New Yorkers Make the Greatest Audience
Last week, I saw John Turturro’s adaptation of the Philip Roth novel Sabbath’s Theater on Broadway. Turturro was flailing desperately for the entire second half of the show, calling for “LINES!” from a nearby prompter every other sentence, the stage directions were jumbled, and an unidentified whistling sound was ringing in the background. It got so bad at one point, that Turturro broke the fourth wall to apologize for the performance.
“Enjoy the show while you can,” Turturro lamented part-joking, mainly serious while still on stage, “I’m sure it won’t last much longer.”
Turturro was embarrassed, disappointed, and on the brink of tears.
“Just keep going,” one of his co-stars whispered, trying to get Turturro to gain some composure. An applause and some words of encouragement could be heard from the crowd. “You got this, John!” “Keep it up!”
Turturro smiled and appreciated the support, but it was no use. He did not know the lines. Turturro persevered until the play concluded, even going as far as to strip down completely during his final monologue, exposing himself to the crowded audience, before taking his final bow.
What struck me most, however, was that not one person left the show early, there was a thunderous standing ovation at the end, and almost everyone waited outside after to meet the actors and ask for autographs.
I have attended concerts, Broadway performances, and a slew of New York comedy shows in my life. I have concluded that New Yorkers make the greatest audience. Some may think I feel this way because to make it on a New York stage the show must be of tremendous quality, and thus easy to be a good audience for, although this is not the case. I have seen concerts crumble, theater flop, and stand-up completely bomb. Despite these disappointments, I have noticed that New York audiences always wait for the show to end and then rise in applause to demonstrate their appreciation.
To learn more about what gives New Yorkers this seemingly superior sense of cultural appreciation, I interviewed performers, audience members, and people involved in the New York art scene. Three factors support my hypothesis about New Yorkers making the best audiences: 1) New Yorkers need a release, 2) New Yorkers have a deep-rooted desire to be showpeople themselves, and 3) New Yorkers are comfortable and used to rejection. While these qualities may not be exclusively unique to New Yorkers, they are amplified by living here.
Charlie Blake is a talented musician and the lead guitarist and backup vocalist in his band Pink Matter. He is tall, lanky, and has a small freckle beneath his left eye that he wears like a piece of jewelry. When I asked Charlie what his favorite place to perform was, he didn’t hesitate to respond, the Bowery Ballroom on the Lower East Side.
“The brick walls and intimate feel of the space are iconic, for sure. The Bowery’s got some major history,” Charlie tells me, “but it’s the people that come to watch that make it special.”
I asked Charlie to elaborate.
“The people at those shows are just so tightly wound during the week and stressed out,” Charlie chimes in his melodic rasp. “When they come out to the show, they just want to forget it all and party. You can feel it. It’s palpable.”
Charlie recalls an encounter he had with a fan after one of his shows.
“This guy came up to me and said that my show saved his life. The guy looked kinda drugged up and was slurring his words, but I could tell he meant it. He told me that his wife had left him a few weeks earlier and that this was the first time he had been able to get himself to go out since she did.”
Charlie shared with me that he gave a guitar pick to the fan and told him to, "keep rocking on." The fan broke down in tears. Charlie then looked me in the eyes and explained, "Music can heal, especially in a stressful and cutthroat environment like the City. The audience's energy reflects that."
New York City has the highest concentration of artists on the planet. Josh Saracheck, an aspiring music producer/sound engineer is one of them.
“I go to over 180 shows a year and I love them all. Even the bad ones,” Josh tells me. “Especially the bad ones. A good portion of the audience members at these performances are not just there to watch,” he notes, “They’re there to learn. Some people may look up to a performer because they enjoy listening to their music, or they think they’re cool, or attractive, which there is nothing wrong with, but those people will mainly just be fans at home. The people who attend shows more regularly are there because they want to be like them. They are trying to study the technique, the choreography, how the artist interacts with the crowd, and what instruments they use. They are trying to incorporate what they see on stage into their own art.”
New Yorkers make a great audience because we like to perform. Being a performer is an extremely vulnerable and intimidating endeavor. Performance is a surrender to your own delusions and a willingness to be judged; and fellow performers, whether aspiring or established, have a unique appreciation for what that entails. Particularly when it comes to material as subjective as comedy, theater, and music, relating to the difficulties involved in the creative process, makes for a deeper viewing.
Rejection is a way of life here in New York and we are uniquely attuned and sympathetic to its difficulties because of it. We can’t afford not to be. New Yorkers deal with such constant rejection, it would be completely debilitating if we did. New Yorkers have adapted to their climate, and we have evolved. Just as bedbugs have developed an immunity to pesticides, we have developed a high tolerance to rejection. That is why New Yorkers clap when you succeed and clap harder when you fail because they know what it is like.
The audience culture in Europe is far different and less personal. A few months ago, I went to see Bleak Expectations at the Criterion Theater in London. The show was solid by all accounts. There was humor, poignancy, impressive choreography, and no forgotten lines. The response, however, was unremarkable. A few people clapped when the show concluded, and one or two individuals – probably producers of the show or thoughtful family members – stood up, but the majority of the audience simply filed out of the theater hurriedly and hailed cabs back home. It felt like we were at a restaurant and the meal had been served, the bill paid, and now it was time to leave. It was very transactional.
New Yorkers are a flawed breed, impatient, and complex, but we are not cold. These qualities are what make New Yorkers great audience members. After Sabbath’s Theater, I waited outside to meet Mr. Turturro. We spoke and took a picture together, and my brother mentioned that our mom hadn’t stopped blushing since the final scene. Turturro thanked us for coming, for waiting, for enjoying, and my brother, mom, and I left. We stood on the street for a few minutes trying to flag down a cab. Eventually, we saw one approaching, but someone upstreamed us and stole our ride. It was Turturro! He was one of us. Just a New Yorker fighting for a ride home.
(Left to right) My brother, John Turturro, and myself at the Linney Theater, following the show
