Very much not common everywhere. Where I live, if you want subtitles, you need to find a cinema that has a showing with subtitles. Usually that’s also paired with the non dubbed original audio.
A personal subtitle screen like those translucent mirrors you‘re describing sounds like a great solution though. I don’t really like subtitles unless I’m watching in a language I don’t understand very well but I know a lot of people who prefer having them on regardless.
Or how they used to do it in the old days: pay a dozen or so soot-smudged orphan kids to dart back and forth throughout the performance with the script printed on signs, keeping time with the action on the stage. Might lose a few to milk-leg or dropsy but these were the mud times so at least they’re not dodging industrial machinery through a cloud of mercury and asbestos.
Very much not common everywhere. Where I live, if you want subtitles, you need to find a cinema that has a showing with subtitles. Usually that’s also paired with the non dubbed original audio.
A personal subtitle screen like those translucent mirrors you‘re describing sounds like a great solution though. I don’t really like subtitles unless I’m watching in a language I don’t understand very well but I know a lot of people who prefer having them on regardless.
One could do it like in an opera house, where the subtitles are shown on a separate screen above or below the stage
Or how they used to do it in the old days: pay a dozen or so soot-smudged orphan kids to dart back and forth throughout the performance with the script printed on signs, keeping time with the action on the stage. Might lose a few to milk-leg or dropsy but these were the mud times so at least they’re not dodging industrial machinery through a cloud of mercury and asbestos.