When the Performance Is Marred by the Phones

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/opinion/letters/theater-concert-phones.html

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To the Editor:

Re “No Cellphone, No Recording, No Audience?” (front page, Oct. 7):

I applaud the performers, like the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, who have taken matters into their own hands to stop intrusive and inappropriate filming in theaters.

The behavior of phone addicts distracts audience members as well. The light from a phone that appears suddenly as someone texts during a play or film is profoundly annoying, as is having your view blocked repeatedly by people who simply must make an Instagram-able “I was there!” record of a performance.

I write as someone who was shoved and almost knocked to the floor in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam by a tourist determined to get the perfect selfie with a Vermeer. Apparently, enthusiasm for art now seems to require the intermediary of electronic devices. It’s a shame that cultural institutions are pandering to this.

Ellen D. MurphyPortland, Me.

To the Editor:

After paying for pricey seats to see “An American in Paris” and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” I had the bad luck both times to be seated next to cellphone offenders.

During a balletic sequence onstage in “An American,” a middle-aged man whipped out his phone to show his seatmate a different dancer performing — at length. When asked to refrain from disturbing all around him, he erupted in high dudgeon.

The burly guy who was filming “Mockingbird” challenged my male friend to fisticuffs, saying, “Let’s take this outside” during the intermission.

Your article relates performers’ retaliation against audience members filming, but gives short shrift to aggrieved theatergoers. If “a desire to attract younger and more diverse audiences” means that long-held behavioral norms in the theater and concert hall must give way to changing times, where does that leave the “aging fan base,” the patrons who expect to get what they paid for: a spectacle on the stage, not a dust-up in the mezzanine?

Penelope RossNew Canaan, Conn.

To the Editor:

“Suitable for the Classroom? #MeToo Spurs a Rethinking” (news article, Oct. 8), about works by writers and artists accused of abuse, asks: “Should they be canceled — banished from public engagement like some of their creators? Or should they continue to be studied, only with frank discussions about abuse and harassment?”

That depends on the teacher’s aim. My aim is to give students the intellectual thrills that come from reading terrific literature. So I don’t choose literature based on whether the writers are good people, and I don’t discuss abuse and harassment unless such discussions would enhance discussion of the work itself.

If I wanted to provide therapy, role models or political change, I would enter a different profession.

Felicia Nimue AckermanProvidence, R.I.The writer is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.

To the Editor:

Re “‘All You Can Do Is Take Care of Your End’” (Editorial Observer, Sept. 16):

Jesse Wegman’s essay about the political and irrational aspects of sentencing is both insightful and provocative.

Beyond that, there is a deeper societal fallacy that assumes that punishment is a solution for errant behavior. It is estimated that 98 percent of incarcerated people will be returning to the streets. That they have been encaged in an environment that mostly worsens antisocial behavior and hardly ever confronts behavior that led to an arrest and imprisonment seems self-defeating for the greater society. Recidivist rates, historically, seem to substantiate that premise.

There are community programs that delve into cause and effect of antisocial behavior, conducted in a supportive environment. I agree with Mr. Wegman’s premise that exaggerated sentencing and racial disparities must be confronted. At the same time, a dialogue should be encouraged to challenge the very concept of our archaic punishment/prison system.

Paying taxes to sustain a failing system is an exercise in institutional futility.

David RothenbergNew YorkThe writer is the founder of the Fortune Society.