Someone in a Tree

by JoAnn Yeoman Tongret

Without someone in a tree
Nothing happened here

Stephen Sondheim’s favorite song from his remarkable canon was “Someone in a Tree” from “Pacific Overtures.” It’s a memory sung by an old man who, as a small boy, climbed a tree and watched through a window as Commodore Perry and his Japanese counterpart signed the economic earthquake called the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854.

But, for me, it awakened a long forgotten epiphany that makes this song more than just part of a Sondheim score. I can’t recall when the audience wasn’t an indispensable part of my life and my ethos. I too always enjoy being an audience member.

While I worked on the house staff at the Brooklyn Academy of Music I had the pleasure of attending a performance of the Beaux Arts Trio. There was a reception afterward and an elderly lady approached the violinist with great enthusiasm. She congratulated him and then added: “You are all so good. I do hope that your little orchestra just grows and grows.” She certainly meant it as a compliment and I know it was taken as such and often recalled. She was, after all, aware enough of her responsibility and connection to the evening’s proceedings to offer encouragement.

Without patronage none of the arts would exist for long; especially live stage performance. The individuals in the seats are 50% of any presentation. They bring an energy, an expectation, a tension, and a response that affects every show. Due to the audience, there are no two live performances of any play that are exactly the same. As audience members you have seen the only performance of its kind and you have also affected it.

Here’s a marvelous example of audience power from 1953. It’s the opening of Cole Porter’s “Can-Can” and the luminescent Gwen Verdon is playing Claudine –a major dance role. After her first number the audience wouldn’t stop applauding. She was up in her dressing room changing for her next scene and had no idea that the audience had stopped the show cold and would not continue till she took a solo bow. The stage manager ran up the circular staircase, grabbed her in her bathrobe, and brought her back on stage so that the show could continue.

In comedy, audience collaboration is especially critical, wherein laughter offers the actor an energy and a rhythmic response to the dialogue.

Courtesy of Emeritus Voices