Uncultured 101

Why the name?
Just as I went to my first theater in 4 years, basically since the pandemic I haven’t, I realized I had a completely different reaction than most of my peers. Even in the specific friend group, everyone loved the performance and was discussing of the messages they understood and how interesting they found it.
My sister and I had already booked a taxi and were anxiously waiting for it to arrive. We finally get in, and I say to her “thank god I could not hold my tongue any longer!”
You see, that night I was already exhausted and was not in any mood to be there, but as soon as we entered the theater, one of the actors wanted the audience to participate by clapping at the second actor’s basketball success (is it a goal? how do we call this?) Of course, since I was already tired, I got annoyed by the fact that we were pressured into participating, and I was obviously “making a statement” by not clapping.
But let me explain further, this is a new age type of shit. I don’t want to participate, I want to listen, I want to understand, and I want to feel a distance between me and the performance. A necessary distance to see things better.
So as the performance began, I very quickly lost complete interest in even understanding what the original’s performance idea was. I put my body in a comfortable position and tried relaxing, I honestly almost slept in my seat. BUT, we reached a point where the performance was in full swing, and voices were raised, aggression was peaking and the plot was thickening. So awaken I was.
This performance's topic was patricide, a very light and easy topic to analyze on a Tuesday night.
The original screenplay was written by Sergio Blanco, a Franco-Uruguayan playwriter/director, called Thebes Land, named after an ancient Greek city Thebes (Θήβα), however, I saw the Greek edition, in Athens.
After the aggressive burst, I was woken and took my phone out to check the time, you see usually in Greek theaters there is a break, so I was anxiously waiting to leave during the break. I suspected however that this performance would not pause for anyone. Suddenly a red laser light was reflected on my screen because apparently, my 0-brightness phone annoyed the theater’s personnel. At the same time, the woman in front of me recording a video was fine (since it would probably be free advertising for the performance!)
Now I was officially annoyed, and since my sister was sitting in a corridor and had just seen this, she tells me “you should just leave if you want to!”
But you know I felt a bit guilty towards my friend that wanted us to go to this performance and didn’t want to leave just like that.
So I continue watching the performance and once in a while laugh a bit in some sarcastic jokes that made this slightly more enjoyable.
You know someone might think that I only want to watch nice and enjoyable plays, but I have only loved performances that were nothing but enjoyable. The difference was that they were interesting, deep and truly provocative to my mind, THAT I would have enjoyed.
Let me come to a close, when the play was finally over, I truly felt freed, from watching a mediocre play that only touched interesting issued on a surface level, and left the most important idea that could be explored, unexplored.
In my eyes, the main hero was the author that would write a play about the murderer’s patricide. How his sexuallity was related to his relationship with his father as well, similarly to the murderer, and through that relationship, he might have realized it and accepted his own dark desires of killing his own father.
But this topic was shown only slightly and not deep enough, focusing more on showcasing the murderer’s character, and revealing his dark past.
Finally we were out and kind of discussing about the theater when I was asked how I found the play, at that moment the taxi arrived and I quickly left. Since I also believe that if you don’t have anything nice to say then it is better to say nothing at all. Yes the irony of me writing this entire blog about the topic afterwards really sits well with me,
Because you see, when I was in the taxi, I discussed the play with my sister, we both felt like it was a waste of time.
The way I described it at the moment was “it touched everything and nothing at the same time!”
So why was this play considered a huge success in Athens for the past 3 years?
Did I see something the others didn’t?

Or am I just uncultured?