The curse of Macbeth strikes again. David Tennant’s turn as the Scottish psychopath was interrupted this week by a kerfuffle in the auditorium at the Harold Pinter theatre. A play-goer left to visit the lavatory and took exception when the ushers asked him to wait for a suitable pause before resuming his seat.
Audience members reportedly ‘kicked off about the disturbance’ as the man tried to re-enter to enjoy the show. Up came the house lights. A stage manager asked David Tennant and his co-star, Cush Jumbo, to return to their dressing rooms while the conflict was resolved. After 15 minutes the show continued, but the man involved is thought to have left the venue. Why? Theatre managers should be prepared for such interruptions, which are hardly rare.
The onus must fall on the star to work his magic and earn his wage. If he can’t keep the viewers amused, the viewers will amuse each other
It’s usually late-comers, often carrying bulging designer bags, who create a nuisance by forcing everyone else to stand up while they shuffle into their seats. The solution is to install a live TV feed in the bar where unpunctual spectators, and anyone in need of bladder relief, can enjoy the show without sabotaging the performance.
In this case, the wandering ticket-holder was perfectly entitled to demand re-entry because the production, directed by Max Webster, is a kind of radio drama, with the audience wearing headphones. Tennant, Jumbo and the other actors burble their lines into microphones. And the beauty of a radio play, surely, is that members of the audience can do something else at the same time. Go jogging, put up shelves, complete the crossword, visit Waitrose, or, in this case, take a leak. The man should have been free to roam the theatre and act as he pleased. Ditto the rest of the audience. The onus must fall on the star to work his magic and earn his wage. If he can’t keep the viewers amused, the viewers will amuse each other. That’s the law of the classroom and it applies to the theatre with equal force
Seasoned play-goers are used to irksome neighbours eating apples, sending texts or crinkling with sweetie wrappers during a show. These irritations sometimes escalate into hissed rebukes and whispered calls for hush. And, very occasionally, the offender will take umbrage and reply that his noisy chocolates are in fact prescription tablets without which he will fall into a coma and die. It’s always fun when an alternative drama starts to unfold in the auditorium because the outcome is unpredictable. All too often, these verbal skirmishes are more gripping than what’s on stage.
The commonest disturbance is snoring which tends to break out during the fourth act of anything by Ibsen, Shakespeare or Alan Bennett. Snoring is a narrative in itself which involves various players with different agendas. The snorer, usually male, sometimes wakes himself up with his bass-line reverberations. Or he may get a dig in the ribs from his wife which does the trick. But there are rare occasions when the snorer is unaccompanied and the responsibility for halting his snuffles is shared between those around him. A responsibility shared is a responsibility ducked. It sounds simple enough to thrust an elbow into a neighbour’s midriff but in reality this involves a physical assault which seems an unacceptable infringement. In fact, the lone snorer in a theatre is likely to snore on, undisturbed. The only hope is that his trilling mobile phone will wake him up.
Phones are such a nuisance that some activists call for them to be banned or surrendered at the door. But the annoyance is momentary and hardly serious enough to require new by-laws and prohibitions. Unexpected ringtones were heard more frequently 25 years ago when phones were new.
The commonest noise problem today is the general chatter made by audiences who regard the theatre as a shared space with the same protocols as a pub, a train carriage or a sitting room. Jabber, jabber, jabber, all the way through. The temptation to call for hush is overwhelming – but wrong. Theatre is what the audience makes it.
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