The response to this article has been phenomenal as people from all walks of life are becoming increasingly annoyed by others using electronic equipment throughout theatre, concert and movie performances. I too have empathy with this journalist as have others as people use their mobile phones and other technical equipment, constantly making a nuisance of themselves to the people around them.
“The person clicking or buzzing or ringing in the far corner of your vision is not respecting certain basic principles of civility” (Alexandra Petri).
@lyndahere or Lynda Elstad has annoyed people around her using her camera and video camera and they have on occasions said something to her and she certainly is ignoring the no photograph and video policy of venues. @lyndahere certainly is not “respecting the basic principles of civility” as Alexandra Petri describes the event in the Washington Post written in response to Williamson’s experiences.
In another article by John Del Signore in 'Arts and Entertainment' on May 16. 2013 states “that photography and mobile phone use were not allowed during this performance”. The Arts and Entertainment blog awarded a certificate of commendation to Williamson for “his exemplary protection of theatres from annoying patrons”.
Alexandra Petri makes a valid comment when she states reacting in the way Kevin Williamson did is understandable yet not an effective way to address the issue. “The glowing screen and the faint cricket clicking of a text being composed is enough to make the hardiest theatergoer’s skin crawl, although both offenses pale compared to the ringing. There she is, ruining the expensive suspension of disbelief you paid $50 for. If you wanted to see people texting, you’d have gone to a movie” (Alexandra Petri).
'Theatre Night: Vigilantes 1, Vulgarians 0' by Kevin Williamson published in the National Review Online on 15 May 2013.
I had a genuinely new experience at the theater tonight: I was thrown out.
The show was Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, which was quite good and which I recommend. The audience, on the other hand, was horrible — talking, using their phones, and making a general nuisance of themselves. It was bad enough that I seriously considered leaving during the intermission, something I’ve not done before. The main offenders were two parties of women of a certain age, the sad sort with too much makeup and too-high heels, and insufficient attention span for following a two-hour musical. But my date spoke with the theatre management during the intermission, and they apologetically assured us that the situation would be remedied.
It was not. The lady seated to my immediate right (very close quarters on bench seating) was fairly insistent about using her phone. I asked her to turn it off. She answered: “So don’t look.” I asked her whether I had missed something during the very pointed announcements to please turn off your phones, perhaps a special exemption granted for her. She suggested that I should mind my own business.
So I minded my own business by utilizing my famously feline agility to deftly snatch the phone out of her hand and toss it across the room, where it would do no more damage. She slapped me and stormed away to seek managerial succor. Eventually, I was visited by a black-suited agent of order, who asked whether he might have a word.
In a civilized world, I would have received a commendation of some sort. To the theater-going public of New York — nay, the world – I say: “You’re welcome.”
There is talk of criminal charges. I will keep you updated.
'National Review writer actually throws rude theater patron’s cell phone — do we applaud?'
By Alexandra Petri. May 16, 2013.
As someone who has been in theaters where people have not turned off their cell phones, I have many long, elaborate fantasies about what I would like to do to those people. In some of these fantasies, I merely clear my throat loudly or poke them a little with a sharpened umbrella. In my more grotesque imaginings, I shout, “FIRE!” “Where?” everyone else in the theater asks. “Right here,” I say, touching a lit match to the hem of the offender’s coat. And then there are the ones where I pluck the phone from their hands and toss it dramatically out of reach.
Well, National Review writer Kevin Williamson actually did
just that. He seized a patron’s phone “utilizing my famously feline agility”
and tossed it across the room. She slapped him. He was escorted from the
theater. “There is talk of criminal charges,” he adds.
It’s an impulse to which I am intensely sympathetic, even if
Williamson’s dismissive description of the cell-phone-using offenders as “two
parties of women of a certain age, the sad sort with too much makeup and
too-high heels, and insufficient attention span for following a two-hour
musical” does little to endear him to the reader.
People are already hailing him as a hero, although the
situation raises a few questions — she was texting, not talking, which I
consider a lesser offense, and he did throw her phone, which given the amount
of stock people place in our phones these days is almost but not quite like
tossing someone’s right hand across the room, except that your right hand’s
screen might not break when it landed.
Still, who hasn’t wanted to do something along these lines?
To take the offending cell phone and toss it away, not caring where it lands!
What rapture! What bliss! Why not? The person clicking or buzzing or ringing in
the far corner of your vision is not respecting certain basic principles of
civility. Why should you? At that moment when you are sitting in the third act
of Hamlet as he tries to decide whether to be or not, and suddenly you grow
aware of a faint buzzing noise, crescendoing to one of the more noxious default
ringtones, who has not wanted to seize the offending instrument and toss it as
far as possible, preferably into a large body of water? “Please silence that
thing,” you think, “or you’ll push that poor Dane over the edge.”
The whole expensive illusion shatters. The glowing screen
and the faint cricket clicking of a text being composed is enough to make the
hardiest theatergoer’s skin crawl, although both offenses pale compared to the
ringing. There she is, ruining the expensive suspension of disbelief you paid $50
for. If you wanted to see people texting, you’d have gone to a movie.
Then again, with phones almost second limbs these days,
maybe this is unrealistic. Maybe glancing down to check a text midway through
the third act is the price a doctor pays to go to the theater at all. Maybe
that kid who appears to be ignoring the performance in favor of his phone is
actually live-tweeting it and ginning up interest in the play and will
Singlehandedly Save Independent Theater. Maybe, you think, as steam pours out your
ears.
Maybe the people who are being rude with their phones would
still be rude if phones were denied them, crinkling their candy wrappers and
loudly whispering, “I DON’T UNDERSTAND — WHICH ONE IS SUPPOSED TO BE TOSCA?” to
the people who brought them there in the first place and are just as mortified
as you.
But how awful those cell phones are. Maybe as Alyssa
Rosenberg suggests, there are better ways of discouraging people from using
them than slapping them out of strangers’ hands. It’s a lovely visual.
But for most of us, this sort of dream stays in the realm of fantasy. Williamson might call it cowardice. I would call it politeness. The way to fight rudeness is not with vigilante rudeness of your own. But how much one wants to.
Heroic Theatergoer
Smashes Cell Phone, Gets Thrown Out Gothamist.htm by John Del Signore in Arts
and Entertainment on 16 May 2013.
We can't count the
number of times we've wanted to enact vengeance on some inconsiderate audience
member whose cell phone goes off during a performance. But, like most people,
we just bottle that fury up deep down inside and take it out on the break room
vending machine later. Not Kevin
Williamson. Last night the National Review writer was in attendance at
the marvelous new musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Commet of 1812
when one theatergoer's
incessant cell phone use finally drove him over the edge... into vigilantism.
The stellar
production—a swinging cabaret-type musical adaptation loosely adapted from Leo
Tolstoy's War and Peace—takes place inside a luxuriant carnival tent
nestled next to the Standard High Line. The audience is closely clustered at
small tables throughout the room, and while there is food and beverage service
before the show and during intermission, the performance itself takes place
with zero table service interruptions, and the atmosphere is as quiet and
attentive as any other conventional stage play. At least it's supposed to be.
Although each table is
explicitly told that photography and cell phone use is strictly prohibited
during the performance, the people seated around Williamson were, he says,
unbearable. "They were carrying on a steady conversation throughout entire
show," Williamson, who also writes a theatre column for New Criterion
tells us. "They had been quite loud and obnoxious the entire time. There
were two groups, one to the left and one to the right who were being loud and
disruptive."
Blood boiling, Williamson says he then asked her, sarcastically, "whether there had been a special exemption for her about not using her phone during the play. She told me to mind my own business, and so I took the phone out of her hands. I meant to throw it out the side door, but it hit some curtains instead. I guess my aim's not as good as it should be." Asked if the phone was damaged, Williamson says, "It had to be; I threw it a pretty good distance."
According to
Williamson, the woman then slapped him in the face and, after failing to find
her phone, stormed out. Soon the show's security director asked to "have a
word" with Williamson, and they stepped out into the lobby. "I told
him I would be happy to leave," Williamson recalls. "They tried to
keep me there. He said the lady was talking about filing charges. So I waited
around for a bit, but it seemed to be taking a while. He did try to physically
keep me in, and was standing in the door blocking me, telling me I couldn't
leave. I inquired as to whether he was a police officer and I was under arrest,
and since I wasn't, I left."
A publicist for the
production did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But if the
cell phone user decides to press charges, Williamson says he's willing to face
her in court. "I doubt that will happen, but if it does, that'll be fun.
If I have to spend a night in jail, I'll spend a night in jail. I don't want to
suggest I’m Henry David Thoreu protesting the Mexican –American War but I'll do
a day in jail if I have to."
Kevin Williamson, you
are indeed our Thoreau. And if you need help raising bail money, we'll totally
start a Kickstarter for you, just like Emerson did.
