Recently, I took a trip to NYC and had the opportunity to see the musical Wicked. I had been wanting to see it for like a decade and we didn't cheap out on tickets. Like, I'm talking over a hundred dollars each.
By the intermission, I really had to pee, as did my daughter. We got to the bathroom as quickly as we could, but the line went across the room FOUR TIMES. The line for the men's room went around the room half a time.
I knew we only had 15 minutes for intermission, but I didn't have a sense of how large the bathroom was. I assumed that since the show played every single night, they wouldn't create a situation where women couldn't go to the bathroom.
I was wrong.
With three minutes left, we weren't anywhere close to the bathroom. I had to go very badly and was nearly hysterical. After paying over a hundred dollars for a seat, I wasn't even able to go to the bathroom during the intermission???
What finally happened is they let us go to the men's room with supervision. We had 30 seconds left at that point before they locked us out of the show. We didn't even have time to wash our hands. My daughter was nearly in tears.
I've talked on here before about the horrible inequity in toilets. This happens EVERY TIME. Women have smaller bladders, they take the children, and they can't use urinals, so the line for women is always orders of magnitude longer. Why is this never compensated for??? This was especially disappointing though, since we had waited so long for this show, paid so much money, and we weren't even allowed the basic necessity of a bathroom.
You would think they could even bring in some porta-potties at the very least. It really should be addressed on a national level, but don't hold your breath (or your bladder)waiting for any changes.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter said that I could fix it when I'm president.
DeleteHooray! Fizzy for a president! Bathroom rights!
DeleteWe had the same issue (or not me, but rather my wife and daughter) earlier this year at that theater. Worst I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteAfter all that money, to be denied the basic decency of being allowed to use the toilet was just shocking to me.
DeleteAgreed. We've been taking this with our legs tightly crossed for far too long.
ReplyDeleteWow. I'm disgusted by that. Considering that women are the ones buying most of the tickets or at least prompting the man in the family or relationship to buy the tickets, it's a stupid business decision not to fix this in some way.
ReplyDeleteI bet if women started peeing in their seats, management could find a solution to the bathroom inequality issue.
What would be really nice, would be if they would create a type of urinal for women. I think that the equality comes in the form of having a bathroom that is roughly the same overall size, but of course, a urinal takes up much less space than a toilet.
ReplyDeleteLedgem, apparently women's urinals require women to pull down their pants to use them. That's not very convenient given that most women wear trousers these days. In 1953 I think they created some women's urinals, and women were to back up to them and squat a bit to use them. You could also defecate in them, so they were basically standing toilets. http://jezebel.com/5884315/how-come-womens-urinals-havent-caught-on
ReplyDeleteThat was back when women wore skirts a heckuva lot more often than they do now. These were installed mostly at roadside travel areas. I can't imagine women these days feeling comfortable dropping their trousers and peeing in full view of everyone. Men at least get to keep their pants on. These standing toilets for women seem to be about like using a squat toilet, and women prefer to use those in single stalls too. You find communal ones in some parts of Asia, but the ones I've used in Europe have been single stall. These days you'd have to pull down your pants, find someplace for your bag and pull out your portable urinal. It's all too complicated.
It's not a new problem. As a regular theater-goer, I've learned to either make sure I won't need to go during the performance, or leave a few minutes before the end of an act, when there usually isn't a line. But if you wait until an intermission, you'll wait in line. What puzzles me, though, is a comment in a NYT article on this subject (see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/theater/broadways-bathroom-problem-have-to-go-hurry-up-or-hold-it.html): that most theaters were built a century ago "when consumer expectations and habits were different." Seriously? People didn't use restrooms a century ago? I wonder what did they did instead?
ReplyDeleteLOL, in the past, perhaps women didn't drink fluids?
DeleteI went to a formal Marine Corps Ball in 29 Palms at a rented country club. Only it was in tents outside and we had no access to the actual building; only Port-a-Potties. For women in Full length ball gowns! It was a nightmare!
ReplyDelete