But it bears noting that, in a setting where all already are agreed that making voluntary noises is disruptive and disrespectful of the performers and audience if not downright antisocially rude, and one party in that audience seems to have forgotten this or to have other priorities for a moment, those among the erstwhile silently attentive righteous who would make noises in order to correct the offender's behavior are no help at all. This, though, is standard: Someone will whisper or mutter to the person next to them, and two or three people will shush at that person.
Anyway, right at the climax of the play, a party in the front row who had already obliviously been the object of several of her audience-mates' efforts to correct her apparent proclivity to engage in the occasional side conversation with her companion (I think they were both hard of hearing and commiserated a bit as the blocking shifted "down-stage" around from scene to scene), took her cell phone out of her purse, saw that she had missed a call, told her companion of the missed call, called and signed into her voicemail service (succeeding on the second try), accessed and then listened to the message, the LCD bathing the rows behind her in bright blue light, each key press sounding a tone, and the little ear speaker turned way up, like a little-old-hard-of-hearing-lady's ought to be (not the speakerphone function: a loud earpiece), and amplified by her own ear so that it was also clearly audible to many among those illuminated people behind her (some of whom mistook the sound for her actually having a telephone conversation) all the while.
As you might imagine, Dear Reader, this produced an increasing amount of activity among the people sitting around her, beginning with the shushes of the wonted erstwhile silently attentive righteous shushers already indicated (the "alpha-shushers") but spreading and growing as beta-, gamma-, and delta-shushers reached and passed their emission thresholds, other parties shared statements of indignation, several people pronounced complete sentences in the imperative mode at normal conversational volumes (pretty damn imperative during the culminating dialog of a play), and I silently judged everybody (except the performers), all to no avail. She might eventually have come under the gentle censure of her companion, ending the offence, but I don't recall how her interaction with the phone came to a close: The scene ended, we the righteous realized we had missed it and probably should have just ignored that lady and her voicemail message, instead trying harder to focus on the dramatic climax, were suddenly very quiet and still, ourselves, and an actor gave the offender a lingering hairy eyeball as he moved some props for the next scene.
The play is about how David Frost got to interview Richard Nixon in 1977, and the interview itself. A great deal of tension surrounds the question whether Frost will be able to get Nixon to say anything significant about his role in and regrets concerning the affair related to that hotel burglary, and a good deal of effective, but increasingly desperate, fencing as the contracted interview hours elapse. In the immediately-preceding scenes, Frost had obtained previously unknown transcripts of Oval Office tapes, demonstrating Nixon's culpable knowledge and involvement at a date earlier than had previously been established, and confronted him on camera, eliciting the "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal" statement, at which point Nixon's advisor, Jack Brennan, called a time-out. The parties huddled briefly in their corners. Then, as the interviewer and the former president took their seats, the cameras began to roll again.
It was at this point that the fission of distractions occurred. I believe that Nixon said something at that point and suspect that it was pretty potent. In the denouement Frost seemed ennobled by his success (I meant that word descriptively until it occurred to me that it might be misleading, so I went to check: David Frost was not knighted until 1993 -- ed.), Nixon, relieved by his candid performance, and both men, genuinely, mutually affectionate.
Like I said, the production was excellent. I'm not even sure how to properly use the phrase "bravura performance" but I think it should, with appropriate grammatical refinements, probably be applied to those of Brendan Murray and Michael Kharfen in their respective eponymous roles and the emotional dynamism they conveyed between the characters. I think I, and several other members of the audience, could probably have done, or not done, some things better.
As to myself, I am of several minds: I might have more effectively skewered the alpha-shushers with my (silent) eye lasers, and sooner; I might have copied that lady's voicemail service's phone number, her mailbox and pin numbers right off that bright glowing screen to later express chagrin through that medium (or obtain more information about her and her interests); I might have snatched that phone right out of her hand when she began actually using it, best situated for that purpose as I was among her many indignant coauditioners (although: never underestimate another person's willingness to make a terrible scene); or I might have focused, as I know I have the capacity to do, on the play, without being perturbed by the antics and scandalized ejaculations of others. Alas, ruined by my own righteousness; hoisted upon my own indignant petard. Again.
So when I got home I asked the Internet and believe I have found that excerpt from the actual interview -- alas, not Murray and Kharfen performing the scene. And it is interesting in many ways, but, alone, does not carry me up the narrative arc in increasing tension and, then, finally, inexorably, catapult me over into . . . catharsis, and then a gentle denouement and maybe some congratulatory pillow talk . . (ahem.) . as I had sort of been under the impression that that play was pretty effectively in the process of doing. (gosh, now I want to run with that analogy. must.resist.)
I think I could muse-rant about (the idea of) Nixon indefinitely (not really knowing anything about him but harboring strong impressions of certain, generally not very positive, things, nevertheless), but already wrote all the foregoing. My only substantive thought on watching the actual (ok, archived and digitized and compressed and streamed and so forth) television footage was a hyperposition of two mutually exclusive propositions, and their attendant associations:
: I hope Bush gets his Frost interview :: I hope Bush does not get his Frost interview :ramifying like nested mirrors.
. . . Because the American people and the many victims of their government (representative government, bitches!), and that government itself, deserve several specific abject apologies; and because, all things considered, Richard Nixon came across pretty sympathetically performing that mea culpa, and even more sympathetically ever since (see, e.g., that state burial, much fawning reminiscence, and this play), and I don't want that for suspected war criminal Bush . . . until maybe some years after the tribunal pronounces its rulings.
In fairness to some of the alpha-shushers: I think a lot of them must be moms, simply reacting to their internalized conviction that, if there is a disturbance somewhere, their child is probably causing it, which, in turn, reflects poorly on them. And for mothers to be so motivated is right and good.
Right?