Audience behavior

When Eleanor was talking about how the audience behaves at Carapace, she went beyond that audience to how audiences should behave in general:

I think it goes back to my theater background.

And I have friends who are quick to point out that

what I consider audience etiquette

didn’t really happen until the 19th century.

I don’t care!

I want people in their seats,

eyes on the stage,

mouths closed,

unless they’re open to laugh,

or boo.

No,

I’m just so old fashioned about that.

Most of the time I think the audience is very attentive,

which is a good thing, I mean,

if you’re not there to listen,

have your date somewhere else.

There’re plenty of other bars within

a two mile radius even.

At Carapace the audience is instructed to be supportive of the storytellers. But in our larger culture, in which people understand how you are supposed to behave at a performance, there is an idea that audiences should be quiet and attentive. There is also, though, some disagreement about how strict that custom is, as we can see by Eleanor’s friends who remind her “audience etiquette” is relatively new.

When we were talking about Carapace being recorded, I asked Eleanor how the audience behaved while being recorded (since the camera did pan the audience). She said she hadn’t watched the show, but

I would guess the audience probably was a little self-conscious.

People are.

That’s part of the

unspoken agreement about being audience, I think.

I am not in the spotlight.

I think this is another interesting observation about greater cultural understandings of how performers and audience members are supposed to behave. The audience is supposed to be quiet and attentive, but they are not expected to perform. And this is a comfortable thing for the audience. If they wanted to perform, they would get on stage.