How to be an obnoxious audience member

Based on years of observation, I am beginning a “How to…” series. 

There is a humanitarian purpose in starting this series. I wish to educate and coach certain sections of society who, for lack of guidance, haven’t yet been able to join the “Become an insensitive member of society” movement (better known in its colloquial avatar as the “What do I effing care about anybody else but myself” movement).

So, without much-a-do, here’s the first in the series -

How to be an obnoxious audience member:

• Reach the performance venue late by a good 15 minutes. Do not keep your tickets handy. In fact, do not even read and remember your seat numbers. As soon as you enter the auditorium, start conversing loudly with whosoever is accompanying you about how to locate your seats. Fumble in your pocket / bag / wallet / purse and retrieve your tickets. Attempt to read them in the darkness of the auditorium. Then, realising that you can’t, search for and retrieve your cell phone and attempt to read the ticket numbers in the screen light of your cell phone. Then, walk up and down the aisle a couple of times searching for your row. Remember to talk continuously with the person/s with you. Then, go out, get the doorman to come in with his extra-bright torch and indicate the location to you. Hopefully you have seats in the centre and not along the aisle. Very slowly, treading on people’s feet, reach your seats. Discuss for a minute about who wants to sit next to whom, arrange yourselves accordingly and then sit in your seats. Once seated, turn to the person next to you and ask, “What has happened so far ?”

• Keep your cell phone on ringing as well as vibration mode. Keep it in the deepest recesses of your pocket / purse. Then forget where you have kept it. Whenever you receive a call, search for it for an eternity. Chances are, by the time you remove it from your pocket / purse, the caller has disconnected. DO NOT keep it in your hand. Put it right back where you found it. When the caller calls again, remove it from your pocket / purse only slightly faster than before. Answer the call. First apologize for the delay in receiving the call stating the exact location of your cell phone and describe the difficulties in retrieving it from there. Then tell the caller in finest details about where you are (e.g. I am at Yashwantrao Sabhagruha….the one in Kothrud…near my sister-in-law’s place…), what you are doing (I’m watching a play…it’s called…it’s not so good…the volume is low and the air-conditioner is high, I mean low, I mean it’s too cold…). Then discuss when it would be convenient for you and the caller to speak again. Then, and only after ascertaining that your co-audience has gone back to trying to watch the play after getting tired of giving you murderous glances, making clicking noises, shushing you etc., you can disconnect the call and put the cell phone back in its location in its ringing cum vibration mode.

• Take food with you. Preferably carry a large plastic bag of chips…the one that makes a crinkly noise each time you dip your hand in it to bring out some chips. Tear the plastic bag open only after the performance has begun. Then begin eating. Remember to remove only one chip at a time from the plastic bag, making that crinkly noise every time. Then proceed to chomp on the chip. When you finish eating that chip, smack your lips loudly. Then, reach into the plastic bag for the next one. For variation, you can take a variety of chips with you e.g. potato wafers for the first act and banana chips for the second. Sometimes you can do away with the chips entirely and take some liquid and spill it on yourself, exclaim loudly, go out, wash it off and return to your seat, all while the performance is going on. Better still, you could spill it on the person next to you, apologize profusely and loudly, accompany them outside to wash it off and return to your seats, thus making the other person miss a part of the performance with you.

• Take such a person with you who doesn’t understand the language of the play. Do not read the brochure. Do not let the other person read it either. Do not explain the gist of the play to the person accompanying you before the play begins. As soon as the first line in the play is uttered, start translating the play line-by-line for this person. Be generous. Keep your volume loud so that the three rows in front and three behind can clearly hear you and benefit from watching a dual-language performance.

Do this and I can assure you that you will become the most undesirable audience member.

And, most importantly, PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE !!!