Gujarat theatre artists react to Sumeet Raghavan's performance halt in Nashik

Actor Sumeet Raghavan recently stopped a performance in Nashik midway, due to mobile phone interruptions from the audience, during the playKnock Knock Celebrity. He followed it up with a post explaining his stand with the hashtags #ZeroTolerance and #NoMobileDuringPerformance. The incident however, is not the first time an artiste has had to resort to such an extreme measure.

Interestingly, it is a common practice to ask the audience to switch off their mobile phones or put their phones on silent during a play but the latter continues to ignore it, at times impacting the live performance.We talked to theatre artists in Gujarat and found that it's not just the mobile phones that have caused the disturbance but other factors like children running around the auditoriums, the culture of munching popcorn and wafers that affect the drama when it is underway particularly at intimate spaces. Artists feel that the audience needs to develop a mature understanding of the art. Excerpts:
Respect the art and theatre fraternity: Aditi Desai
When you enact a play after months of hard work, you expect the audience to have little respect for you. Theatre is not time pass. Both my father (Jashwant Thaker) and I have seen such instances, particularly in non-commercial spaces or events. It also does not mean that if you have bought a ticket you have all the right to do what you want. Theatre is live art, it has more power. Audience eating popcorn or munching wafers also cause a lot of disturbance. Leave shows, I ensure that the artists put their mobile phones in a separate basket before they come for rehearsals. Everybody should respect everybody’s work, be it back stage assistants who are putting up a set or the actors or the audience.
Audience should be disciplined: Mehul Buch
One of the major issues that I have faced in my career of over 15 years in theatre is that the audience keeps taking theatre as recreational activity. They don’t understand the difference between cinema and theatre. They forget that live performance is underway on stage which could be affected by their ringtones and talking over the call. In fact, I too have stopped at least 30 or 35 times during performances because of mobile phones. It’s not just about phones, at times they come late and the organiser has to incur losses as other plays are scheduled at a certain venue. They give excuses like lift was not working or they were stuck in traffic. Once I had to redo a few scenes because a major chunk of the audience came late!
Phones and children cause a lot of disturbance: Abhinay Banker
Mobile phones, particularly those with senior citizens who take a lot of time in bringing it out from their bags, have interrupted performances. I remember it has happened several times during Such instances can freeze you on stage, you can forget your lines. Not just the artistes but the audience too gets affected as several of them are so immersed in the play that when a person starts to talk over the phone, particularly at an intimate space, others or volunteers usher them out and return the ticket price to them. I feel stopping or cancelling a play midway is not just for the audience who really want to watch and have taken time out of their busy schedule.