What Rosamund Pike Should Have Said to the Audience Member Texting During Her Show

by Chris Peterson

Rosamund Pike recently addressed an audience member who had been texting during a crucial moment of Inter Alia at the Wyndham Theatre on the West End.

Rather than letting the distraction pass without comment, as so many professionals and amateurs have done, Pike used her post-show remarks to remind audiences of something that should be obvious but apparently isn't: when you buy a ticket to the theatre, you're signing up to be present.

To her credit, Pike handled the situation with remarkable grace:

“I just wanted to say for anyone going to the theatre, it’s a huge thing that we’re trying to give you. I am trying to tell you a story, and I’m feeling you, and I hope you’re feeling me too…Maybe it was very important, and maybe you’re a doctor, and you’re saving someone’s life, and I hope you are, but we do see these, we do feel them. I’ve got you, I feel like I’ve got to hold you all, so when I feel that and see it, it’s hard.”

During these comments, she pointed to the section where she saw the texter but didn’t single out the audience member she claims had been texting.

We admire her restraint. We're not sure we would have shown the same.

Because while the text message may have seemed important to the person sending it, the glow of a phone screen during any part of the show, but especially the climax, can shatter the carefully crafted illusion of a live performance for everyone around them.

If we'd had the microphone, here's what we would have said:

“I’d like to thank 99% of you for being a great audience during this tremendous show. The following remarks are not directed at you, but instead at the one person who decided they just had to text with someone outside the theatre.

Lord help you if, during the most critical scene in the show, you had to send a funny meme you just thought of, tell someone what drink you wanted at the bar after the show, or, truly God forbid, ask your dating partner what they were wearing.

Please remember, when you're in a theatre as an audience member, you are supposed to disappear as a witness to what’s happening onstage. You don’t need to react in the moment. You don’t need to update the outside world what you are doing now or after the show. It all can wait. The moment one person decides they are so important they have to stay connected to the outside world, they pull dozens—sometimes hundreds—of other people out of it too. They make the decision for them as well, and that’s what we call hubris.

Now, if you’re a doctor or a parent who had to handle a life-or-death emergency right then and there, you have my apologies. However, if there's even a 1% chance you're expecting a life-or-death call that truly can't wait until the show is over, please buy an aisle seat toward the back and quietly step out if you need to. That's completely understandable.

For everyone else: please check your ego at the door and keep the theatre sacred. The group chats, emails, and text messages will all be waiting for you when the curtain comes down. It's okay to disconnect for two hours. In fact, that's the whole point.”

And then we would drop the mic and walk off stage.

On the positive side, at least the audience member didn’t order a pizza.

We join Rosamund Pike and all the actors in imploring the audience to be respectful to everyone on stage and in the audience. In the theatre, just as in real life, we are all in this together.