Theatre of the absurd
Ringing phones,nes, selfies – are patrons getting ruder?er?
LONG gone are the days when the most that could spoil an audience’s enjoyment of a play was a loud cough, a sneeze, the rustling of a lolly wrapper, or a talker in one of the rows.
In today’s hi-tech world, where many people are never without their mobile phone or tablet, performances are being interrupted not just by a phone ringing but by brightly lit screens.
Not only are audiences complaining, but actors are beside themselves.
Last year in London, Kevin Spacey was performing his oneman show, Clarence Darrow, when a patron’s phone rang. Midspeech, Spacey snapped: ‘‘If you don’t answer that, I will.’’
When the House of Cards actor performed Richard III in Sydney it was the same. ‘‘Tell them we’re busy,’’ shouted Spacey, who also shined a laser light at other patrons making noise.
Hugh Jackman, while performing with Daniel Craig on Broadway, was another actor who had enough. ‘‘You want to get it? Grab it – I don’t care,’’ he said to a patron who would not answer their ringing phone. ‘‘Come on, just turn it off . . . unless you’ve got a better story.’’
Is it just as bad here? Suzanne Blackburn, front of house manager at Wellington’s Circa Theatre for the past 20 years, believes the behaviour of some patrons has got worse over the years.
Blackburn says mobile phones are a factor, but it’s also a general attitude to having to be silent in some situations and being aware of those around you.
‘‘Some people just can’t grasp the concept. They think they are in their living room watching TV and they can do whatever they want. They forget they have got actors right in front of them and they have got people sitting next to them who are trying to get all they can out of the performance.’’
Etiquette consultant Ana Maria Moore, who teaches classes on etiquette in Wellington, says people must be aware of when it’s appropriate or not to make noise during a performance. ‘‘Sadly, it’s something that has to be put into practice in a public area, whether on an airplane, a bus, a train or a performing area.’’
Blackburn has witnessed a lot. Couples having a loud argument, a drunk group at a Noel Coward show yelling at actors to take their shirts off. Last year a couple were asked to leave who had too much to drink.
And, yes, there have been occasions at Circa where actors have halted a show due to patrons’ mobile phones. ‘‘There was a British actor and he was doing a performance. Someone’s cellphone went off and he immediately said, ‘Get that, it could be my agent’. It made everyone laugh and they could just get on with it.’’
But other times haven’t been a laughing matter. Blackburn says last month during a performance of the play Seed, a patron kept checking their phone, increasingly annoying other audience members around her.
‘‘This young woman, right in the second row so the actors would have been able to see as well, kept putting her phone on about every five minutes. You just wonder why are you here, if you can’t bear to be separated from your cellphone for that long?’’
Sometimes a cellphone can’t be blamed and it’s just old-fashioned movement and noise. Blackburn remembers a performance where a couple arrived late. She let them slip in and told them to take the
Suzanne Blackburn
first two free seats on one side. ‘‘Instead, they walked right up the back, sat down and then very loudly said, ‘there are some seats on the other side. Shall we sit over there?’ They got up, walked all the way down and walked all the way across the front [of the theatre].’’
Jason Whyte was performing on stage at the time. ‘‘He just stopped,’’ says Blackburn. ‘‘He watched them as they went across and when they sat down he said, ‘are you all right? Can we continue now?’’ Circa does make an announcement before each performance reminding patrons to turn off their mobiles and to be considerate to others.
ED WATSON, Bats Theatre’s marketing manager, says Bats doesn’t remind its audiences, which tend to be younger, with an announcement ‘‘We just trust that people will remember in this day and age.’’
But it doesn’t mean the theatre’s shows have been free of interruptions. ‘‘There’s the accidental ringtone, but it’s more about the light from them. They are so bright. A couple of our box office staff were saying that’s what annoys people sometimes. Even just checking the time – the glow from the screens can be quite disruptive.’’ Watson says no-one can remember instances of patron’s taking calls during a show, but there can be the odd texter.
It would have to be ‘‘a chronic problem’’ for an usher to step in to stop a cellphone user during a show. But more often than not it is other patrons tapping the offenders on the shoulder.
Filming and photographing performances is also a problem overseas. A woman in Australia was caught filming Death of a Salesman. During the interval she was asked to delete it. She refused and was asked to leave.
Watson says there’s been the occasional illicit camera work at Bats. Last year a few young patrons at a Young & Hungry show were asked to stop taking photographs.
Blackburn says a patron started recording part of the recent Red Riding Hood The Pantomime on their iPad. However, it paled in comparison to several years earlier when a patron recorded an entire Roger Hall play. One trend that has yet to reach Wellington is the theatre selfie. But in Australia, theatre staff were shocked when last year during the interval at a performance of Hamlet some patrons started taking selfies with the blood-splattered body of Polonius, which stayed on stage for the next act. But Blackburn says some patrons do have the attitude that when no actor is on a stage set it’s a free-for-all. She remembers one Circa show featured a toilet. Audience members got on stage and took photos of themselves seated on it.
There have been times when patrons have helped themselves to drinks which were props. However, Blackburn says the most puzzling incident was a woman who walked on to the stage set for The Seagull and proceeded to dismantle a globe.
‘‘Why? I don’t understand why they do these things. Just when you think you have seen everything, someone will do something else.’’
‘There was a British actor and he was doing a performance. Someone’s cellphone went off and he immediately said, ‘‘Get that, it could be my agent’’. It made everyone laugh and they could just get on with it.’