The Theatre

I went to a big show last night with a ticket I received through a church friend. I was a bit amused to find myself and my companion seated in the midst of about 50 fully-habited nuns.

Theatre etiquette is something they didn't seem to have down to a fine art yet. Amongst their indiscretions:

• Every time a nun would appear on stage, all of them began to twitter and talk over whatever was being said or sung; I can only assume they were critiquing the clothing, prayers or singing
• One nun wanted to make sure that everybody knew she knew all the songs, and she sang loudly each time someone on stage broke into song
• Every time a child would appear on stage, one particular nun right behind me kept saying aloud, "Bellissimo! Oh my God! So cute!"
• Another one seemed to be eating a whole bag of cookies by herself as the crinkling of the wrappers went on for a good 20 minutes
• Despite a very annoying refrain of cell phones at the beginning of the performance by the theatre to remind us to turn off our cells, one of the nuns' cells went off LOUDLY during Act I

It was everything I could do to not either laugh out loud at them and to suppress the urge to turn around and yell, "SHUT UP, SISTERS!" Clearly these ladies don't get out much.

As my companion said, at least their behaviour took any potential negative attention off of us -- we weren't going to be mistaken for "those people" in the theatre tonight!