During Act Two I told a complete stranger to shut up. But that was nothing to the public scene that came later.
I can’t recall the last time I seriously told someone to shut up. It predates my eight years in Long Beach. Not my style. I have often wanted people to shut up; I want someone to shut up just about every time I’m at the theater (film or play). I don’t know whether it’s just my bad luck, or if every audience has bad apples. When non-whispered conversation persists, I will turn to look; if it continues, I might turn again and gesture, sort of a one-armed shrug, indicating something like: Really? I put a finger to my lips during a live performance of ethereal music in hopes of getting through to a girl rattling on about her day while the rest of us tried to take in the subtle sonic atmospherics. Then there was my post-play suggestion to a woman that answering her cell phone during the show probably would not have been the most considerate thing to do even had she not been seated in the front row. But the other night reflex took over, as if the rudeness I could not escape were a little rubber hammer working on my last nerve.
She was seated in the row behind me, off to my left, sporadically talking throughout Act One, half the time whispering to her girlfriends, half the time imbuing her prattle with voice and tonality, laughing at her own would-be witticisms that, at best, were tangentially related to the onstage action (which was far from comedic). I had looked over twice; it made no apparent difference. So when Act Two was about to start and the couple who had been off to my left moved to my other side, I decided my annoyance would be minimized by moving back a row (i.e., into the same row as the rude woman we’ll call Rudi), reasoning that being edge-on to the offending party wouldn’t be as distracting (from a play that was anything but a raucous, audience-participation piece, and whose director and crew had paid great attention to sound design) as having their voices [plural because all three were talking, though Rudi the ringleader separated herself from the pack] come from so close behind.
But she was louder in Act Two, and now there was the rattling of numerous metallic bracelets on her right wrist. All that would have been necessary to top off her efforts to distract from what was taking place seven rows away was an item or two of clothing with flashing lights, and finally it just came out: “Would you shut up, please?” (I actually said “please.”)
I get fed up enough when someone treats the cinema like it’s his living room; at a play there’s an additional—and far more important—element at work: the actors, who are walking that particular tightrope that is live theatre, and who certainly are not aided in that endeavor by audience members conversing contemporaneously with the actors’ lines.
The play ended, and the lights came up. I was there to review, and so I stayed in my seat making notes on my program. “My daughter’s one of the stars of the play,” I heard off to my left. It took me a moment to realize Rudi was addressing me. “I’m just sayin’.”
{loadposition latestlife}I couldn’t help smiling, but I was done with her—the damage she had done to her daughter’s show was now rudeness under the bridge—and did not look up. Rudi and her gaggle left me to my thoughts, and I presumed that was the end of it.
As soon as I exited the theater into the foyer, I found out otherwise. The second I emerged, I heard Rudi (displaying her signature lack of concern or cognizance of her own volume) say to the members of her circle, “There he is—the guy in the trenchcoat!” I was startled, but in an amused way, and again I smiled without looking up. “He’s smiling!” she said in horror.
Rudi and her gang of a half-dozen (half of whom had maintained a respectful silence throughout the play, apparently; I had only been aware of the three women) had stationed themselves so that I had no choice but to pass right by them to exit the foyer, and as I moved in their direction Rudi, although positioned on a part of the circle that had her naturally facing away from me, was twisted around to chart my approach. It would have been completely artificial for me to ignore her, so I returned her gaze (still smiling, still amused) before passing her and beginning my exit. But she could not let me go without a fight.
“My daughter is in the play, you know,” she reiterated, her loudest utterance yet, spoken as if it were a given that daughters never dislike anything their mothers do, and boy had she just given me the what-for. I suppose her intent was shame me on my way. But if she insisted on conversation, I was game.
“You should ask your daughter whether she appreciates it when audience members talk while the actors are onstage giving their lines,” I said, feeling surprisingly unflustered for what had now very clearly become a public confrontation. Several people around the foyer gasped, and everyone was tuning in to what was happening. (I sure would have! Who doesn’t love a good scene?)
“Why did you move into our row if—”
“Because it was clear you were going to keep talking,” I said, cutting her off, “and I thought it would be less annoying if your voices weren’t coming from so close behind me.”
She paused for a beat, and across her face I thought I saw that flash of the slightly panicked recognition of someone in the midst of an argument who dimly recognizes that their position may be lacking for substance. She was, after all, defending her choice to converse while actors—including her own daughter—were in the midst of performing.
“My daughter loves me,” she finally rejoined.
Her non sequitur threw me. “I’m sure that’s true,” I replied after a half-beat, not actually being sure of her claim but having no cause to doubt her (her daughter’s love was beside the point, anyway).
“Do you have a daughter in the play?” she challenged.
“No,” I said, passing up the opportunity to inform her that the theatre’s artistic director had specifically asked me to attend.
“Then don’t say anything about it,” she said, sounding a little drunk. (She had a glass of wine during the first act and was now holding the one she downed during the second.) “My daughter likes it when I come.”
“I’m sure she does,” I agreed. “That doesn’t have anything your talking during the show.”
“My daughter is glad I have a voice,” she said.
I felt like I was talking with a child, not a parent. “I’m sure she does,” I said. “But you should ask her whether she is glad when you to use it to talk over actors’ dialog.”
I turned and moved toward the exit, and from behind I heard Rudi’s clarion call: “Yeah, take your funny haircut and go!” I laughed as I left. I think my funny haircut even chuckled.
***
It takes a certain kind of temerity to disrespect a work of art you are supposedly supporting. It takes more temerity still to show such disrespect when your own daughter is one of the artists. The chutzpah it takes to publicly defend such behavior just feet and minutes removed from such shamelessness is almost beyond my imagining. Except that recently I was looking it right in the face.
Then again, perhaps I ought not find it so strange. After all, in a world full of corruption and violence, Rudi’s rudeness hardly ranks on the scale of stupid human tricks. For all I know Rudi is a lovely person who just happens to have a gargantuan blind spot when it comes to common courtesy. A relatively minor sin in the scope of things.
But it’s a sin nonetheless, and I don’t feel the least bit bad about calling her out on it, nor about not letting it go when she confronted me. I am far from alone in lamenting the lack of decency with which we treat each other. Some indecencies deserve far stronger reactions than words. But for some—like Rudi’s—words may be exactly what’s called for. No more, no less.
If Rudi hears it from fellow patrons every time she strikes up conversation while our friends are acting their hearts and souls for our pleasure, eventually she will refrain from talking—if not from having learned that it’s the thoughtful way to be, at least from shame. Initially it may be hard for her, letting 90 minutes go by without diverting attention her way, but she’ll manage. Then all of us, including her daughter, will better appreciate her voice. Myself included. Even if she’s making fun of my haircut.