The small announcement at the beginning of a stage performance requesting theatre-goers to switch off their mobile phones is now a cliché that each theatre company tries to dress up in their own unique ways. It is quite often a respectful entreatment light-heartedly delivered, intended to induce some nervous laughter and much fumbling about those outsize tote bags that can very easily become bottomless pits into which smartphones irretrievably disappear, not to be found several seconds into a ringtone’s embarrassing tintinnabulation. Sometimes there are passive-aggressive undertones.
Setting the tone
For instance, before a performance of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone at Prithvi Theatre, a phone that went off backstage prompted the two actors playing guards to rush into the wings, returning with a man whose hands and feet have been tied up to a wooden stake they carry on their shoulders. The play itself situates itself in the middle ground between a rejection or an acceptance of authority, and this version was directed by the late doyen Satyadev Dubey.
In another instance, before a show of Mike Bartlett’s Bull , director Jim Sarbh walks in, almost belligerently, calling out the names of members of the audience, asking them if they had switched off their nefarious devices. As I had written in my review of the play, “With the click of a finger, he switches the milieu from the casual bonhomie of a convivial art space (Tarq at Colaba) serving up foie gras and wine to its genteel patrons, to the bullying tone of the evening’s piece.”
Out of the ordinary
Of course, sometimes the phones are necessary. When Jana Natya Manch’s Shambuk Vadh was staged at Prithvi Theatre, director Sudhanva Deshpande would request the audience to keep their phones switched on, and shuffle in their seats, and talk glibly during the performance, in order to create the buzzing atmosphere of the streets that his actors were more used to. Prithvi’s intimate but formal performing arena appeared to cramp their style. Needless to say, the straight-laced Mumbai audience did not comply with this directive and embrace the entropy of unfettered spectatorship. They are certainly more prone to being obedient than disorderly.
When someone had the bright idea of playing A R Rahman’s interpretations of the national anthem as house music at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre before a performance of the West-End hit, Stomp , everyone in the hall stood up twice. Once for the 40-string instrumental version and later for a rendition by Lata Mangeshkar, before the playlist moved on to a pop number. The diktats about the national anthem had just been announced and it was a grey area whether theatre screenings came under their remit. For Laughter in the House 2 , master of ceremonies Jim Vimadalal gave the advisory a political dimension, to delirious laughter in the stands. He described a phone at full volume as being in the ‘Modi mode’, when muted, it is in ‘Manmohan Singh mode’, and when switched off, it is in the ‘Rahul Gandhi mode’. The later two ‘modes’ are, of course, the most conducive for the evening’s affairs to go off without incident.
In my piece for Stories in a Song directed by Sunil Shanbag a classical musician, unaware that his composition has been appropriated by a music director who’s made a hit remix out of it, is suddenly accosted by a ringtone that blares out the very track. His attendants look askance at the audience, of course, but it’s really one of them. That’s part of an act, but sometimes an actor’s phone goes off onstage. They must then muster up all their improvisation skills to gloss over the accident, and explain it away as an incident of drama. Usually, before a performance, a diligent production assistant gathers all the phones belonging to an ensemble, under the assurance that each one has been switched off or ‘silenced’. Then, the assistant spends a nervous couple of hours minding the bag, ready to make for the exit if it suddenly erupts into a symphony of ringtones.
In Purva Naresh’s Aaj Rang Hai , a group of qawaals are placed behind a sheer curtain, creating a subtle backdrop of voices suffused with the lyrical legacy of Amir Khusrau. However, qawaals (and these were authentic ones flown in from lucknow) are used to loud boisterous assemblages, where their refrains have to strain skywards just to match the fervour of the crowd. They are quite possibly not trained in mobile phone etiquette. In the play’s first staging in the priggish Tata Theatre, their phones went off with much alacrity, and they even took each call.
Phone etiquette
Of course, nobody’s really hauled away, or asked to leave. There is usually a lot of shushing, and some quick darting ones or cold stares, but nothing beyond that. Yet, we don’t have to buy into the idea that each moment of live theatre must be savoured. We like to latch on to every word, every enunciation, each glimmer of expression. It certainly needs a specific kind of concentration, that is perhaps not aided by furtive whispering into ears, or buzzing phones in pockets. At the very the beginning of a play when the light fades out, countless faces in the audience are immediately lit up, as people struggle to tame their gadgets. It is almost like the light design of a different kind of play, one in which we are all participants. But arguably, the smartphone that lights up mid-performance is the most distracting of things.
In some venues, like Bengaluru’s Ranga Shankara, a network jam ensures that phones do not function during a performance. In hyper-active digitally-linked Mumbai, a trip to the theatre isn’t considered to be a two hours’ respite from the din. It is down time, after a sort, but people want to remain connected, and the simple matter of being unable to receive a signal during the running time of a production can become a contentious thing. Respect for an actor’s craft doesn’t rate that high in the scheme of things.
The writer is a playwright and stage critic
