My family and I don’t live anywhere near Broadway and rarely make it up to The Big Apple (NYC), so going to a Broadway show isn’t something that we do frequently (actually, never). However, we love musicals and have occasionally attended a musical when they visit Dallas, the area where we live. It’s expensive to go to these shows, and the only seats we can usually afford are what we call the nosebleed seats. So I totally get it if people are annoyed at other folks who are making unnecessary noise in the theatre. However, what kind of person gets made at a child who becomes afraid during a raucous and terrifying scene that’s happening on stage?
As it turns out, there are people who do react poorly when a child, particularly a child who is struggling with a challenge, gets afraid during a scene. In a matinee performance of “The King and I” that was showing at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York City, a child with autism disrupted the performance by whelping in terror during an intense whipping scene of the performance. People in the audience actually called for the child’s removal from the theater, and one person could be heard saying, “Why would you bring a child like that to the theater?” Yes, someone really said that. And there was another person who was unhappy with what happened, but they weren’t upset because of the child.
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The child found an unlikely ally in actor Kelvin Moon Loh, who posted a lengthy message on Facebook after the performance. In the message, he said that he is “angry and sad,” but clarified that it wasn’t for the reason that many people may think. He acknowledged that yes, “something happened,” and that someone brought an autistic child to see “The King and I.” He was shocked and appalled that people were yelling at the mother of this child, who he said was clearly trying hard to calm her terrified child. He wasn’t concerned about the audience, or even the people in his theater company. What he did was ask a very simple but important question.
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“When did we as theater people, performers, and audience members become so concerned with our own experience that we lose compassion for others?” he asked. The question is valid and Loh goes into a lot of depth to explore this question. He notes that although the child interrupted “the fantasy” that was happening on stage, something very real happened right there in the audience. He said that to him, it sounded like the boy was terrified. He also pointed out that during the exact same whipping scene, another child had yelled out the week before. That child wasn’t autistic, and the audience expressed no outrage. He asked another valid question: “How was that different?”
You can read Kelvin’s post in its entirety below. This is something that everyone needs to read and this message needs to be internalized by everyone in America.
https://www.facebook.com/kelvinmoonloh/posts/10104340543612609
Oh, and by the way, Kelvin Loh doesn’t care how much you paid for your tickets. If you were that unhappy, he says he’ll gladly do the performance again. He also has the full support of all of his acting colleagues, who have been “super supportive.”
Featured image via Facebook
