Anna in the Tropics

Being a part of the audience of the performance of Anna in the Tropics was a much more intimate, personal experience than that of other plays I have attended.  With a much smaller audience and being so close to the stage, with some seats being right on the same level as the stage, I felt as if I were more involved with the play as an audience member, as opposed to being in a theater where the stage was elevated above an audience of hundreds.   

As expected, the audience as a whole practiced the typical audience conventions.  I arrived about 15 minutes prior to the start of the play and took my seat.  As I watched and listened to the audience members filing in, I overheard several conversations, with the majority of them pertaining to the play about to take place and about the actors in the play.  At one time, the music on the sound system overhead stopped and everyone got silent, assuming that it meant that the play was about to begin, but about 30 seconds later, the music started again and so did their conversations; the pause in the music acted as a 'false alarm' to the audience.  Later, the music actually did stop and the lights started to dim, at this point, the audience became completely silent, people straightened out in their seats in order to get a good look at the stage, and I heard the sounds of several cell phones being turned off, mine included.  During the play, I noticed the girl in front of me taking several pictures, this wouldn't have been a problem because she was not using the flash, but every time she took a picture, the camera would make a 'beep beep beep' sound, this earned her several dirty looks from other audience members.  This girl was not playing into the audience conventions and people were getting angry at her for it.  I also noticed over the course of the play that there was an infant in the theater who was making several noises; in the beginning I could tell that it was a bit distracting to the actors because some of them glanced up at the baby a few times, but after a while I noticed that they kind of became accustomed to the noises coming from the baby and eventually didn't pay it any attention.

When the play was over, there was unanimous cheering and clapping coming from the audience.  This enthusiasm fed into the excitement of the actors as they took their final bows.  This excitement also spilled out into the hallway as the actors met with the audience outside.  There were "congratulations", "good jobs" and smiles across the board, on the faces of both the actors and the audience members.  I found myself thinking about this excitement and about the play as a whole on my drive home and even when I returned home.  At home, I was describing the play to my boyfriend, but he did not seem as enthusiastic about it as I was; he didn't have too much to say about it at all.  I realized that this wasn't because he simply didn't care, it was because he did not get to take part in the experience of being in the audience and I did.