Dear Wally 69 rude public behavior

Dear Wally,Last night I attended a very nice live performance at the Rosendale Theater. Wally, I was
appalled at the conduct of some of my fellow audience members. The family owned theater sells small bags of popcorn. It is an understandable custom at a movie house, but Wally,there was a live thespian upon the stage and the play's author was inattendance. This was not an over amplified cinamatronic offering. Itwas a small and intimate live performance and the sound of cracklingpaper popcorn bags was enough to drive one to go postal. One womanbehind me was folding hers into an elaborate origami construct whileblissfully unaware of the distainful looks I was sending her way. Andthen there was the late-coming soup-slurper. Why couldn't she haveeaten her dinner in the lobby or awaited the intermission? Surely amember of our overfed society could have postponed her oralgratification for a more appropriate time?I was sincerely hoping for a post performance discussion period so Icould arise from my seat and excoriate these people but alas it wasnot to be. In my brief discussion with the playwright I did refrainfrom apologizing for their actions but should I have approached themindividually to chastise them?Just sign me,Outraged

Dear Outraged:
No better way to curdle an otherwise buttery theater experience than to have the folks on our flanks, the very ones we are haphazardly plopped next to in theaters by the gods of bad parking spaces who make us late, dive headlong into their Happy Meals until the din they create from munching and folding resembles a cicada-infested meadow on a July night.

Big slurping cow tongues, smacking lips, relentlessly grinding molars, crinkling wrappers. Uggggghhhhhhhh! Talk about a horror movie in Surround Sound!

I recently went to a big ‘multi-plex’ where the theater sells bulging tankers of popcorn larger than the water troughs we fill for the horses. No human should be allowed to eat this much in a sitting, even if it is a so-called bargain. In its thin defense, however, when the jumbo-tub is finished, or at least when the comatose consumer has reached his explosion bending moment, all that the rest of us hear is the single dull thud of empty container being released to the floor by an unclenched hand, unlike the irritating paper bag folders who seem unable to litter politely or discretely.

As for the live performers, they too must not like these crackling, munching, slurping audience offerings much. Or anything else that distracts. ( I’ve been pelted with my fair share of vitamin C-rich citrus and leafy vegetables while onstage. I’m only appreciative in that I have yet to get Scurvy. But who’s laughing last when I clean up after the show and get to take home an entire free salad bar?! HA!)

I guess annexing the theater as one’s own personal dining room is a logical extension of the immediacy and intimacy we’ve come to expect. Doesn’t make it right though. Plus there’s something repulsively glutinous and passively indulgent about the smoking, bucking conveyer belt of chow that publically terminates in America’s collective mouth. So we’re hogs AND we’re rude about it. Bad combo. Not all of us, but enough of us that someone like you has to write someone like me and grouse.

The problem with chastising the noise makers directly, as you wondered, is that if you aggravate the wrong person whose blood sugar is tweakin’ from the Twinkies, Mr. Vigilante Man, you might find confrontation beyond your ability to control it. And frankly, you sound like a skinny guy. You corner the wrong theater piggy and call them out, and they might just put you in their popcorn tub upside down, add salt and eat YOU! I’m just saying be careful.

Here’s a short, non-exhaustive list of public ‘don’ts’ on which I’m sure we all can agree: If you go to a theater, and you have to eat, eat discretely. No soups, baby back ribs, no bouillabaisse. As a rule of thumb, nothing that requires a hibachi to prepare it.

Now, especially if the show is live, please pay attention: there is no eating at all, capezio? The exception being the dinner theater. And one’s ample punishment is having to eat the institutional breaded chicken and watch Oklahoma! (their exclamation point not mine).

If folks somehow missed this public behavior nugget growing up and don’t find it rude to eat at a live show, then read on for some more helpful hints: It is rude to clip one’s toenails in public (I almost had my left eye put out by a rogue clipping that shot out like shrapnel from someone’s poorly controlled nail clipper as I walked by them on a park bench). It is rude to scratch one’s privates in public. I’d personally like to say to the guy at the gym that it is rude to flatulate in public places, especially when you then walk out with feigned disgust and righteous indignation and leave others to wallow in your business and falsely conclude that it was my doing. ( Oh, you KNOW who you are).

It is also rude to kick the seatback in front of you on the plane, especially when the thing in front of you looks a lot like the back of my head.

My list of unacceptable public behavior far exceeds the spatial allowance of this column (or even this entire paper) but the above represent a choice select few. Hopefully this helps reign in some improper public behavior and your theater experience henceforth starts to improve. If not, consider buying the theater yourself. I’m not being flip--it’s for sale—Own it yourself and you’ll get to make the rules!

-Wally

Got a question for our advice columnist or want to find out how you can help buy (and preserve) the beautiful, historic Rosendale Theater? Email him at cwn4@aol.com