RIALTO CHATTER: Jackman Stops The 'RAIN' Due To Noisy Audience Member

Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig are currently starring together on Broadway in A STEADY RAIN, a critically acclaimed two-character play by Keith Huff. Directed by Tony Award nominee John Crowley, A STEADY RAIN began previews on Thursday, September 10, 2009 and opens Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre (236 West 45th Street) for a strictly limited 12 week engagement through Sunday, December 6, 2009.

This past Sunday's matinee performance of A STEADY RAIN "treated" the audience to a lesson of how to deal with a noisy ticket holder who forgot what respect and decorum means when attending a theatrical production. RIALTO CHATTER received a slew of messages about the incident, but we thought this fantastic recap by Roland Teco on his Extra Criticum blog summed it all up with style and wit. We bring you an excerpt of his essay right here on BWW:

Hugh Jackman Talks to Woman in Row P

About 15 min. into yesterday afternoon's performance of Keith Huff's A Steady Rain, a latecomer in the back of the right orchestra started asking the usher when she was going to be seated. She didn't whisper. Nor did she limit herself to one simple question. Instead, she felt it necessary to launch into an explanation of how she was physically incapable of standing during the whole show, how she hoped she'd be seated soon, and how much she had been looking forward to seeing the play.

She stopped just short of sharing with us the menu of her pre-show brunch.

After three or four cascading waves of "Shh" sweeping up from about row L to the back of the house had failed to silence her, Hugh Jackman chimed in:

"Excuse me, but you know, I can hear you up here. Are you finished? If you have a story you think is more interesting, by all means, we can wait."

The result: bursts of riotous applause. Unbelievably, this woman didn't even ever register that an actor on stage had stopped the show to address her, nor did she seem to take in the palpable disdain emanating from the wave of applause as she finally took her seat. The subtext of Mr. Jackman's interruption could have been: "You do realize I'm not on film today. This afternoon, I'm actually here in the same room with you."

It's a testament to Mr. Huff's skill as a playwright that the tale is spun in such a way so that even having missed one or two bits of dialogue early on, we were not utterly lost. It's a complicated story and the details matter. It reminds me of something a composition teacher once explained to me as an undergraduate studying the operas of Mozart. Part of what makes them such enduring classics is his masterful use of repetition.

The reality of work for the stage is that audiences make noise and are sometimes easily distracted. People cough. Nature calls. Sirens buzz by. Even the occasional old-timer may doze off or at the very least zone out momentarily. Part of the craft of "wrighting" an evening's entertainment is providing a delicate balance of repetition and new information coming at us from start to finish. Thankfully for those of us in the rear right orchestra yesterday, A Steady Rain was both moving and well-crafted.

To read the entire essay and more from Roland Teco visit, www.extracriticum.com.

A STEADY RAIN tells the story of two Chicago cops who are lifelong friends and their differing accounts of a few harrowing days that changed their lives forever.

A STEADY RAIN is produced on Broadway by Frederick Zollo, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, Raymond L. Gaspard, Frank Gero, Cheryl Wiesenfeld, Jeffrey Sine,Michael Rose Ltd, The Shubert Organization, Inc. and Robert Cole. Set and costume design are by two-time Tony Award winner Scott Pask, with lighting design by two-time Tony Award nominee Hugh Vanstone and original music and sound design by Mark Bennett.

Student rush tickets for the strictly limited 12 week Broadway engagement of Daniel Craig andHugh Jackman in A STEADY RAIN will be available at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre box office with a valid student ID. Student rush tickets are only sold the day of the performance, when the box office opens, (10am Monday - Saturday, 12pm Sunday) on a first come first served basis, and are $31.50 with a limit of two tickets per student/ID.

Tickets range from $140.00 to $66.50. The performance schedule for A STEADY RAIN is as follows: Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday through Saturday at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are also available at www.telecharge.com(212.239.6200). 

Photo Credit: Sarah DeBoer/Retna Ltd.