New York Times’ theatre critic Laura Collins-Hughes’ reviews from London’s West End have sadly devolved into anxious screeds about COVID and masks, those cloth talismans of liberal moral superiority that she flaunts like a Trump fan would wear a MAGA hat.
Admittedly she had bad luck in London in September 2021 upon her return to reviewing West End theatre, testing positive for the virus and having to quarantine.
She boasted that she had achieved her destiny before she received the results. “was already double-masked…You was a maniac about masks.”
Despite her precautions, Collins-Hughes’ mandatory COVID test came back positive and she had to quarantine for 10 days.
…at that and nearly every production I saw, there were loads — sometimes a majority — of The crowd was full of barefaced men, They felt reckless and delusional., as if the pandemic were a thing of the past….
Skip ahead in time to February 2022 and this Sunday’s edition, where her hypochondria squeezed out any entertaining details about the shows she attended, under the headline deck: “I Love London Theater. London Theatregoing is not for you. — While full of fine shows, a long-awaited binge was also full of stress about how loosely audiences followed rules about staying healthy in a pandemic.”
Do cloth masks have any impact on someone “staying healthy”? It hasn’t been shown.
She had more bad luck when England’s National Health Service notified her as being a contact of someone who had tested positive for COVID.
I’d only seen one friend this trip and he was OK, so it had to be a stranger, this person with Covid. My brain was racing to find out how our paths crossed. The N.H.S. suggested that it was at a small, crowded theater two nights earlier. The N.H.S. suggested that it took place at a smaller, more crowded theatre two nights prior. my prime suspect being the guy in front of me who’d sneezed mid-show. That’s when I noticed he wasn’t wearing a mask.
How can one live like this, ranking everyone around you as a “suspect” in spreading disease, as if they’re murderers for unwittingly living their lives while positive for COVID?
This made him fairly unremarkable in an area with world-class theatre but audience Covid safety protocol ranging from laxity to cavalier and even getting looser. Despite seeing some beautiful productions, I was disappointed in my lack of stringency during my 12-day stay.
She has major problems with other people’s faces.
…. It was an unexpected jolt., in a more than century-old West End theater that couldn’t be described as airy, to see whole groups of people walk in and take their seats barefaced….I decided it wasn’t and fled at intermission, back onto the street, back into the open air.
Keep in mind she’s fully vaccinated.
It boggles my mind that so many theatergoers in London, sitting side by side for hours, don’t bother with that elementary precaution [face covering]The actors are not required to wear masks, but they can do so for their own safety and that of the others in the audience. This is a very simple act of kindness. This is also an act to include.
Are her inquisitive and snooty attitudes representative of English theatregoers, or are they just her panicky liberal overlays on the West End?
She ended up walking out of two shows for fear of other “bare-faced” people. These performers shouted through the evening, even though they were not wearing masks. Are they not dangerous for the health?
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