Boston Globe feature: How well did the audience play its part? The reviews are mixed.
The youth ensemble performing the rousing number “Revolting Children,” during a dress rehearsal. Photo by Jacob Chang-Rascle (COM’22)
How well did the audience play its part? The reviews are mixed.
As told in the Boston Globe feature, the production of “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” at Wheelock Family Theatre at Boston University is experienced through the eyes of an enthusiastic audience.
This article was originally published in the Boston Globe on November 17, 2022, by Don Aucoin.
Excerpt
Whether they realize it or not, audiences essentially function as supporting characters at the plays or musicals they attend.
Because of the up-close-and-personal nature of live performance, their collective personality is often a key ingredient in the atmosphere generated by any given production, part of theater’s mysterious chemistry.
“This is a conversation that I have a lot with other actors,” actor Sharmake Yusuf told me. “The audience is an integral part of the theater experience. The audience is equally as important as any scene partner. You need to be reacting to what they’re giving you.”
Of course, what they give actors can be good or bad. I’ve recently witnessed both kinds of audience impact.
Good: The joyously enthusiastic young audience at a Nov. 9 student matinee of “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” at Wheelock Family Theatre at Boston University.
Ranging from third-graders to high school seniors, and hailing from half a dozen different schools, they had the 632-seat theater rocking.
The subject matter had obvious appeal and points of identification for them — they were students watching a show about students, after all. But it was impressive how attentive and responsive — the ideal combination — they were throughout the 2½-hour show. They seemed to consider themselves virtually part of the action, with a stake in how things unfolded onstage.
So they lustily booed the villain, tyrannical headmistress Miss Trunchbull, and howled with glee when Matilda ultimately got the better of her and Miss Trunchbull fled up the aisles and out the theater’s door. At the curtain call, the students leaped to their feet to deliver a well-deserved standing ovation to 11-year-old Erin Grimm, who played Matilda.
Emily Ranii, who helmed “Matilda” and is Wheelock’s artistic director, told me that audiences “certainly” can be seen as a kind of supporting character. She cited another student matinee of “Matilda” when audience members reached out their hands to high-five child actors as they ran down the aisles in one scene.
When an audience is fully engaged like that with a production, said Ranii, “You can definitely feel the energy in the room. It’s like the difference between flat soda and effervescent, sparkly champagne.”
…
“We are still learning new audience behavior,” Wheelock’s Ranii said. “Audiences are buying tickets later than ever. There’s that mentality around staying nimble and flexible. We were inside for so long, and people are choosier about what they choose to do.”
Given that reality, Ranii said, “Theaters need to create reasons for audiences to show up, to come out of their shells and be in communion with each other.”
And with a lot of actors, for they, too, are eager for that kind of communion.