Comedian Hans Teeuwen had had enough: two men talked through his performance in Breda and so they had to leave. Guido Weijers also showed visitors the door while chatting. Is that just possible? And what do theaters think about that? “Not talking during a performance is an unwritten rule.”
“Get out!”, Hans Teeuwen said to two men on Thursday evening during his show in the Chassé Theater. According to him, they chatted too much. The Breda comedian Guido Weijers also expelled a talking woman from the room during his New Year’s Eve conference.
It is an exception that artists do this, says a spokesperson for the Chassé Theater. According to her, the situation did not pose many problems on Thursday evening. “The two gentlemen left the room and that was the end of it.”
Are there rules for the public?
If a visitor disrupts a show in the Breda theater, it is up to the artist to decide what to do with it. “It is not up to the theater to say: you must let the audience sit,” the spokesperson explains. “Because the artist suffers from it.”
The theater usually informs the audience that you should leave your phone off during a performance, but that’s it. The Chassé Theater does not have strict rules regarding talking in the audience.
“It is an unwritten rule that you do not disrupt a performance. If someone is telling something in full concentration, you do not talk through it. That is common sense.”
Do theaters have agreements with an artist?
The theater does not make detailed agreements in advance with an artist about what he or she may do when someone is talking in the audience. The Tilburg Theater and Concert Hall and the Parktheater in Eindhoven recognize this.
The Parktheater also asks the audience to turn off their phones, but does not remind them to be quiet. There are ushers walking around the hall, just like in Breda and Tilburg. “They monitor what happens, but will never intervene when people are talking,” says the Chassé Theater. “That’s up to the artist.”
Artist choice
In Tilburg the ushers do that. “They speak to visitors about disruptive behavior, such as talking or filming,” says a spokesperson. “If there is persistent disruptive behavior – for both the artist and other visitors – it may ultimately be necessary for us to ask guests to leave the room.”
Yet the theater in Tilburg, like the Chassé Theater in Breda, leaves that choice mainly to the artists. “They determine what they find desirable in the audience during the performance and can therefore also decide to send someone away.”
Interaction with the audience often plays a role in cabaret, says the Tilburg theater. “And sometimes also pushing the boundaries. That is part of the genre. At the same time, we think it is important that everyone feels welcome and safe in the room. So it always remains a balance.”
