I was listening to a live performance of a musical recently - the main character momentarily lost her mind at the end of a song. Her beautifully held note swelled into a full throated scream. A marvelous, frightening moment of theater.
It was followed by "whoo-hoo" and yeah! from the audience. Were they not moved or frightened by what had happened to this character? Were they saying "Yeah! love your mind coming apart, baby"? It was another dramatic moment ruined for the rest of us by the whoopers.
The whoopers (rhymes with 'bloopers') are those audience members who "whoop!" or "yeah" whenever a singer hits a high note and holds it for 4 or more seconds. Usually the whoopers wait till the note is cut off before whooping.
But common practice allows that if the singers holds the note for 6 seconds or more, whooping is permitted to occur during the held note - however this 'mid-note whooping' requires a louder explosion of enthusiasm when the singer releases their note.
I'm not sure where this practice came from. I suspect it is either from the congregation's interjections during a gospel performance in church, or from the athletic performances of singers on the various 'somebody's got talent' shows. I suspect the latter because the whoop does not seem to be an expression of shared belief ("tell us, sister") but is more a reaction to the purely physical accomplishment of belted volume and length. It is akin to the "score!!" of football, the 'ole' of the bullfight or the cheer from the trading floor at the end of an up-market day.
The whoop in the musical theater is independent of what the character is saying in the lyric. The performer can be revealing a devastating tragedy with their high note, a dramatic realization of a mistake or even a command to another character to be silent. Yet the whoop seems to be mandatory now whatever the dramatic context.
The standing ovation has also become so standard that you feel like a heel if you just sit and clap. I can more readily accept this new practice as my knees have grown stiff from sitting and it's a welcome chance to stretch. But it saddens me a little that the standing 'o' has lost some of its importance.
My favorite standing ovation was when the RSC came to NY to perform Nicholas Nickleby in 1981. I was fortunate enough to attend a Monday performance of both halves (matinee and evening) that had been scheduled for theater professionals on a Broadway schedule. After the dinner break, as the cast entered, the entire audience rose as one with a thunderous ovation at the start of the show. But being professionals, the audience knew the cast was ready to begin and after exactly 15 seconds (as if on a stopwatch) the audience quickly sat down, eager to see the show.
Whooping I fear has become as acceptable and omnipresent for an audience as the standing ovation. But I can't just blame the whoopers. More and more I hear songs for the theater that feature belting for belting's sake. Every song has to end like it's the 11 o'clock number (ask you elders what that is ... shows started later and lasted longer ...) Everything has to end big with an impossibly athletic vocal turn.
A well known composer-lyricist once explained that applause was the punctuation that helped structure the flow of an act. This discussion occurred when someone (in London) had removed all the buttons from the first act of a musical he had written. They felt his 'serious' musical shouldn't have that 'pedestrian' stopping for applause. The buttons to numbers were then all restored to help maintain the structure of the show. The writer and director were careful to use applause for structure (and to give more time for scenery or costume changes.) There was never a sense that 'more applause means audience and critics will like the show better'.
Applause is the proper participation of an audience. It keeps them attentive if they have a moment of making motion and noise. But no one is asking them to vocalize (until now I fear.)
Sometimes NOT getting applause can carry energy forward. Next to Normal takes the risk in the second act of leaving no opportunity for applause until the end. Applause seemed out of place for the subject matter and context. Strong vocal performance is tied to lyric and meaning not occurring for its own sake.
One can manipulate the whoopers to react like Pavlov's dogs - they sit there waiting to unleash their own vocal cords. But the geschrei for geschrei's sake alienates the rest of us. We prefer to be moved by the meaning and thought that comes with good writing through performance. THAT actually is the big whoop.
