Can’t We Applaud While We’re Sitting? (Please)

Timothy Mangan says enough with the standing ovations. “At every concert that I have attended for the past several years (and I do mean every single one), there has been a standing ovation (either by some in attendance, or all). The standing ovation is as ubiquitous as smog. Performers are beginning to smirk at it. When someone writes to me complaining about a review I wrote and asks, ‘Didn’t you notice the standing ovation? I laugh.”