Why I hate theater

Editorial
Being a self-proclaimed adventurer and a pretty avid traveler, I will admit that I really dislike planning for my excursions. Other than airline tickets, travel dates and occasional lodging, I enjoy doing everything on-the-go. This method is not for all, I know, but it has yet to let me down. On my first trip to Ireland, a couple of friends and I were roaming the streets of Dublin looking for a great local pub and came upon a theater showing The Night Joe Dolan’s Car Broke Down, which happened to be starting within the half hour. We knew nothing of the production or who (or if) Joe Dolan was, but still my theater-loving traveling companion wanted to see it. I grunted in disgust and rolled my eyes to the Irish heavens. We came to a compromise: if tickets were no more than 30 euro, we would attend, but no one was allowed to look up any information about the show. After dealing with the rudest woman in all of Ireland, we found mezzanine seats for, of course, 30 euro. We went in, climbed our way to our seats and waited for the show to begin. You may ask, “What is with this guy’s dislike of the theater?” I honestly don’t have a very good answer. Martin Starr’s struggling-screenwriter-turned-caterer on the TV show Party Down may have summarized my feelings best when he called community theater “a delusion of a delusion.” It isn’t that I don’t know theater. I have acted in a handful of theatrical productions and I have even written and co-directed my own full-length adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for a children’s theater group. But there is just something about theater that makes me… let’s call it uneasy. Let’s face it, theater people are weird. I’d apologize for stereotyping, but I think even most theater people will admit proudly that they are in fact weird. But theater ‘weird’ is a completely different animal than, let’s say, your typical, quirky artist or the eccentric, homeless gentleman out on the street spitting on your windshield hoping for some extra change. Theater weird is loud and dramatic and dramatic and loud, and theater personalities are magnetized to other theater personalities and that combination of enthusiasm is unsettling to me. Heck, even theatrical titles are quick to show their excitement: Hello Dolly! Mamma Mia! Oliver! Cannibal! The Musical etc, etc. This enthusiasm overpoweringly destroys any chance for me to get lost in the art. It violates my senses and comes off to me as too much effort. I dislike the theatricality of theater – it’s the same reason I can’t stand over-the-top actors like Martin Short or Bette Midler in movies or TV shows. Art should be natural. Much too often, theatrical productions, though they pull off some magnificent feats, seem too forced. Most plays I’ve seen strike me like exaggerated prime time sitcoms without the laugh tracks. Everything is so overemphasized that I would almost welcome some canned laughter rather than the awkward pause where an actual person is waiting for his or her laugh. Sometimes I oblige, but only in the form of painful, nervous laughter. I’ll admit that I was not a fantastic actor, although I wasn’t quite the kid they cast as “the tree” or Dwight Schrute’s role as “Mutey the Mailman” in his 7th grade production of Oklahoma! (!!!). My most noteworthy role was ‘Chinese Mandarin’ in a high school production of A Comedy of Errors. I was probably less than mediocre in my roles and certainly did nothing to steal the show, but I did what I could to make the best out of the experiences. Lest you jump to the conclusion that I’m a bitter, failed actor, there are plenty of things that I am terrible at that I still love to do: learning a new language or talking to girls, for example. But theater is like going to the gym for me; I’ve tried it enough to form a legitimate opinion, I don’t like it, and I truly cannot comprehend why other people enjoy it. The only thing that makes sense to me is that everyone is faking their enjoyment to appease somebody for some reason I have yet to find. Let’s jump back to The Night Joe Dolan’s Car Broke Down. First of all, yes, Joe Dolan was a real person. He could be considered the Tom Jones of Ireland. The experience was actually very enjoyable. This could have to do with the whiskey bar in the mezzanine but I don’t think it necessarily did. The first half of the show was a standard production set entirely in a small town pub on a stormy winter night. After nearly an hour of barroom conversation, Joe Dolan showed up just as the bar was about to close. We cut to intermission. My friend and I made a whiskey run. Instead of picking up with where the story left off, the next act opened with a spotlight shining down on Joe as he began to belt out his Irish chart toppers to the crowd, which I now noticed was made up almost entirely of 60+ year-old women. My, how those old Irish lassies love their Joe Dolan. Everyone on the floor was up out of their seats and dancing in the isles and singing along and hugging and fawning over Joe who worked the crowd like a Baptist preacher on Easter morning. It was an absolutely surreal, crowd pleasing experience that lasted a solid 35 minutes. Having a bird’s eye view on all of the shenanigans (and the bit of true Irish whiskey) made the whole experience well worth my €30. But that had more to do with what was happening in the seats than on the stage. I know most of you reading this have a genuine love for theater. Although I don’t understand your views, I can certainly try to appreciate them. And, I haven’t given up hope of finding enjoyment in your artistic sphere. I already have a weekend trip to London planned to see Phantom and possibly one other, though I wouldn’t hold up too much hope of more than one show per trip. So, keeping in spirit with the theater, I will leave you with words written by somebody else: “And if you know who you are / You are your own superstar and only you can shape the music that you make / So when the crowds disappear and only the silence is here / Watch yourself, easy does it, easy does it, easy while you wait.” – Supertramp And... scene.
Headshot of Joel Scott
Joel Scott
Joel is a Twin Cities-based teacher, avid pop culture nerd, and all-around nice fellow. He is currently a primary school teacher in Berlin, Germany.