The Arthropologist

Twist and shout: At fine arts performances, audiences do the darndest things

Houston Grand Opera's 2003-2004 season production of "Tosca," starring MariaGuleghina as Floria Tosca and Franz Grundheber as Baron Scarpia. The opera ismounting a new production later this month and we're betting it will get astanding ovation because Houston audiences are quick on their feet.
Photo by Brett Coomer/Houston Grand Opera
Dancer Nozomi Iijima in the ballet, "Divergence," choreographed by StantonWelch. Audiences in Spain were stoic when the ballet performed there last summer-- until the end when they went nuts with up to seven curtain calls.
Photo by Amitava Sarkar
Trey McIntyre Project's "The Sun Road," with dancers John Michael Schert, left,Dylan G-Bowley, Brett Perry and Jason Hartley. The company is beloved in its newhometown of Boise.
Photo by Jeremiah Thompson
Dancer Kamille Upshaw, center, in Larry Keigwin's "Megalopolis" presented by TheJulliard School. The piece, with glittery Vegas futuristic costumes and anelectric mixed beat score, seemed to be saying, "Go ahead and yell, baby." Andthe audience did.

When I was 16, a man sitting two seats down from me had to be hauled away by the police during a Metropolitan Opera performance of Turandot in Miami. Granted, Monserrate Caballe had just taken the stage when the culprit erupted into a combination of sobbing and shouting.

Caballe's voice was quite capable of shattering your soul to smithereens if you weren't paying attention, but control yourself, sir. I came to hear the great soprano, not you going ballistic. And the funny thing was Caballe had not even opened her mouth yet. Really, at least wait until there's something to holler at.

Audience enthusiasm can be a good thing. Houston's beloved dance son, Trey McIntyre, had no problems when the Boise, Idaho, audience gave his dance company numerous curtain calls during its inaugural show in the group's new hometown. "There was this incredible outpouring of love. People were just so happy we were there," McIntyre recalls. "We felt like rock stars." McIntyre, contemporary dance's tall, talented and handsome "it" choreographer, has a way of getting audiences all worked up.

Houston Ballet experienced stoic audiences in Spain on last year's tour until the very end of the show, when they went nuts, with seven curtain calls at some shows.

A few weeks back, the normally uber polite modern dance audience at New Dances/Edition 2009 at Juilliard turned into a screaming TV dance show mob during Larry Keigwin's Megalopolis. Now, Keigwin's piece, with its glittery Vegas futuristic costumes and electric mixed beat score, seemed to be saying, "Go ahead and yell, baby." And yell they did. It came close to being part of the piece. During the next piece, Aszure Barton's whimsical Happy Little Things (Waiting on a Gruff Cloud of Wanting), they returned to serious mode as if nothing happened. Maybe they were trying to figure out what the title meant. Society for the Performing Arts is bringing Aszure Barton & Artists in this April. I know for a fact, she doesn't mind a little hollering during her dances.

Audiences have a dark side, too. Let us not forget the passive-aggressive types who tiptoe, walk or storm out of the theater. So many people left Maguy Marin's danceless but captivating performance of Umwelt at the American Dance Festival that I started counting them and even considered running into the lobby to try to talk them into staying. The piece was really getting juicy at the exact moment they were leaving. Dance audiences get particularly huffy when there isn't any actual dancing in the show.

Where to begin with historically unruly opera audiences? Recently Met Opera fans did not sit well with Swiss director Luc Bondy's new version of Puccini's Tosca. So they booed. The New York Times review tells the whole story, and the incident coughed up a whole new examination of the dreaded "boo." Even Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center, blogged about it on The Huffington Post. Apparently, it's not nice to mess with a death at the end of an opera.

Anthony Freud of Houston Grand Opera warns us to consider some cultural differences between audiences in the United States and Europe. "In Germany, booing is not necessarily a negative thing," he says. "They are expressing their displeasure. They are saying they don't agree with what they have seen or heard. They are not saying they had a horrible time." Next week, HGO launches a new production of Tosca directed by John Caird. Mums the word on the ending. So you will just have to go to find that out for yourself.

Houston audiences are generally a polite and grateful bunch. They leap to their feet quickly, or are they just getting a head start to the parking lot? In all these years of attending shows I have never heard a mean-spirited peep outside of the mandatory boos as part of Stages Repertory Theatre's recent Panto Sleeping Beauty.

Although I must admit to getting a bit annoyed at a man whose phone rang during The Caretaker by Harold Pinter, a stunning production by Stagger Lee Presents. He answered it and proceeded to chat with this friend. So instead of listening to Pinter's stinging prose, spoken by such noted Houston actors as Sean Patrick Judge, Matthew Carter and Greg Dean, this guy's inane phone conversation was ringing in my head. Pinter won a Nobel prize in 2005. This guy never will.

So behave yourself people, unless asked not to. As they say in the movies, "Let the wild rumpus begin."

A contributing editor at Dance Magazine, Houston and Dance Source Houston, Nancy Wozny blogs at dancehunter.blogspot.com.

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Movie Review

The Mandalorian and Grogu lacks the cinematic magic of a true Star Wars movie

Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm

The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu in The Mandalorian and Grogu.

At one point in the 2010s, Disney planned to release a different Star Wars movie every year, with an “Episode” film (like The Rise of Skywalker) alternating with anthology movies like Rogue One. But when 2018’s Solo underperformed, those plans changed, and the pandemic made any Star Wars movie less appealing, with Lucasfilm shifting heavily toward TV shows like The Mandalorian.

The popularity of that show in particular has led to the return of Star Wars to the theaters in the form of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. The film follows the bounty hunter (Pedro Pascal) and his Force-sensitive adopted child as they travel around the universe, hunting down the remaining members of the Galactic Empire (the film, like the series, is set in the years following The Return of the Jedi).

The main thrust of the film has the duo, at the behest of Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) of the New Republic, trying to track down Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), the son of the late Jabba the Hutt, who’s supposedly been kidnapped. The discovery of the ultra-buff Rotta sets them down a different path than they thought, one that puts Mando and Grogu in the crosshairs of Rotta’s twin cousins.

Directed by Jon Favreau and written by Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor, the film is perfectly fine if you consider it to be an extended Mandalorian episode, but at no point does it rise to the level of a great movie experience.

The film, like the show, is defined by the Mandalorian’s unflappable nature and strict code, as well as Grogu’s mischievousness and unquenchable appetite. Right from the start, the Mandalorian has a “take no prisoners” approach, laying waste to all comers in a PG-13 sort of way. Grogu is mostly along for the ride, occasionally breaking out the Force to help out, but mostly serving as the comic sidekick. Their relationship keeps the film watchable, but only just barely.

The biggest issue, one which was starting to affect the Disney+ show as well, is that the story never seems to go anywhere despite the fact that its two main characters are constantly on the move. No matter how big or ferocious the opponent they face, the overall stakes are so low as to almost be nonexistent. If Favreau and Filoni (who has a small part in the film) are trying to build toward some larger story, it doesn’t come through on screen.

The film’s action fits in well with sequences that have been put forth in previous Star Wars films, but to call them “cinematic” would be stretching things. There are all manner of monstrous creatures that the duo comes across in their adventures, but only a few of them are memorable. The most interesting sequence features a snake/dragon hybrid that Mando fights in a watery pit that is reminiscent of the trash compactor scene in the original Star Wars. Much of the rest of the film blends together in a mish-mash of uninteresting opponents.

For a live action film, there are precious few actors who actually show their faces. The Mandalorian removes his helmet exactly once, making it clear that Pascal is merely providing the voice for the character. White affects a tough voice for Rotta that may be canon, but frankly sounds ridiculous coming from the character’s body and in no way resembles White’s actual voice, which negates his casting altogether. Weaver is close to a non-factor in her small role, but Martin Scorsese is kind of fun voicing a four-armed fry cook/informant.

The cachet of Star Wars and the fun of The Mandalorian series may be enough for many to enjoy the inoffensive lark that is The Mandalorian and Grogu. But the film does not come close to reaching the heights of the best Star Wars movies, and does nothing to indicate what to expect from the valuable intellectual property going forward.

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Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opens in theaters on May 22.

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