Is the theatre interval becoming a thing of the past?

How often do we get two interval plays these days?

The once popular three act structure has fallen out of fashion somewhat. I have been present when they give you a full interval and then a five minute pause rather than two full breaks

Five minutes isn't long enough to be useful to an audience or the bar income. So I would prefer something more substantial!

Jez Butterworth seems to be keen on the one long interval:one short break in his plays.
The short break seems to be for the cast/technical crew rather than for the audience's behalf as recently watching The Hills of California the last act was constantly interupted by audience members who had made a dash for the loo and back to their seats in the break.Most didn't make it!

When Globe started there were only 5 min pauses resulting in chaos as audience didn’t realise. A particular
problem as in those days there was less cutting and performances were generally much longer.

I've never seen a full Ring live partly because I can't face 4 trips to London within a week when each performance would be from 2h45 up to 5-6 hours.


Not at the Royal Opera House it hasn't! Particularly for ballet. I think the only ballets I saw there last season which only had a single interval rather than two were The Nutcracker & a double bill. Everything else had two intervals. Fortunately I've become acquainted with a number of other regular attendees over the last few years so I can usually find people to chat to during the intervals.

It’s frustrating when at interval at ROH is longer than some of the sections of performance..  Also three act operas given two full intervals really drag out intervals to the extent the finish time is too late for those with long journeys. This has been on occasion helped early Sunday performances and start times but not always the case. 

It’s the magnum of champagne that I need time for!

Have the broadsheets like The Times and The Guardian decided that the interval is only for plebs because both papers have similar articles within a week of each other. The Week has one about it as well.

I’m a fully signed up pleb* but I would rather have no interval unless piece is outrageously long or is structured to have one.

*Some one once commented that they didn't understand how I could like opera as I was brought up on a council estate!

Opera developed a tradition of very elaborate staging and set designs. That meant that set changes required more than a few minutes and a lot of crew.

And so composers obviously worked to suit the style of presentation that audiences expected.

And seeing grand opera presented with huge resources can be an incomparable experience. And that often necessitates multiple intervals.

Now, of course, modern stage technology can facilitate big scene changes in moments which reduces time pressures.

And it can be necessary to give singers recovery time when performing big roles so again intervals can help there.

With smaller scale productions, simpler sets and smaller orchestras, the need for additional intervals is reduced if not eliminated.

I think pieces like Don Carlo(s) or La Forza del Destino benefit from having a bit of breathing space. Whilst La Boheme has a four act structure, it plays better with a single interval between acts two and three.

This comment is too specific and ignores the variety of play structures out there In all forms of theatre there are pieces that would suffer from being split up. The tense atmosphere in many serious pieces would be destroyed by a break and are not beyond those with a reasonable attention span. Yes, in many pieces an interval is desirable but to state that this is always the case would seem to me a too general comment.

Did they not give you the option to take it in with plastic cups at least?! Awful!

It was my fault not theirs.