Excessive performance viewing etiquette
The term ‘corpse theater’ even appears
I flinch at the tense parts.
They look down on me and say, “I have no culture.”
Some say, “I paid a high price.
“You have to watch the performance completely,” protested.
Cinema [사진 = 연합뉴스]
# Office worker Kim Won-ju (32) still gets angry when he thinks about the experience he had when he went to see the musical Rebecca at a large theater in Seoul last month. This is because he was unable to immerse himself in the performance at all because he was paying attention to the announcement in the theater that asked him not to take his back off his chair while watching because he couldn’t see the people behind him. Mr. Kim said, “I paid a high performance fee and just watched. “I don’t think I’ll be watching musicals for a while,” he said with a sigh.
There is an increasing number of people trying to enjoy cultural life during the year-end and New Year performances, but disputes continue. Recently, a series of reviews have been posted in online communities about having unpleasant experiences due to other attendees while watching a performance. The term ‘corpse theater’, which means requiring people to watch the performance without moving as if they were dead, has even appeared because it interferes with immersion.
A visitor who recently saw a musical said, “My glasses fell off, so I was adjusting them when the person in the back seat tapped me on the shoulder twice. I thought it was an acquaintance, so I turned around and looked at him for a while, but I was surprised to see that he was glaring at me instead.”
On social networking services (SNS), there was even a debate about whether the sound heard while watching a performance and taking notes would interfere with watching the performance. A media reporter, while covering a performance, received a complaint from an audience member sitting next to her saying, “The sound of the note is noisy,” and published it in a column, sparking a heated debate on the pros and cons.
Demand for performance attendance, which had been suppressed due to COVID-19, is rising rapidly even as ticket prices are skyrocketing. According to the Performing Arts Integrated Network on the 14th, as of the 12th of this month, the number of performance reservations in the past month was 216,097, and the ticket reservation amount was 135.36 billion won. This is an increase of 11% and 13%, respectively, compared to the same period last year.
As the number of visitors increases, the controversy surrounding performance viewing etiquette becomes more intense. On one side, they dismiss the distracted viewing manners as ‘uncultured’, while on the other hand, they complain that they cannot enjoy the performance due to excessive demands that do not tolerate noise or even small movements that occur naturally during the performance. One visitor said, “His body automatically flinched during a tense moment, and the person sitting next to him glared at him. “Are you telling me to stay still like a corpse?” he complained.
An official at a large performance hall in Seoul said, “There are audiences who are not used to the performance hall, but controlling and pointing out naturally occurring noise and movement is causing additional damage to others.” He added, “It seems like we need a culture of consideration for each other.”
On the other hand, some argue that performance fans have the right to enjoy the performance to the fullest as they paid high ticket prices. Mr. Jeong, who introduced himself as a performance enthusiast, said, “Because cultural and artistic performances have the characteristic of being one-time experiences, it is natural to want to fully experience the on-site experience.”
Experts believe that the current corpse theater controversy was triggered by the fact that the performance culture had not yet been properly established and that the number of seats was designed to be too large to accommodate a large number of people. Due to the large number of seats, there were many seats that did not have a clear view of the stage, making immersion difficult, which led to conflict among the audience.
Professor Won Jong-dae of the Department of Performance and Media at Soonchunhyang University said, “For example, if you sit in the 10th row of a large domestic theater, you feel further away from the stage compared to sitting in a Broadway theater in the U.S.” Rescue,” he said.
