'Shadowlands' and an unwanted sound effect

Photo By Michal Daniel

Charity Jones (Joy Davidman Gresham) and Simon Jones (C.S. Lewis) in William Nicholson's "Shadowlands" at the Guthrie Theater.

By Eric Ringham

Last update: November 10, 2008 - 12:53 PM

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I don't mean this for theater audiences generally, nor for Guthrie audiences generally, nor even for the audience that came on Sunday night to see the Guthrie's fine production of "Shadowlands." I mean it for the one person somewhere toward the left side of the house whose cell phone went off during the second act.

You. Are you aware of the disruption you caused? Do you understand, now, why you must never let it happen again?

It was not a discreet ring, quickly muffled; that would have been bad enough. It was an upbeat tune, probably from some online library of downloadable ringtones, and it played awhile.

"Shadowlands," the sad story of the love that C.S. Lewis found and lost late in life, provokes a background of sniffles from the audience. The play is enough to make strong men weep. At this time of year, unfortunately, it also must compete with the artillery sounds of coughs that threaten to drown out the actors. We can forgive those involuntary interruptions, even as we wonder why someone with a persistent hacking cough would go to a movie, let alone a theater performance.

But during this somber play, in which grief is a presence so palpable that it deserves its own bio in the program, there is no scene that your ringtone would not kill. The actors stayed in the moment, though they too must have heard it. But for 10 awful seconds or longer, the focus in the theater shifted from them to you. Surely you felt it.

Never let your cell phone embarrass you again. To paraphrase the play, let the pain, now, be part of the happiness, then. Please?

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