Beat Some Sense Into ‘Em

It’s an old complaint – the annoyance of trying to enjoy a play or a concert while all around you fellow patrons are talking, unwrapping crinkly candy, or forgetting to turn off their cell phones – but no one’s ever really come up with an effective way of making the clueless aware of their own thoughtlessness. One Twin Cities director “sometimes makes a pre-show announcement asking that the six audience members closest to the guy with the ringing cell phone beat the living expletive-deleted out of him until he can get there.” That might do it…