In Praise of the Interval

I don't mind an interval and if the show is more than two hours, I definitely think they should have one. I personally am lucky to have a bladder of steel, so I rarely go to the loo in the interval or buy anything at the bar before or during the show. And I also can find it a bit tedious when intervals go on for 20 minutes, rather than just 15. But lots of people do need the loo if it's over a certain length and also like to treat themselves to an overpriced ice cream or wine, etc.

But I do want to address something someone said very early on in the thread, that people that go often and like getting home early/liking shows that are short, might not enjoy them as much anymore/see them as a chore and should maybe go less.
I don't think that is the case at all. I have seen many a show that was two and a half hours long (or longer) with an interval and the show really dragged at times, with songs or scenes that were neither good nor added anything to the narrative, but looked more like a filler to try and get to that length.

So for me personally, if the story can be fully told and well told in less time, I'd rather have that than having bad padding added to warrant an interval. So it's as much an event for me if the show is 75 minutes like Six and has no interval, or if it's a two parter like Angels in America with two intervals per part. It's the quality of the material and the flow of it that counts, not the length.

That should be the standard requirement for the number of loos in a theater... be able to get 75% of the audience in and out of them within 15 minutes.

I've been at one show where the women's toilet line was so long they had to delay the second-half curtain. There must have been 15 of us still in line when the bell rang.