When the actor Benedict Cumberbatch met with fans — and the glare of flash from their cameras — after a weekend performance of “Hamlet” at the Barbican Theatre in London, he had a message to send.
He told them that while he doesn’t use social media, he would be very happy if they did, just not during his performance.
“Can I ask you all a huge favour?” the actor said to fans gathered outside the stage door. “All of this, all these cameras, all these phones,” he said pleadingly, his voice trailing off. “What I really want to do is try to enlist you.”
“I can see cameras, I can see red lights in the auditorium. And it may not be any of you here that did that but it’s blindingly obvious, like that one there, that little red light,” he said, pointing into the crowd.
He referred to a disruption during that night’s performance in which he had to stop and then resume his delivery of the soliloquy beginning “To be or not to be,” which he noted was not the easiest place to have to restart. Cumberbatch said he could see a “little red light” near the third row during the performance. “It’s mortifying,” he said. There is “nothing less supportive or enjoyable.”
“And I can’t give you what I want to give you, which is a live performance that you will remember hopefully in your minds and brains, whether it is good, bad or indifferent, rather than on your phones.”
It was reported that Cumberbatch’s performance was halted because of a technical problem.
The actor said there would be strict rules in place on Monday, with devices that will detect audience members using their phones and cameras during the show and lead to their eviction. “I don’t want that to happen; that’s a horrible way to have to police what is a wonderful thing.”
“So this isn’t me blaming you, this is just me asking you to just ripple it out there,” he said, “with your funny electronic things.”
Cumberbatch has spoken out previously on the topic. At a “Letters Live” performance at the Freemasons’ Hall in April, he stopped his reading to ask people in the audience to stop taking pictures with their phones.
He was adding his plaint to those of a number of actors who have tried to address the scourge of cellphone use during performances — often less eloquently.
During a recent matinee, Patti LuPone’s “Shows for Days” was interrupted four times by phones. At another performance last month, she left the stage at the end of a scene and took a phone from a woman who had been texting, making Ms. LuPone a viglante heroine to those frustrated by breaches of theatre etiquette.
In 2009, she stopped a performance of “Gypsy” to berate someone who was taking photographs. The same year, Hugh Jackman told an audience member, “We can wait” when the person’s phone rang during a performance of “A Steady Rain.”
At London’s Old Vic in 2014, the American actor Kevin Spacey told an audience member whose phone was ringing during a performance, ” If you don’t answer that, I will, “
For ongoing ticket availability please check the Barbican website at hamlet.barbican.org.uk
This production is being broadcast LIVE – broadcast to cinemas around the world on Thursday 15th October 2015 as part of National Theatre Live. http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/
Hamlet
Directed by Lyndsey Turner
starring Benedict Cumberbatch
5th August to 31st October 2015