Just yesterday I quoted Michael Billington saying of One Man Two Guvnors that the play “appeals to that appetite for the interactive that is all around us today. I have a theory that audiences have got slightly sick of sitting in the dark for two-and-a-half hours being ignored by the actors.”
And, it seems, audiences are also increasingly sick of sitting in the dark for two-and-a-half hours without being connected to the world as well as the stage: despite the constant reminders for people to turn off mobile phones before a performance begins, hardly a performance passes anywhere without one always going off. (The other week at a fringe theatre in North East London, I experienced a press night first: the phone that went off belonged to the lighting and sound operator!)
But more distractingly, they’re also in constant use, it seems, to film and photograph performances, send and receive text messages, and nowadays tweet, too. The other day Hadley Fraser, currently starring in the West End as Javert in Les Miserables, tweeted, “Someone very brazenly filming the show this evening. Aside from the ethical/legal question, why wouldn’t you just watch the damn show?” As he went on to ask, why would that person “choose to come to a live event and obstruct their own chances of experiencing and (possibly) enjoying it to its intended extent. Call it self-sabotage, I guess.”
Perhaps, I replied to him, we need a bit more of Patti LuPone-like interventions, stopping the show and screaming, “Who do you think you are?” Hadley in turn said, “The thought did cross my mind. But ‘Stars’ seemed an inappropriate moment to channel Patti. Our FOH staff swiftly swooped on the offender once it was noticed.”
Text messaging has been an old nuisance — as long ago as 2002, on the first night of Sam Mendes’s farewell production as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, there was constant disruption from someone sending and receiving texts (with the beeps of the incoming alerts to the offender’s replies jolting those seated near him), and when he was confronted afterwards by one of my colleagues, replying “Chekhov is robust enough to withstand the intrusion.” The more astonishing fact was that the offender was identified as Michael Colgan, artistic director of Dublin’s Gate Theatre, as I previously wrote here.
Then came the age of the Blackberry, and people became addicted to checking their e-mail throughout a show — including, at one press night, the guest of a fellow critic seated on the centre aisle. And now we’re in the age of Twitter, and far from objecting to its use, theatres seem to be actively embracing it. Stratford East’s Theatre Royal pioneered a ‘Tweet Zone’ ages ago, from where they encourage audiences to tweet their reactions even while the show is unfolding; and in America, orchestras as well as theatres are promoting it regularly now.
As a blog in the LA Times put it, “Perhaps the most unexpected thing about “tweet seats” is that they exist. Perhaps the second-most-unexpected thing about them is that they appear to be a growing trend. A tweet seat is a seat in a theater that has been approved by the theater for use by someone who would like to tweet a performance. Whip out your cellphone and start tweeting at a rock show and nobody will notice — the rest of audience is probably shooting cellphone pictures anyway. But try that at the opera and you’ll be glared at, unless you are in a tweet seat.”
In a feature in USA Today, Rick Dildine, the executive director for Shakespeare Festival St. Louis is quoted saying that these seats have “become a national trend” and he goes on, “Coast to coast, theaters are experimenting with how to use ‘tweet seats’ effectively. The arts are evolving right now, they are participatory. … Social media is a tool we rely on, and we have been unafraid to experiment with it.”
At Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Chris Pinelo, CSO vice president for communication, also welcomed its use, saying, “”It was great to see how people were reacting to the orchestra, reacting to the conduct and, frankly, reacting to the insights happening backstage.” And one tweeter is quoted saying, “Tweeting the CSO’s performance was like attending a members-only social event in the midst of a traditionally formal setting. I could communicate openly about my reactions to the music, musicians and conductor — without speaking a word. Plus, I had the opportunity to engage others, and get their reactions to the performance.”
But why on earth do you need to? Can’t it wait till afterwards, once you’ve actually seen, heard and absorbed the performance itself, instead of engaging with what’s on your smartphone screen? As one non-tweeting audience member sitting nearby observed (and was no doubt distracted by), “Their texting thumbs were moving faster than the violinist’s fingers. They would occasionally nudge each other and read what the other person had up on his or her screen. They didn’t even look up to applaud at the end of each selection. The fact that they were watching their handheld devices, they missed out on what was happening on the stage.”
I have to say I couldn't agree more. If you're so busy looking at your phone or wondering about who's tweeting or texting you, how on Earth are audiences ever going to fully engage with the performance that's going on on stage?
How theatres tackle the wandering attention of the audience is going to increasingly need addressed because of the widespread availability of smartphones and the fact that we are all conditioned to "report" events whether it's watching TV with a specially created hashtag or checking in to say where we are.
Good luck to the FOH managers. I sat next to a gent at Legally Blonde who brazenly played Angry Birds throughout the performance from the 4th row of the stalls. Not even Elle in her bunny costume could drag his attention away. I've also noticed that the FOH response to filming and photography varies from theatre to theatre and some could do with being more responsive.
Thank you for writing this article. As usual, you are addressing matters that are important to ordinary theatre goers who are increasingly being forced to pay through their nose, only to have the show ruined by other punters' thoughtless behavious.
Twitterseats??? How on earth?? I am speechless. In my own country, most theatres have this facility which completely blocks signals for mobiles. Why not use that in WE, the theatrical capital of the world? Or is it the human rights of mobile users? But then, how about other punters' right to enjoy the show in peace?
In my experince the audiences in Her Majesty's are the worst. That's probably Phantom is just a sight-seeing point,, rather than a respectable show in many tourists' (or whoever's) ninds, I guess. The behaviours there got so bad that I have completely stopped going there although PotO is one of my all-time favourite shows.
I have reported bad behavious to FOH staff numerous times and they do listen to me, but they do almost nothing about them. I find it funny as when people take photographs of the inside of the theatre, they are sternly told off not to, but during the show the staff just let punters get on with whatever they likek to do. Strange.
With the ticket prices going up and up and audience members behaving as if they are in their own living room, I feel it's almost not worth visiting big WE shows anymore.
Perhaps the time has come for the law to be changed so that public venues such as cinemas and theatres (and libraries and other such buildings) can be legally allowed to install mobile phone signal jammers?
You have hit the nail on the head here. I get extremely annoyed at people who tweet, record and take pictures during shows. It is disrespectful to the performers and down right annoying to those in the audience who have paid a tidy sum for their seat to see the show. I am an avid social networker but do not feel the need to tweet during a performance. There is nothing more distracting than seeing the 'glow' of lights dotted around the auditorium like some sort of Santa's grotto high kicking itself along the seats. I am quite prepared to say something to those around me, but often the distraction is from a few rows in front or a couple of seats to the side. This is where FOH really need to be there to take action. I was at the performance Hadley tweeted about (I picked up his tweet when I was in the bar during the interval) I was 'agog and aghast' at someone could be so blatent. I understand he didnt want to ruin "Stars" but I would have been more than happy for him to have done so and waited whilst the guilty person was hoisted from their seat and ejected quicker than a quick change in the wings! At that very same performance I told two American tourists that they could not take photographs during the show; I had overheard their conversation about how they were going to manage to do it. Instead they took pictures of themselves at the balcony before the show started! They did tell me however they had done it at another show earlier that day!!!
I went to see "Love Never Dies" a few weeks after it opened and there was a group of tourists in front of me in row A Dress Circle. I was in row C and saw that from start to interval they were recording the show. There was a FOH stood at the end of row E who could clearly see what was happening; nothing was done. During the interval myself and another man sat two seats up from me went and complained. It was with reluctance that FOH took action. I actually said I was not prepared to sit through the second Act being distracted by the light from the phone (never mind the ethical reasons behind it being wrong). Eventually the FOH was shamed by us to get the tourists to delete the recording and to not do it any more. But it effected my enjoyment of the show so much I had to return again so I could watch it without the lightshow.
Social media is expanding so fast that something more overt needs to be done about the disruption to audience and performers; maybe if more audience members demanded a refund for their enjoyment being ruined then the theatres would be more proactive in clamping down on this offence. Perhaps a very clever person could invent (if they haven't already) a blocking loop for mobiles and theatres could install it to stop this behaviour!
As for Tweet Zones/seats; kill me now! Unless of course they are located at the back of the Upper Circle and tweeters are sat under a black blanket with such restricted and limited view the only thing they can do is play Angry Birds! Right I'm off to invent a mobile blocker, but that will be after I invent a device to punish those who do not know how to behave in theatres. But thats another story altogether.
Oh it appears mobile blockers are already out there (sorry my post took so long to write I didnt see the previous posts). I'll just stick to creating my theatre ejection seat!
A possible, partial, explanation: as I've repeatedly noted in various places online, a West End theatre manager admitted candidly a few years ago at a symposium (which, where, when escapes me, sorry) that such venues no longer consider themselves to be in the business of theatre, but of Event. Now, quite apart from questions of exclusivity and justifications for punter-gouging prices, this introduces another psychological difference, to wit: people don't so much go to Events in order to be there as in order to have been there. Thus, tweeting, phonecamming etc. become simply means of confirming this, and of extending and even fundamentally validating the Event, since such having-been has meaning only when it is conspicuous.
But it is and will remain utterly loathsome. A couple of years ago, after an Edinburgh Fringe show in one of the smaller, (literally) Portakabin venues, I sarkily asked my neighbour for her autograph, explaining, "I've no idea who you you are, but you're obviously so bloody important that you have to text during the show." I then got fully half an hour of outrage from her and her boyfriend about my unreasonableness for complaining.
I fear there's simply no damn hope short of jammers. Which, I remind readers, are illegal to operate in the UK though not to own, hence sites such as www.estationb2c.com can sell them...
I've just put on a production of Julius Caesar that featured a live twitter wall featuring tweets from characters, cast, crew and audience.
I wanted this to be part of this modern London set production to bring out echoes of the Arab Spring/Riots/Student protests but also to provide additional audience engagement and to help people understand the play better.
Through the scripted tweets the audience were able to better understand the action of the play, the political context of the play, better able to connect with minor characters (as in life the tweets provided a democratising voice) and were also able to 'have their say'. Rather than simply commenting in a 'good/bad' way the audience tweeters became part of the voice of the play.
Feedback on the whole was good. It may have helped that the audience was lit for a large part of the play (any scene taking place in a public space) and so the light from phones didn't distract.
You can see a Storify of the Friday night tweets here:
http://bit.ly/wWhozH
And photos showing the twitter wall here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/g_leahy/sets/72157629375144245/show/
And as we are doing a one hour showcase version of this for the RSC Open Stages regional showcase at Questors Theatre - if you are really interested you can see how it works in real time on 13th April at 7.45pm!
I reached this blog via @hadleyfraser's twitter feed and find it most interesting. I too am an avid tweeter, and yet if I'm at a show, concert, or even a movie I have not and will not ever tweet during the performance. If I'm so disengaged in what's happening in front of me, my inclination would be to leave and ask for my money back.
Sadly though, this is happening more and more throughout the US as well. Be it on Broadway, regional theater, or a concert, people are filming, tweeting, emailing, and I guess Angry Birding instead of watching what is unfolding on the stage or screen in front of their eyes. I have reported such behavior on more than one occasion and usually it is taken care of. However, FOH people should be taking care of this without waiting for a complaint from a patron. If an activity takes place that requires complaints for half of a performance, then it is already partially ruined. I too would rather see the show stopped and the offender removed than to be distracted all the way to the interval.
I may just invest in my own jamming device or carry a cattle prod. That might make people quit tweeting rather quickly.
I once attended a Harry Potter junket where Warwick Davis insisted on speaking ad nauseam and, while cutting an amiable figure, didn't have anything original to say.
Ian Shuttleworth, you are the Warwick Davis of theatrical criticism. I ask again: who elected you?
Why do you feel the need to comment on the colour of the wall at the back of the Comedy Theatre? I'm sure you are familiar with David Bowie, but are you familiar with his comment that one should seek to generate light, not reflect it?
Best of good wishes,
Quartermaine
Ian Shuttlesworth you so right when observing that:
"... to wit: people don't so much go to Events in order to be there as in order to have been there."
I think we are all having to contend to a phenomena of a combination of social media, the superficial and the anti-social.
I've increasingly come across the same behaviour at conferences of business or civic matters - while some interesting and informing speaker is presenting, or when some worthwhile Q&As are going on , there is that little minority intermittently, distractingly, rudely, thumbing away.
And like you, I came to wonder just why are 'they there'. I eventually concluded that it is indeed not because they want to be there - rather it's so that they can click away telling no one in particular that 'I am there'.
It comes down to manners and courtesy which, for someone who goes to the theatre as much as I do, can seem in all too depressingly short supply.
And the culprits can be unexpected. I recently remonstrated with a woman receiving text messages through the first act of a play. At the interval her partner explained that she was a doctor on call and my objections were therefore unsympathetic. Presumably the cast and I were also expected to be understanding if she'd had to leave her mid-row seat while the action continued.
We can add to that the rattling of ice cubes in plastic cups (then crunched underfoot), chatting through overtures (apparently not part of the show), knuckle-cracking (a recent new one on me) and multiple other irritations.
Managements have brought some of this on themselves and it is hard to see an easy solution to what is clearly a growing problem. Strictures will work only up to a point. The time has come for a wider and more imaginative educational initiative.
I work in digital media marketing, so my job is to try and use all the tools the internet offers us to promote our shows and draw in new audiences. And yet... I really don't see the need to turn your phone on during a performance. Surely people can wait till the interval? As others have said, it's disrespectful to the actors, not to mention your fellow audience members. Social media has a place in theatre and it's a great asset, but there's a time and a place...
Well, I absolutely loathe and detest people using their mobile phones for any purpose during a live performance. That said, if some idiot is going to insist on tweeting during the show, I certainly don't want them sitting next to me. I'd prefer them banished to some kind of tweet-ghetto. How about if we also charged quadruple the regular price for the tweet-seats, so that the theatre is at least making some money on it?
When I last went to see Les Mis just over a week ago, there was a man just along from me using Grindr on his iPhone for much of the show. Clearly he couldn't have been keen on the idea of being 'On My Own' once the show ended.