Hugh Jackman stops play for ringing phone
Tue, 29 Sept 2009, 01:57 pmDaniel Kershaw16 posts in thread
Hugh Jackman stops play for ringing phone
Tue, 29 Sept 2009, 01:57 pmIf only we all had this much courage.
Taken from:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/arts/2009/09/29/1253989898907.html
Pity the theatregoer whose persistently ringing mobile phone caused Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig to stop their Broadway show and ask it be answered.
The actors, two of Hollywood's biggest stars, were part-way through a preview performance of intense two-hander A Steady Rain in New York last Wednesday when a mobile phone's high-pitched trill became too much.
A video of the performance surfaced overnight on celebrity gossip website TMZ.com.
It shows Jackman, still in character as a Chicago cop pacing the stage and halfway through a monologue, address the audience member directly, saying: "You wanna get that?"
"You wanna get it, grab it, I don't care, grab it, grab your phone, it doesn't matter."
Co-star Craig, seated at the time, watched on as the phone kept ringing.
Jackman, 40, eventually pleaded, to rousing applause: "Come on just turn it off ... it doesn't matter, unless you got a better story, you want to get up and tell your stories".
As the phone kept ringing, 41-year-old Craig relieved his frustrated co-star, asking the audience member to answer their phone.
"Can you get that, whoever that is, can you get it," he asked.
"We can wait, just get the phone."
The phone was eventually silenced. A relieved Craig said: "Denny [Jackman's character's name] took it hard."
The audience inside the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre applauded again.
Producers of A Steady Rain could not be reached for comment.
The interruption occurred during an intense moment in the play, when Jackman's character, a Chicago policeman, reveals haunting memories.
A customary loudspeaker announcement reminds theatregoers to turn off their phones.
Since the incident, ushers who seat patrons and pass out playbills at Schoenfeld are also instructing patrons to silence their phones.
A Steady Rain, a taut drama about the relationship between two policemen, opens on Tuesday for a 12-week run through to December 6.
The play by Keith Huff already has proven to be a potent box-office winner, playing to capacity audiences since it began previews on September 10.
Jackman won a Tony Award in 2004 for his performance as Peter Allen in the musical The Boy from Oz.
Craig, filmdom's latest James Bond, is making his Broadway debut.
On hold
Thu, 1 Oct 2009, 09:39 amExcellent.
Perfect because it didn't lower his status in any way. It mattered not to him.
If he'd been flustered, and shown that the students had the upper hand, they'd have eaten him for breakfast and the interruptions would probably have increased.
I think it's perfectly possible to interrupt a show to remove a distraction. I've been in shows that were stopped due to lighting failures, fire drills, to admonish students that were throwing things, or to allow medics to remove someone in distress from the audience. Each time the show has picked up where it left off, and the audience and actors were perfectly capable of continuing to suspend their disbelief and just got right back into the drama as if nothing had interrupted. It's no different from taking a commercial break in the middle of a TV movie. In the case of the phone ringing, Hugh was letting the culprit know that they could all put the moment 'on hold' while the phone was taken care of, because that was more important than allowing it to ring through crucial dialogue.
But the trick is, like Gielgud above, to be in control of the situation, and not let the distraction control you. While Hugh sounded obviously annoyed, if it was clear that he was doing it on behalf of the audience (who must have been equally distracted by the phone but not felt empowered to do anything about it) then the audience would forgive and appreciate the only person there with the power to do anything taking charge and removing the distraction. They'd respect his action, and allow the play to continue without it much effecting their evening...in fact their experience was most likely better for it.
Cheers,
Craig
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