This Is MY Dance Space...

I heard a funny story the other day about a woman who went to see the fabulous Black Watch at Carriageworks. She went to find her seat, but couldn't work out where she was supposed to be. So she asked an usher, who pointed her in the right direction. So she tried again. Still couldn't find it. Went back to the usher (who by this time was probably a little annoyed), who escorted her to her seat. Or, rather, where her seat should have been.


Turns out there were two extremely large ladies sitting on either side of her seat. So large that each of them actually took up more than their own $70 worth of space and were sitting on $35 (each) worth of her space.


Goodness knows how the usher handled it. I hope the woman refused to sit squished between two enormous people. Black Watch was almost 2 hours long with no interval and those chairs were un-frickin-comfortable - I couldn't imagine anything worse than sitting there with strangers sandwiching you between them.


But then I got to thinking. This has been happening to me a bit lately. What's going on?


On opening night of Ngapartji Ngapartji I was seated next to a woman who took up half my seat as well as her own. Luckily I had our very slim publicist on the other side of me, so could scoot over a little. But it was quite uncomfortable and impacted on my enjoyment of the play.


And tonight I went to the Open Air Cinema to see Cactus (excellent new Aussie film) and was sat next to a very large man who insisted on spreading his knees wide and crossing his fat arms across his chest (and part of my chest too).


What annoyed me most (both times) was that the oversized people in question were getting pissed off with me for asserting my space and refusing to shrink into a corner of the seat to enable their comfort. Honestly. It was like being back at school and having the big fat bully pick on the little skinny kid. Except this little skinny kid was standing up for herself.

As someone who works in a theatre, I know you can't very well ask people when they purchase a ticket if they might take up more than their allocated seat, so do they really need two? And let's face it, who is going to admit that they're so fat they need a double wide seat? As a nation, apparently we are getting larger but refusing to admit it. At least that's what the SMH says today.


I know some larger people can't help being big, but I think a great number of them can. They eat too much. They eat crappy fast foods. They don't exercise enough. They chug back beer like there's no tomorrow. Why should I be penalised for your excesses? I paid the same price for my ticket, I deserve to sit in the whole of my seat and not have to share it with your fat ass.


I'm thinking of demanding compensation next time this happens.


What do you think would happen if I said "excuse me, you're taking up at least $20 worth of my seat... would you like to pay for that in cash?"