Leading actor leaps from the stage to confiscate a persistent cell phone

At Milan’s pres­ti­gi­ous Teatro Strehler yes­ter­day after­noon, esteemed actor Gab­ri­ele Lavia was nego­ti­at­ing the tricky array of emo­tions set out by Pir­an­dello in his play Tutto per bene. Then the cell phones star­ted ringing. Once, twice, three times…

The mat­inée per­form­ance largely con­sisted of eld­erly ladies, not as quick as their grand­chil­dren at switch­ing off cell phones, or even find­ing them. The muffled Nokia theme got louder as it was taken out of a hand­bag, and just con­tin­ued to ring. Lavia turned des­per­ately to the audi­ence, “Please Signora, just answer it!”

It stopped ringing for a few seconds and Lavia returned to the des­per­a­tion of a man who has just dis­covered the infi­del­ity of his long-dead wife, and that his daugh­ter isn’t bio­lo­gic­ally his. The Nokia returned too. “If it’s for me, tell them to call back in half an hour,” he respon­ded. Silence. The play continued.

The Nokia was silenced, but not the oth­ers. Another ring-tone took to the stage. “This is so vul­gar!” said Lavia as the audi­ence star­ted boo­ing and shout­ing: “Get out!”, “Go to the cir­cus next time”, “Disgrace!”

After much shh-ing the play resumed… for five minutes. Just before the end of the play yet another melody elbowed its way to centre stage. Lavia, 70, leapt off the stage, demand­ing for the cul­prit to own up and hand him the offend­ing phone, all accom­pan­ied by boo­ing, applause and shout­ing. No-one owned up, but there was much point­ing. Rather inel­eg­antly our hero clambered back on to the stage to fin­ish the play as the broken man takes flowers to his wife’s grave… in total silence.

Cur­tain. Applause.

Photo: the com­pany finally arrives at the end of the play; Gab­ri­ele Lavia 

Share