Dressing down over dress codes
DANNY GOCS
HAVE you noticed that dress codes are slipping? Not to mention manners and common courtesy. Maybe it’s more obvious in summer, when 30-degree days require a minimum of clothing.
But attend a garden chuppah or a funeral service on a summer’s day and it seems quite normal for people to wear T-shirts, shorts and runners, as if they have made a detour from the beach.
The issue of showing respect and dressing for the occasion was prompted by the sight of my formal dinner suit hidden in the corner of my wardrobe. Before you suggest I’ve been out in the sun for too long, let me explain.
I have just resumed the position of The AJN’s arts editor — a role I held for 15 years before moving from print to cyberspace as internet editor.
The other day I spotted my trusty black dinner suit in my cupboard. It has served me for many years at countless opening nights of big stage productions which had a “black tie” dress code.
Now being a 50-something male whose weight has not changed in 20 years, I was fortunate to have struck an honest suit salesman all those years ago who swore that my classical style dinner suit would never date.
So over the years it has been trotted out to glitzy opening nights of shows such as Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, The Lion King and Fiddler on the Roof. A theatre full of penguin-suited guests seemed to add to the opening night occasion.
But go to an opening night today and even if the invitation says formal, an open-necked sports shirt is fine. Look around and people wear jeans and runners; certainly casual if not smart. I guess my dinner suit is going to stay in the cupboard.
And how often do you sit in a darkened theatre and suddenly see a light emanating from a mobile phone as someone is checking a text message or email. Can nothing wait until after the show?
Worse still is when the phone rings in the theatre. Last September on Broadway, Australian actor Hugh Jackman was starring in A Steady Rain when, in the middle of a dramatic scene, a mobile phone kept ringing.
While staying in character, Jackman pointed to the audience member with the offending phone and said: “You wanna get that? You wanna get that? Grab it, I don’t care.”
A few seconds later the phone started to ring again, prompting Jackman, still in character to say: “Come on, just turn it off unless you got a better story. You want to get up and tell your story?”
As one wit commented, unless you are waiting for lifesaving surgery or you are conducting that surgery yourself, turn off the mobile phone once inside the theatre.
At funerals and minyans it seems customary to start the service with a reminder to turn off all mobile phones. Surely at such a time it would be common courtesy to leave a mobile turned off or on silent, yet you are hardly surprised when the sombre occasion is interrupted by the ringing of a phone.
It’s karma that the red-faced embarrassment of the phone’s owner is heightened by the awful choice of ring tone!
So see you at the theatre, smartly dressed and with a mobile that’s turned off.
Danny Gocs is AJN arts editor.
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