The Chronicles Of Jessica

Paulie and I went to see Toad the Wet Sprocket last night (a band, for those of you who didn't listen to the radio in the 90's) at the Birchmere and we had a great time. We love the Birchmere because you can sit and watch the band at a table while eating food and drinking beer, as opposed to having to stand and sway rhythmically while you watch the band and drink beer. We're too old for that. We don't enjoy entertainment unless we can sit down or even better, lie down. If they had santized couches with tv trays at the Birchmere that would be the penultimate band-viewing experience.

Anyway, I started thinking about something that has bothered me for a while, and that is the ridiculousness of the concept of the encore . I took a cursory look around on the intertubes and could not find any history on the encore or how it got started. But I don't really need to know; I can easily guess how the practice got started. It started with some egotistic performer somewhere who was so intoxicated with the audience's applause that they just had to get back out onstage so they could sop up a little more love for their already extra-inflated ego. (Hey, I've been in po' biz since I was 12 - I know from egos. Surely you don't think I became an actor because I like wearing clothes that smell like mothballs and making $250 a week?) I do remember reading somewhere that back in the day theatre actors used to do encores too, which is just hilarious. The star actor would just come back out and reprise the big scene or monologue for everybody, even though they'd just seen it and the play was over. (Now that I think about it I can't believe Fallon and Rene never did this in Othello. It would have been awesome. They're alive again! Now they're dead. Oops, they're back! Wheeee!)

We've seen a lot of concerts in the past couple of years and every single I time I realize that the encore is just so silly, because EVERYONE does it EVERY single time. They all plan on doing it; you can tell because they don't discuss what songs they're going to do for the encore when they come back out. There's nothing organic about it, like, "Hey the audience really was into us, they're not gonna stop applauding any time soon! We better go back out and give 'em what they're asking for!" It's become like a social obligation - the band exits the stage, they wait the requisite five minutes, the audience claps dutifully the entire time, the band comes back out and does three more songs. If the band didn't do it, the audience would become confused and frightened. If the audience didn't do it, the band would probably come back out after the five minutes to find everyone putting on their coats and then they'd be hurt and insulted. Can't you just tack the three songs onto the end of the set and get us all out to the parking lot faster? It's a weeknight, dude. Seriously.

In my experience, the curtain call is an awkward thing that you have to get through as quickly as possible and I would not want to prolong it by engaging in this little encore ritual. At least if you're a musician you have stuff to do though; you can fiddle with your instrument or take the guitar strap off, or adjust your leather jacket or your studded collar, or something. As an actor all you can do is stand there while people clap at you. Sometimes you get to gesture to someone else (like, "I know I was brilliant but what about that guy! Did he blow your mind or what!?!"), which is good, but most of the time you come out and bow and then you have to stand there while all the other actors come out and bow (and if it's a big cast this could go on for a while), all the time with an expression on your face that says, "Thanks for being here. I know you could have been home watching The Bachelor and I really, really appreciate it. I am humble. I am thankful and humbled. Thankful and humbled and smiley. I'm smiling. Oh, and look, you're smiling! We're all smiling. Now you're standing up. That really is nice. Wow. This was something, wasn't it?" Or even worse, you wind up performing for an audience that acts like they are home watching The Bachelor; they take no note whatsoever of the fact that there are real live performers on stage and they clap all half-heartedly like they're trying to get some stray flour or dirt off their hands and then they're finished up with that before you can even get backstage. I guess there's no perfect solution. Maybe the audience could get a little sheaf of happy face stickers and on their way out they could put a sticker on the face of the headshot of the actors they liked the best. Then at the end of the run whoever has the most stickers gets a t shirt that says, "My parents paid good money for a liberal arts education and all I got was this lousy t shirt."

(If any Chronicles readers own a screen printing shop, I really want that t shirt, I just decided.)