Dear Editor,
I recently attended a performance at the National Cultural Centre. Whilst the performance was an excellent one and the performers did a sterling job, I had a thoroughly unenjoyable time. My miserable evening began as the lights dimmed and the performance commenced, with patrons arriving late and shuffling to find their seat, some patrons were arriving up to thirty minutes late. This was by far trivial when compared to my main bone of contention. I am writing about the use cell phones. This device is truly ubiquitous in all our lives, while being very useful; it does have its disadvantages. As the lights dimmed the gentleman to my right started a conversation with his friend in the balcony, discussing where each of them was sitting and the virtues of “Fish Shop” fish, versus some soup from “Germans”, this in-depth discussion lasted fifteen minutes, with “Germans” soup winning out in the end. This was soon to be followed by an equally fascinating twenty-five minutes tale of how to successfully pass your interview at the U.S. embassy as to “get through, with no fuss”, I must admit I did learn some things here. The same gentleman next to me, much to my displeasure continued sporadically to call his friends throughout the entire performance with an astonishing variety of trivial topics, which would themselves be good material for a humorous play.
Next, a couple sat directly in front of me. Both had phone earpieces. Both of them flashed a small blue light. Of course, the lights were on the back of the earpieces, invisible to them, but not to me and everyone behind them, after the lights went down, and it became intolerable.
My next gripe was the sheer quantity of text messaging that was going on. If fact some people in the audience spent their entire time with their phones on and texting throughout the performance. In a darkened theatre, the light emitted from a cell phone in active use is exceedingly bright. Patrons seemed unable to stop themselves from texting and answering their phones. Whenever the actors said something slightly humorous, people in the theatre would ring their friends, who all happen to be in the same theatre, some only a few seats away, to tell them the joke. It seems that none of the offenders thought their behaviour inappropriate. Why would anyone go to the theatre and spend their entire time on their phone. I am also disheartened that if I suggest that the National Cultural Centre makes an announcement to the audience to refrain from using their cell phones it would fall on “deaf ears”, but something should be done to stop this boorish behaviour. The simplest, and, in fact, only solution is to turn the cell phone off. Surely we can wait until intermission to check messages. I must admit that I have a cell phone and use it very often, but there are certain circumstances that good etiquette requires we be considerate to or fellow audience members, if you feel it necessary to use your phone please leave the theatre.
Yours faithfully,
Gavin Ramnarain
