When the audience laughs at something on stage that is supposed to be serious, you really—as a playwright—have no choice but to roll with it or else revise the scene. You can rail all you want about their failure to embrace a lofty concept in the direction. You can accuse them of being shallow or juvenile. You can talk about the few bad apples. But long, long after all memory of the production has faded, the echo of that inappropriate laughter will continue to haunt and reverberate.

The first time I experienced this was at a community theatre production of the musical Camelot. Lancelot is a new arrival at King Arthur’s court, applying to become one of the knights of the celebrated Round Table. His reputation for purity and piety has preceded him. In a jousting tournament at the end of the first act, he defeats his three challengers, and accidentally kills the last one, Sir Lionel. In fact, if the chorus is to be believed, Lancelot has completely run him through with a spear.

 Distraught and humbled, he kneels in prayer over the body, taking the dead man’s hand in his. The crowd stands silent and motionless. It’s a long, long moment for musical theatre, and then Sir Lionel gasps and sits up… It's a miracle!  The entire court kneels in awe, and Queen Guinevere herself takes a knee, signalling her surrender to an adulterous love. It’s the high point of the act and a major turning point in the musical.

In the version I saw, the entire audience broke out in uproarious laughter when Sir Lionel sat up. They could not be brought round even by Guinevere. They laughed straight through the to end of the scene, ruining the act.

The second time was at a production of the opera Manon Lescaut. This is a story about a student who runs off with a young woman  who is on her way to join a convent. Eventually the young woman is deported along with a group of other young women who are mostly prostitutes. Her student lover manages to get hired as one of the crew and the two sail off to the New World where the young woman will die of dehydration wandering the deserts of Louisiana.

In this production, the music swells as the lovers are about to board the vessel that will carry them off to their doom.  Suddenly the sails unfurl, revealing a death ship constructed of skulls and bones. The ship was so over-the-top, the audience burst into laughter that was followed up by a chorus of booing... apparently signalling displeasure at  the effort to update a classic.

And the third time was just last night, when I streamed the National Theatre Live production of Anthony and Cleopatra, featuring Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okoneda.  In Act IV, Scene 14, Anthony is told (falsely, as it happens) that Cleopatra is dead. His response to the news is to command  his manservant to kill him, but instead, the loyal servant kills himself.  Anthony then takes his knife and attempts to stab himself.  It is a clumsy attempt, and we know this, because he immediately says:

“How, not dead?/ Not dead?”

[The live audience found this hilarious, as did I. It was like, “Oh, shit, I can't even do this right!”]
 
In the next scene, he is brought, dying, to Cleopatra. She is hiding out in some kind of monument which is going to requiring the hauling up of Anthony’s body.  And she says:
 
"But come, come, Antony.--
Help me, my women!—We must draw thee up.--
Assist, good friends."
 
At which point the good friends begin lifting him. And then Anthony says:

“O, quick, or I am gone.”

[At this point, you could feel what was coming.]

And then she says:

“Here’s sport indeed. How heavy weighs my lord!”
 
And audience breaks out laughing. And, in truth, the Queen of the Nile didst inflect too much. Now I’m sure Shakespeare intended to use the mechanics of the scene to inspire a disquisition on the ponderous nature of death, on the burden upon losing a great love, and on the crushing agony of defeat in warfare… But instead this Cleopatra appears to be working off the mirth of the audience, as she proceeds:

"Our strength is all gone into heaviness;
That makes the weight. Had I great Juno’s power,
The strong-winged Mercury should fetch thee up
And set thee by Jove’s side. Yet come a little.
Wishers were ever fools. O, come, come, come!"
 
All this played like the cast of Friends frantically attempting to navigate a large sofa up the hairpin turns of their apartment building’s staircase:  “Pivot! Pivot!”  If Shakespeare failed to see the comedic potential of his own staging, Sophie Okoneda certainly did not.

These are all fond memories for me. Is there any kernal of dramaturgical wisdom to be gleaned from these failures of gravitas?  “Shit happens,” maybe? Or perhaps, “Never take yourself too seriously.” More to the point, “The closer a scene approaches the zenith of angst and pathos, the more it teeters on the brink of absurdity.” An audience who is not engrossed by the action on the stage, becomes a passive aggressive entity—and rightfully so. 

If they can laugh at you, they will. You have been warned.

So I have lots of opinions, and especially opinions about celebrities, because I consume popular media.
 
Given this proclivity to be opinionated along with the media’s proclivity to manipulate, I usually keep these opinions to myself. But every now and then I experience a 180-degree reversal of my opinion (see my blog on the Amber Heard/ Johnny Depp trial), and, when that happens, I feel it might be of some use to share about it.
 
So… here goes:

This is going to be a blog about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and the now-infamous “plane episode” that Jolie claims to have been the reason why she ended the relationship.
 
To recap their relationship: “Pitt and Jolie announced their engagement in April 2012 after seven years together. They were legally married on August 14, 2014. On September 19, 2016, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt, citing irreconcilable differences. On April 12, 2019, the divorce became legal.” [Wikipedia]
 
But the wrangling has continued.  The two are embroiled in a complex civil case that involves a jointly-owned chateau/vineyard in France they purchased jointly in 2008.  Apparently, they had a verbal agreement that neither would sell their portion of the property without permission from the other.

Well… In 2022, Jolie sold her share to a Russian businessman without Brad’s permission, and he filed a 67-million-dollar lawsuit against her. Jolie claims that she did try to sell to Brad a year earlier, but that he backed out of the agreement.

I know… *yawn*…
 
But listen up:  She claims that he backed out because his offer to buy required that she sign a non-disclosure agreement that, according to Jolie, would keep her quiet about alleged incidents of abuse by Pitt, toward her and their children. She said this abuse had gone on for years, and that it came to a head in an incident in 2016 on a private plane.
 
Now, at the time, I remember that Jolie reported the incident to the police when the plane landed, and the story in the press was something about Pitt "putting hands on" their oldest son Maddox. Both the FBI and the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services investigated and cleared Pitt of all charges.

Yes, I had an opinion. Pitt just didn’t give off domestic abuser vibes to me. Stoner, yes. Violent abuser, no. Yes, of course, that’s an incredibly stupid opinion for anyone, especially a woman, to have. But I had it. 

I also had an opinion about Jolie based on previous untruths she had told the media. I thought it was not unthinkable she, in a spirit of retaliation, might make exaggerated claims. (Pitt had been accused of a recent infidelity on a film set.) Anyway, after this, Pitt went into recovery and was very public about his history of drinking and smoking pot.
 
Speaking to the New York Times in 2019, Pitt shared, “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges.” He attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for a year and a half following his split from Jolie. In fact, he was so forthcoming about his struggles with substance abuse disorders, that he caught flack for breaking his own anonymity.

Okay. Good for him. But back to my 180-degree-turn. So Pitt is suing his ex for all kinds of damages, including punitive, for selling the vineyard without his permission. Jolie claims that she was willing, but Brad tacked on the non-disclosure agreement, and now in order to defend herself to the court, she is needing to request an enormous trove of Pitt’s communications, including personal emails, messages, etc.,  dating from the time of the plane incident. The court has agreed with her request, and I’m guessing we’re going to see a settlement.
 
But in her counter-complaint, Jolie shared details about that plane incident that are far more detailed than her previous public disclosures about it.
 
And here are some excerpts:

The narrative makes no mention of anyone else being in the cabin, except the members of the family. That was likely a rarity in a family with a ton of security personnel and household staff.  And it was a long, long flight… from Nice, France to Los Angeles.

This narrative rings true to me, and if it is true, it must have been terrifying. I had never considered how trapped and isolated Jolie and the children were. And, obviously, my opinion of the incident has undergone a sea-change.  I respect that Jolie has refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement, especially when the stakes for refusing were so high. I respect that Jolie, for eight years, kept private these details, probably to protect the children. At this point, however, they are eight years older, all of them are estranged from Pitt, and one has even legally dropped his last name.

What’s my point? I believe Jolie. My earlier opinions did not take into account how frequently abusers mask their behavior until their victims are trapped and cut off from the outside world. I also didn’t take into account how frequently abusers take advantage of a partner’s efforts to protect the children from the media, nor how vulnerable Jolie may have been to  charges of “parental alienation” while custody hearings were pending.

Mea culpa.