...his friend, under the name "Zack," why he doesn't attend the theatre in Boston.
Summation: Ticket prices aren't as big a factor as not knowing what is happening. Also, basically, he doesn't like live performers as much as he likes the movies.
Grim? A bit.
Pete and I talked about this a lot a few years ago, and came to the conclusion that there's no quality control in theatre. Seeing a flyer for a production of (say) "The Glass Menagerie" doesn't give you any indication of the possible hell you can be getting yourself into when you show up to the theatre (i.e., "What? Wait. Oh, crap! They're performing it as an ABSTRACT DANCE PIECE! GAAAAAH!").
ReplyDeleteHaving gone to a number of shows where I knew nothing about the company or production in advance, and being burned as an audience member more than a few times, I'm not unsympathetic to Isaac's friend's prejudices.
Josh, it's interesting you bring up stand-up, because there's a HUGE divide between amateur and professional stand-up (I've gone to many amateur open-mics, and I've seen both Dane Cook and Eddie Izzard live, trust me). There's a similar divide in some cases with theatre, although to be fair, the divide isn't nearly as wide (I pretty much know when I'm being dragged to an open-mic stand-up show I'll be experiencing a special type of hell. At least with theatre there's a chance it'll be good).