When Is The Last Time You Walked Out Of A Performance?

[Sim]

Hello.  Now that the weekend is upon us, I thought it would be fun/interesting to ask this question.  Reading the comments and reviews of 'Creature' made me wonder!   Aside from 'Creature', I would love to know what is the last performance you walked out of, and why?  It doesn't have to be a ballet/dance performance.  I really try hard never to leave something half way, but the older I get the more I realise that I don't want to waste time, even an hour or two, so my tolerance level is dropping rapidly with each passing year!

 

OK, starters for 10:

 

I left Mark Morris' Romeo and Juliet at the Barbican a few years ago.  I never thought that the story of R&J could bore me, no matter how anyone mangled it, but Morris managed.  It was dull,  and trying so hard to be clever that it was rendered silly and trite.  It almost looked like he was making fun of it, himself or both.  The final straw was when the guys were 'fighting' with wooden toy swords.  No feeling of menace there, then.  

 

More recently, not too long before lockdown, my hubby and I took one look at each other in the interval of The Threepenny Opera at the National Theatre and left.  It was dire.  Brecht's words and Weill's music convey all the sleaziness and dark underbelly of Berlin in the 30s.  We really didn't need constant swearing (none of which was in the original) and ridiculous, meaningless and gratuitous sex being portrayed over and over again.  Again, none of that was in the original, and this was all very mundane.  The director and producer obviously thought that today's audience are so stupid that they had to throw this all in our faces instead of just letting the words and music do the job that they so brilliantly do, if only people would take the time to listen.

 

Over to you...

 

[Meetmeatthebarre]

Except for mid-performance emergencies or where I've planned in advance not to see part of a triple bill, only one: the Tristan & Isolde staging at the ROH which left half the auditorium only able to see a white box. Though I would have walked out of McGregor's Entity at Sadlers Wells, had it not bored me so much that I fell asleep despite the deafening music. 

[Lizbie1]

Such a good question!

 

I'm very stubborn about staying on, but the last revival of Mitridate, re di Ponto at ROH defeated me. I got to about half way through the second act and decided I'd much rather be on a train home. It wasn't terrible, it was just boring - early Mozart is no great shakes, IMO - and on the whole I didn't find it very well sung either. (The critics disagreed but I'm old enough to trust my own judgement.)

 

Funnily enough I later found a programme for an earlier run, so I'd obviously completely forgotten having seen it before - some going with costumes like that.

[Lizbie1]

16 minutes ago, Meetmeatthebarre said:

the Tristan & Isolde staging at the ROH which left half the auditorium only able to see a white box.

 

I was lucky enough to be on the correct side of the house. I think they finally conceded that this was a problem and adjusted the prices on one side of the house for the most recent run, though it might have fallen victim to Covid anyway, thinking about it.

 

It really infuriates me that ROH lets this happen. It's just so rude to the audience!

[Meetmeatthebarre]

5 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

I was lucky enough to be on the correct side of the house. I think they finally conceded that this was a problem and adjusted the prices on one side of the house for the most recent run, though it might have fallen victim to Covid anyway, thinking about it.

 

It really infuriates me that ROH lets this happen. It's just so rude to the audience!

 

From memory, they changed the staging to have wider viewing angles, as I do remember seeing it again (though booked the "right side" just in case anyway). 

 

I think they learned their lesson about checking the staging from more than just the stalls after having to refund or partially refund 1/3 of the house in that debut run...

[capybara]

Not so much a ‘walking out’ as a ‘missing the last bit’………

I had booked for several of each of the three RB mixed bills last summer and it got to the point where I decided not to stay (again) after the interval a couple of times for all of them.

In common with Sim, I had a lot on and I felt I could make better use of my time. It seems that that reasoning underpinned many  people’s thoughts as they left Creature……..

[LinMM]

Meetmeatthebarre Your comment about falling asleep at the McGregor ballet inspite of the deafening music made me laugh 😂  
There’s a certain sort of tiredness which sometimes descends usually when a lot of things have been happening at once or you are menopausal lol which can allow you to do that!! 
Ive hardly ever walked out of any performances however there have been just a few occasions when I’ve been too tired to attend in the first place which may be an even worse offence and is usually accompanied by considerable guilt. 
The last time this happened was quite a few years back when I had a ticket for Sleeping Beauty. I had recently changed my job and had a 30 mile drive there and back which probably played a part!  Suddenly it seemed like an immense feat to sit through three hours of Sleeping Beauty ....even travelling up to London seemed like it was the North Pole or similar!! I did toy with the idea of going but just leaving before the final Act but in the end didn’t show at all! This was pre Balletcoforum days so no way of getting the ticket to anybody else so did feel guilty. 
I have a feeling it was Darcey dancing that day and I actually really liked her in this role. 

[Meetmeatthebarre]

12 minutes ago, LinMM said:

There’s a certain sort of tiredness which sometimes descends usually when a lot of things have been happening at once

Yes! In this case it was the continued aural assault. I have respect for what MacGregor is doing conceptually, but the combination of it not being aesthetically pleasing to me, and the music choices, have made me give up!

 

13 minutes ago, LinMM said:

The last time this happened was quite a few years back when I had a ticket for Sleeping Beauty. [...] I did toy with the idea of going but just leaving before the final Act but in the end didn’t show at all! 

You've just reminded me - I did leave before Act III of Beauty on one occasion. I love Florine/Bluebird and of course the final PDD, but could happily pass on the rest and it's just so long. I think it was just one of those days where I weighed up the potential moments of beauty (no pun intended) with how utterly exhausted I was. 

[Dawnstar]

I think the only time I've left in an interval because I detested the production was ENO's Peter Grimes in 2009. It then went on to win the Olivier for Best Opera Production that year so clearly I was in the minority in hating it. There have been a handful of other productions over the years where I've been tempted to leave at an interval but have stuck it out. I've never been tempted to leave due to more boredom, it has to be active dislike. I've definitely got more fussy over the years about booking for productions in the first place & have also returned/abandoned various tickets over the years after reading first night reviews.

 

In terms of missing the last bit due to repeat viewing, in 2018 Mischief Theatre did a tour of their one-act improv show & I booked all seven performances for the week they were at my local theatre, because every show would be different, being improv. However they then added a second act, trying out material for a new scripted magic show (I do not like magic shows). I sat through it five times but skipped it for one show apiece on the two two-show days.

[zxDaveM]

to be slightly contrary - I miss out a middle bit, that is act 2 of R&J. I usually read my book in the bar, then go back in for act 3

[Lizbie1]

3 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

I think the only time I've left in an interval because I detested the production was ENO's Peter Grimes in 2009. It then went on to win the Olivier for Best Opera Production that year so clearly I was in the minority in hating it.

 

Olivier nominees and awards for opera can be baffling - there's generally at least one that was hated by critics and public alike.

[Mary]

2 hours ago, Meetmeatthebarre said:

Except for mid-performance emergencies or where I've planned in advance not to see part of a triple bill, only one: the Tristan & Isolde staging at the ROH which left half the auditorium only able to see a white box. Though I would have walked out of McGregor's Entity at Sadlers Wells, had it not bored me so much that I fell asleep despite the deafening music. 

Now I think you're being unfair here...I am sure I remember there being a dining chair- or was it a table?? on stage at one point.........😀

 

 

[bridiem]

3 hours ago, Sim said:

I left Mark Morris' Romeo and Juliet at the Barbican a few years ago.  I never thought that the story of R&J could bore me, no matter how anyone mangled it, but Morris managed.  It was dull,  and trying so hard to be clever that it was rendered silly and trite.  It almost looked like he was making fun of it, himself or both.  The final straw was when the guys were 'fighting' with wooden toy swords.  No feeling of menace there, then.  

 

So did I! I've rarely been so disappointed by a production. And to add insult to injury I did my usual getting lost at the Barbican act when trying to get back to the tube and ended up going up and down and round and round... I ended up wandering around in tears after a thoroughly depressing evening. 😯

[LinMM]

Oh no Bridiem! Sounds like one of my journeys back to Brighton where in the winter trains suddenly get cancelled literally “en voyage” So like unexpectedly having to rush around East Croydon station after 10pm at night looking for the next train to Brighton 😢 

When I lived in London the Barbican was actually easy for me on a direct bus route to where I lived but I hardly ever went to the theatre there something a little off putting but not quite sure what. 
I did frequent the library there though often over a couple of years so do have happy memories of that and the lunchtime concerts at the Old St Bartholomew church nearby. 

[JohnS]

Steven Berkoff’s Salome which I think was a National Theatre production transferred to a London theatre. We’d have left before the first interval but were in the middle of a row. It was as if speech, particularly Berkoff’s Herod, were slowed down from 78 to 33.
[Having thought more about this and as Salome probably doesn't have an interval, we must have had to wait until those in neighbouring seats had also decided to leave - it was a long time ago.]

 

Not so much walking out but I recall Lizbie1’s Mitridate and the hawk brought on stage being decidedly unhappy. Many audience members were calling for the handler to take the hawk off stage. But Il viaggio a Reims provoked more audience opprobrium as I think Montserrat Caballé was addressing asides in character to the conductor Carlo Rizzi which very few people could hear. A number of people started shouting ‘Speak up/Can’t hear’ but the asides continued and audience tempers were certainly frayed.

Edited October 1, 2021 by JohnS
Second thoughts

[alison]

35 minutes ago, JohnS said:

We’d have left before the first interval but were in the middle of a row.

 

I must be tired: my initial thought was to wonder why on earth you were having an argument mid-performance!  Gotta love the English language!

 

I'm not sure I've ever walked out of something in disgust or whatever.  I've certainly left early/not gone back in after an interval, but currently can't remember actually walking out, except for having to catch trains.  Mind you, everything pre-Covid seems to have merged into one big nebulous mass now ...

[Meetmeatthebarre]

1 hour ago, alison said:

 

I must be tired: my initial thought was to wonder why on earth you were having an argument mid-performance!  

I filed this under my "left due to emergencies" category, but I did leave the Cunning Little Vixen after the interval due to an *actual* row with my first serious boyfriend of four years, which turned into us breaking up in the amphi bar...

 

Several months of not speaking later, we bumped into each other, again at the ROH, during an Insight event. There was one ticket on our joint account and both of us thought it was us who had booked it! Luckily it wasn't full, and I recall the staff being really understanding (and amused). 

 

We're able to look back on it now and laugh, and have become extremely close (platonic) friends. I still can't face Janacek, though.

[Dawnstar]

16 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

Olivier nominees and awards for opera can be baffling - there's generally at least one that was hated by critics and public alike.

 

Although in my instance I think almost everyone apart from me seemed to think the production was great. When it was revived a few years later I seem to remember finding one critic who disliked it amidst a lot of rave reviews.

[AnneMarriott]

I have often left at the interval or before the final ballet of a mixed bill, and have sat out the middle offering of a mixed bill, but the one walk-out I remember most vividly was at Sadler's Wells when, after the first few bars of Jimi Hendrix, seat-vibratingly amplified, William Tuckett's "License my roving hands ..." witnessed what amounted to a slow stampede of elderly patrons, many of whom were using walking aids.  It was almost as impressive as the action on stage, which I remember with great fondness.

[bridiem]

Many, many years ago I walked out of a performance not because I didn't like it but because I was so furious with the audience and the theatre... It was at SW and it's so long ago I can't be sure but I think it was a Merce Cunningham piece. It was the first work on the bill, and it was performed in silence - no music, no soundscape, no nothing. Except that it wasn't. Latecomers were allowed in after it had started, crashing along rows with theatrical whispered apologies; other audience members laughed and talked freely; and staff could be heard talking loudly in the foyer outside. I was incredulous. I know it can be demanding watching a silent work, in silence; but it was really ludicrous and I lost my rag. I complained to SW afterwards and I seem to remember being offered a refund or a free ticket or some such. But I couldn't believe how disrespectful it was, not just to other audience members but also to the dancers.

[Balletmummy18]

Walking out of ‘The Nutcracker’ at ROH to collect my daughter at the stage door during the interval many times.( They are never allowed to see the rest of it even if a ticket bought from front of house -neither are they allowed any recognition from audience at end of a performance !)

[Scheherezade]

On 01/10/2021 at 18:45, Sim said:

 

More recently, not too long before lockdown, my hubby and I took one look at each other in the interval of The Threepenny Opera at the National Theatre and left. 

 

I've lost count of the number of National Theatre productions I've been tempted to walk out of since the departure of Nicholas Hytner.

[Lizbie1]

35 minutes ago, Scheherezade said:

 

I've lost count of the number of National Theatre productions I've been tempted to walk out of since the departure of Nicholas Hytner.

 

It's been a long time since I was even tempted to go, with the exception of Top Girls, which I was too late to get a ticket for.

[Scheherezade]

1 hour ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

It's been a long time since I was even tempted to go, with the exception of Top Girls, which I was too late to get a ticket for.

I don’t think you need to lose any sleep over that, Lizbie. Like so much at the NT lately, I felt that it somehow missed the mark. 

[Jan McNulty]

The first performance where we ever left out of choice at the interval was August Wilson's play Fences at the Liverpool Playhouse.  Again at The Playhouse a sort of review called The Divvies are Coming.

 

We had to leave before the end at a revival of Blood Brothers again at the Playhouse.  It started late and the interval way over-ran.  We swapped seats with people at the end of the row and slipped out to catch the last train home.

 

Again at the Liverpool Playhouse a production of The Alchemist.  It was a dreadful production and my friend was trying to hold back a terrible cough so we left at the interval.

 

I've never walked out of a dance or ballet performance even though I have sometimes felt like it.

[RHowarth]

3 hours ago, Scheherezade said:

 

I've lost count of the number of National Theatre productions I've been tempted to walk out of since the departure of Nicholas Hytner.

Didn't walk out of Macbeth there a few years ago, but fell asleep several times.

[Guest]

I saw many empty seats after Multiverse. Did someone here name it Multiworse? Made me chuckle. Anyway, by the time Carbon Life got started, I wished I had also had the sense to leave. (The dancers, as ever, were fabulous - goes without saying.) 

[Scheherezade]

10 hours ago, Darlex said:

I saw many empty seats after Multiverse. Did someone here name it Multiworse?

If they didn’t, they should have. It was dreadful. Personally I found Carbon Life far more bearable, possibly because it didn’t take itself so seriously. Was this down to the music and costumes?

[Sim]

I stuck Multiworse out on opening night  because it was mercifully short (although it seemed like it would never end).  I had tickets for the next couple of showings and needless to say I sat them out.  

[zxDaveM]

10 minutes ago, Scheherezade said:

If they didn’t, they should have. It was dreadful. Personally I found Carbon Life far more bearable, possibly because it didn’t take itself so seriously. Was this down to the music and costumes?

 

the first run of Carbon Life was joyfully uplifting - the 2nd run the fizz seemed to have gone out of it sadly, without the pop/rock musicians of the first time - they seemed to be genuinely excited to be there.

Think I watched Multiverse twice - 2nd time to check it was as bad as I thought first time. I too sat it out after that confirmation, despite several of my fave dancers featuring in it

[Fonty]

19 hours ago, Balletmummy18 said:

Walking out of ‘The Nutcracker’ at ROH to collect my daughter at the stage door during the interval many times.( They are never allowed to see the rest of it even if a ticket bought from front of house -neither are they allowed any recognition from audience at end of a performance !)

Oh that is most unfair!  When I was in it we were allowed to stay to the end, and we had a curtain call as well. Each performance, different children were allowed to stand in the wings to watch the second act, so that we all got a chance to see it.  Happy days.

With regard to walking out of a theatre performance, I can't remember ever leaving anything either in disgust or because of boredom.  However, I do tend to be very selective in what I go to see in the first place.  🙂 Anything I haven't seen before, I take the "open mind" approach.  The only ballet that I can remember walking out of before the end was This House Will Burn by Ashley Page, and that was because we were fooled by a false ending.  A curtain came down, my partner stood up saying, "Thank goodness that is over", we started up the aisle and then realised the curtain was going up again.  We glanced at the dancers sweating away, doing their valiant best.... .and we continued to tip toe out discretely.    

[Jan McNulty]

21 hours ago, AnneMarriott said:

I have often left at the interval or before the final ballet of a mixed bill, and have sat out the middle offering of a mixed bill, but the one walk-out I remember most vividly was at Sadler's Wells when, after the first few bars of Jimi Hendrix, seat-vibratingly amplified, William Tuckett's "License my roving hands ..." witnessed what amounted to a slow stampede of elderly patrons, many of whom were using walking aids.  It was almost as impressive as the action on stage, which I remember with great fondness.

 

I'm afraid I always (from my one and only viewing of License my roving hands) I tend to think of it as Pan's People on Pointe.  I also remember the dreadful sound system at Sadler's Wells totally distorting the music and I remember thinking which Hendrix music I would have preferred him to use!  I was at a Saturday matinee and I also remember people stomping out.  I think William Tuckett has come a long way since then!

[Fonty]

4 hours ago, Fonty said:

 We glanced at the dancers sweating away, doing their valiant best.... .and we continued to tip toe out discretely.    

 

Drat autocorrect!  I meant discreetly.  Although I suppose we did leave discretely as well.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Fonty