Seriously though, when did a night at the theatre become interchangeable with a night at the movies, a night at the comedy club, a night you decided to spend at home because you didn't feel like showering or shaving your legs? Recently I had the pleasure to escort a group of friends to the Oriental Theatre in Chicago to see "The Addams Family", now making it's cross country move to Broadway. Let me first say that the show was hilarious. The distinguished Nathan Lane put on a brilliant performance as Gomez, while the brazen and beautiful Bebe Neuwirth played Morticia. The show was hilariously funny and I thought it did the Addams cartoons justice. We had a wonderful time and the Oriental is the most gorgeous I've been to in the city. However, it was hard to focus on the ornate decor, the painstaking attention given to the smallest detail and the excitement of the night. Why you ask?
Well, because there was a guy in front of me, wearing the a five point pentacle around his neck, with his black jeans and his Gothic t-shirt under his ripped flannel shirt. The guy in front of him was wearing a baseball cap and a matching sweatshirt of his favorite NFL team. Listen, I am a psychotic Packer fan and if you have read this blog before you know that I will sport the Green and Gold anywhere...except the THEATRE!!! There was a woman wearing house slippers a few rows below him. Yes, we were in the "nosebleeds", but I still have the expectation that the "nosebleeds" at Wrigley field would be different than at the Oriental.
I may sound like a snob or an elitist, but in this case I don't really care. A night at the theatre, where amazing talents put on a show just for you should require a little more preparedness on your part than say a Wednesday evening spent in front of the television. I think the theatre is one of the few things left in our society that gathers the masses in a more formal setting, and I think it should be treated as such. Put on a pair of black pants, half the time they are more comfortable than jeans anyway. A button up shirt perhaps and it doesn't even have to have a suit coat over it. Wear some shoes that don't have Nike or Puma written across the bottom of them. Yes, I love that theatre has become more accessible to everyone, but treat it with the respect that it deserves. I will forever love being one of the people who gathers in the darkness, all I ask is for those who gather with me to leave the Zoobas at home.
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