Audiences, man. Y’all do know we judge you, right? We start pronouncing our opinions before the show even begins. Actually, before you get there at all, we’ll mention that it’s Saturday and should be a lively crowd, or that the second weekend’s houses are less enthusiastic, or that we hate matinees and matinee audiences with a passion. There will be mild disagreement on whether to expect the worst this particular night, before we all reach agreement that audiences are bastards and cannot be trusted. Some of us pester the house manager or ASM for numbers, which they are mostly reluctant to give. Rumours spread of a crowd that is unusually packed with Phylisses (Phylii?) or that is already tipsy and boisterous. Some of us sneak up (or over or down) to the wings to listen as y’all mill around and settle; some sets have peekholes to peer through, either inadvertently left or deliberately placed.\n
Once the show starts, of course, we immediately judge whether y’all are with us<\/i>, whether y’all are a tough crowd<\/i>, whether y’all are dead<\/i>. We judge from the stage, we judge from the wings, we judge from dressing rooms, listening to the monitors that barely pick up audience sounds anyway. We judge passionately, viciously and inaccurately. We commiserate about lousy audiences, we exult in the great ones. We listen for coughs, mobile phones and the rattling of food wrappers. We joke about it. We reminisce about the worst audiences we have faced, and the best. We judge.\n
Friday’s house was quite good, enthusiastic but not rowdy. The Saturday night house was very quiet in the first half, but perked up after the interval (on such evenings we joke that the wine sales must have been particularly good). I felt I never found their rhythm; it’s harder when you can’t hear them, of course. I didn’t get an exit round after the letter scene on Saturday, and didn’t really expect to, although I didn’t think I had done it badly, or indeed significantly differently than previous nights. At the end many of them stood up to applaud, probably more of them standing than any other performance so far. Not that we count. It was not an unsatisfying night. I was sure tired when it was over, though.\n
Sunday matinee… the Saturday show was quiet in the first half; the audience for the Sunday matinee was silent<\/i>. It was terrible. So much more work when the audience have decided not to laugh out loud. It was not (we told each other backstage) that they weren’t paying attention, but that they had suppressed their laughter in the first scenes and now were in the habit of silence. I drew an exit round, but it was hard work; in the wing, I mimed pulling the applause out of the audience with a rope, to the knowing grimaces of my castmates. During the interval, we joked about the silence, and matinee audiences.\n
Then they came back for the second half a boisterous crowd. I got an actual entrance round when I appeared in my yellow stockings, the second scene after the interval. After, as I was making up for the Prison Scene, I expressed my appreciation that the house manager had buried the first half audience and hired a new one. Of course, that’s my last scene where I get laughs; there are occasional laughs during the Prison Scene but they are Feste’s, not mine, and my part of the final scene when I vow revenge is judged by its silence, not its noise. Still, an excellent audience, if perplexingly different from before to after.\n