Before I say anything else, let me just clarify what I mean by “cheap seats.” Because it is pretty hilarious when you think about it really. I mean it wasn’t all that long ago when Famous Artists would bring in the National Tour of this or that Broadway show for a fraction of the price of what you might pay to see the same show on Broadway. That was part of the whole deal, wasn’t it? No disrespect to the touring cast, but part of the reason many people waited so long to see it in Syracuse was because they couldn’t afford to see it anywhere else! 

The cheapest seats in the house at The Landmark Theatre go for $49 bucks. What this means is, you sit in the very last two rows of the theater. Row X and Y. I decided to splurge and go for the next level up: $66 dollars. That got me to row N. But I needed to get 4 kids in and 4 adults. I thought that was a good deal. Until… well you all know what happened. Those of you that deal with the crazy entities of concert and show sellers. They add about $40 in fees. So, each ticket shot up to almost $90! 

So here is what my $90 dollar seat got me yesterday:

A pretty fantastic view. I can’t lie, The Landmark is simply gorgeous. And I would take the balcony cheap seats over the overpriced orchestra any day, especially with a show like Hamilton! There is so much to look at from above! I have been lucky enough to see this production a couple of times, and the lighting alone is worth double what I paid. Beyond that, the choreography and staging is so intricate and fascinating to watch, that you are always catching something new and exciting that you missed before. Even with the availability of the Disney Plus movie, there is nothing like watching this show live, when you can allow your eyes to wander over any part of the set and notice characters doing things you won’t see on Disney. 

The touring company that came through Syracuse was impressive. If they are the reason ticket prices have risen so dramatically for national tours in the last twenty years, well so be it then. I can’t fault them for a single thing, most especially their diction. It’s a really tough show to punch out the words for, and in some respects, they out did the original cast. I even feel like a handful of songs were slowed down here and there to MAKE sure we could catch what they were saying. 

Unfortunately, they weren’t helped by the sound quality. I can’t tell if this is The Landmark’s fault or the touring companies itself. Regardless, it was too quiet. I don’t understand for the life of me why they didn’t let loose with those mics! I wanted to be blown away by the sound in that house! Instead I only got excited at a few well planned moments at the end of some great numbers. Surely most of us, and certainly the elders in the crowd missed out on a lot of moments in the show they couldn’t hear. Laugh lines were missed, and normally powerful moments left us wanting more. 

If I had had a choice, and a lot more money, I would have chosen the very fancy and verry special “Louge” seats. Is anyone out there aware of this term? “Louge?” I would call in the Mezzanine really. The middle part of the theatre. But people my mother’s age call it the Louge. In the Landmark Theatre the back row of The Louge (literally 6 rows and 1 horizontal aisle in front of me) costs a staggering 156$ bucks! I have no idea what it would be once fees are added on. The front row of the Louge is closer to 200$ Trippe what I paid. And other than being a bit closer, at first I didn’t really think they had gotten the better deal then us.

Until my sister in law pointed something very important out to me. Something I had noticed happening throughout the show but had tried hard to ignore. Now, if you are around my age and you grew up like me, that is you mom dragged you to the Nutcracker faithfully once a year, took you to the bathroom before the show stated and told you under no circumstances were you to move from your seat or make a sound before intermission, well, you understood that proper theater etiquette was just that. We don’t move during a show. being that I have now grown up in the theatre world more or less, been to hundreds of shows and performed in hundreds myself, I still believe in this rule. After all, you aren’t watching a movie right? There are live people up on that stage! They can see you when you get up and down from your seat, they can hear you when you talk. It is precisely why you are asked to turn off your cell phones before a show. It is why we don’t eat in a theatre. Because not only will you disturb your neighbor, but again, there is a live person onstage and goddammit what they are doing is really difficult!! 

Intermission is your break and theirs. It is a chance to stretch your legs, get a drink and pee. For you and for the cast. It is monumentally unfair that theaters never have enough bathrooms for women, but that is another debate. 

What I saw on Saturday was something only those of us in the cheap seats really had to endure, and those lucky enough to be seated in the “Louge” probably did not notice. No less than four dozen or so people rudely getting up and down out of their seats during the course of act 1 and act 2, willy Nilly, any old tie they felt like it, in and out back and forth up and down, walking in front of us, whooshing through the curtain, letting in the light and all around disturbing our enjoyment of the show. Something the act one crowd SHOULD have waited for intermission to do and something the act 2 crowd should have done during intermission. It was insane! And I would like to point out that it was all the adults breaking the potty rule. I did not see one single child. Now if you paid the amount of money I did for the show, wouldn’t you have toughened up and held it??