A trip to the theatre

Last night I went to the theatre. What's new about that? Thousands of people go to the theatre, I can hear you say. But not me. There are some plays I love. There are vast amounts of classical music that I love. But what I don't love is the tense, claustrophobic experience of being trapped in the middle of a row, surrounded by strangers and forced to be unnaturally still and quiet for an hour and a half, or however long it takes. That is not how I enjoy things. I would rather listen to Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique alone, lying on the sofa, eyes closed and head full of the movies that music always creates, transporting me to new places, tops of ice-capped mountains, green depths of oceans, or being whisked, Lara-like, through the snow in a troika, not stuffed into a hard seat with my next door neighbours wheezing, sighing, or digging their elbows in me.

But last night was different. I was up in the gods at the Old Vic, watching Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum in Mamet's Speed the Plow. I could barely see a quarter of the stage, I had to stand all the way through, craning my neck and shuffling about like everyone else, but because of the fact that it was the back row and everybody else was in the same boat, shifting around for a better view and guffawing at the humorous lines, it was relaxing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I take my hat off to Mamet for his skill in raising one's consciousness and belief in humanity's ability to transcend selfishness for twenty minutes or so, then spiralling us back down to the level of good old human nature prevailing again. Brilliant.

Three or four years ago, I went to see a local version of Midsummer Night's Dream staged in the open air around an old Cornish engine house in St Agnes. It was magical. Families and kids wandered round, almost taking part in the play and it was as if the show was growing out of the audience, who were lending it energy. I'm sure this is how plays were meant to be. I think it has to be the Globe experience next, for me.