Audiences - An audience member's memories

Louis Behr was born in 1910, the child of immigrant parents. The family lived in Jubilee Street, and he regularly went to the Pavilion Theatre in the 1920s. The following transcript is taken from an interview with Louis from 1986, which is part of the Jewish Museum’s oral history archive.

"And the Saturday night when Shabbos was out, that was the treat, ‘cause you’d have queued up these stairs by Vallance Road … that was the gallery entrance. And it was fabulous waiting, you’d have sometimes an hour and a half wait, but it was worth it to listen to the real characteristic Yiddish mothers. The whole week they slaved, there was no washing machines, no refrigerators, no television, no wireless … But that was their outlet, once a week they went. And they’d come along with packets, own gefilte fried fish, bagels and food, they should be nourished waiting. And eventually it opened, you had separate aisles, and you quickly ran down and you’d go and shout in Yiddish, “Don’t push! Vus chapt ir azoi!,” God forbid someone attempted to jump the queue, that was almost mutiny on the spot. It was all wooden seats, like the galleries of years ago. The average aisle would hold about 14 to 15, rest assured you’d have at least 20 if not more. Comfort was unknown. But the most amazing part ... now the gallery was fairly high, you could hear every word. The beauty was, if an actor or someone in the cast forgot a line or two, the prompter wasn’t necessary really, the gallery could answer word by word exactly ... you always had someone either back or same row even, who’d seen it time and time again, and they would be revealing it, the plot, as it went on".