they won’t erase all our qualms about indoor public gatherings. The convention of the two-act play, interrupted by 15 minutes of recess, was starting to feel like a relic of the theatergoing past.Īfter lockdown, the interval’s days seem numbered. The intermission was already on shaky ground before the pandemic.
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