A Bad Case of the Clap

I live in a small city with an outsized cultural agenda. Living in a place that is consistently in the top three best educated cities in the US has significant cultural advantages. Education and erudition are old bedfellows, and while formal education has terminal points for most of us, erudition requires constant feeding, for unfed erudition is better known as its ignominious alter ego, pedagogy. In my little city, we enjoy almost constant intravenous feeding of lectures, exhibits and theatre, of choral and orchestral music, of the best intellects of Europe and Asia and even America, along with outstanding artists from every corner of the world, including our home state of Wisconsin.

This is among the enduring reasons life is good here, almost compensating, if the show is good and the post show conversation stimulating, for the unfathomably frigid winters and the sweltering sweatiness of the suds sweetened summers. And it’s no wonder performers agree to present their works here; it’s the Land of the Standing Ovation.

Seriously. It doesn’t matter what

you do on stage here, the crowd will rise to its feet. Oh sure. Sometimes the audience is slow. Sometimes it takes a few bows onstage before the first faltering fan pushes to her feet. Then her seatmate rises, followed by the couple behind them, whose view of the stage is now blocked. Eventually, if painfully, the whole audience is standing, clapping like a beach full of seals.

Here’s a guideline people in small cities need to apply. If you find yourself debating whether to stand to applaud a performance,

then don’t. Standing ovations are not meant to be the result of a meditated decision making process. Standing ovations are impulsive, irresistible manifestations of exultant joy and satisfaction with the material presented. One stands because one cannot stay seated.

And I do not mean those who would stand because they are so tired of sitting that they just cannot wait another second to leave the theatre.

Please. For the sake of all of us

who value legitimate expressions of appreciation, keep your approbation appropriate. When you demean your expression of gratitude, you demean the value of our striving for greatness as well.