The Toughening Pleasure of Being Booed

by Ed Sanders

Ahh the days when some in the audience
tossed potatoes
at the opening of
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring

or catcalled sans merci
the opening night of Ubu Roi

or took to heart the Futurist manifesto
The Pleasure of Being Booed!

At the opening night of Robert Wilson’s production
of Lohengrin at the Metropolitan Opera
(in March o’ ‘98)

-even though he’d triumphed there in ‘76
in his collaboration with Philip Glass for
Einstein on the Beach—

had the Futurist manifesto read into his face
as some in the audience
—shree!—
at the fall of the curtain
—eee!—
uttered forth what one reviewer called
—eeek!—

“banshee shrieks of apparently homicidal intent”

toward the good Mr. Wilson

At least there were no stink bombs
such as those that hailed William Morris at Oxford
during a speech on Socialism
one afternoon in 1885