Theater of Disrespect: How We’re Failing Our Own Stage

We Armenians take great pride in our cultural and artistic heritage. We love to boast that our people cherish the arts, that we are a nation of poets, musicians and intellectuals, that theater is in our blood. After all, didn’t Tigran the Great build a public theater in Tigranakert before Rome even had one? Didn’t Artavazd II write Greek tragedies? Didn’t the Mekhitarists in Venice translate Molière and Shakespeare into Armenian?

Yes, yes, yes. We have the receipts. We can cite the historical achievements. But let’s take a moment to examine the reality of attending a play, opera, or other performance in Yerevan today. If the great Armenian playwrights of the past could witness the spectacle that unfolds offstage at any given performance, they would promptly rewrite their tragedies to include the true comedy of modern Armenian theater audiences.

This isn’t just a one-time frustration. Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote a Facebook post about the very same issue. It prompted a flurry of comments: Most people agreed, while others attempted to justify the behavior, arguing that it’s simply part of the culture. But is it really? Should it be? Because, if disrupting an entire performance with phone calls, conversations, and endless seat shuffling is a cornerstone of our artistic appreciation, then perhaps we need to re-evaluate what it means to respect the arts.

Take, for example, the performance I attended a few weeks ago—a play written by a dear friend of mine. A poignant piece about a now-lost homeland, infused with its dialect and traditions, that should have been a moving, emotional experience. Instead, it became a showcase of the uniquely disastrous way some of our compatriots “appreciate” the arts. It was the usual circus of distractions: incessant chatting, random bursts of laughter, and phone notifications punctuating the silence like a badly timed percussion section. I counted 25 rings and dings—part of an unofficial game we seem to have made out of it. That was relatively good; at one performance in Gyumri, my friend and I counted 47 (though, to be fair, that play was longer).

And oh, the phone screens! Glowing beacons of disrespect, illuminating the darkness as audience members scrolled through emails, checked Instagram, and—most impressively—one girl live-streamed the performance. Yes, somewhere on Facebook or Instagram, there exists an unintentionally avant-garde adaptation of the play, complete with the shaky cinematography of a teenager documenting culture while ignoring it entirely.

Of course, no performance would be complete without an audience of schoolchildren herded in as some sort of educational excursion. While in theory, this is a noble effort, introducing the next generation to the performing arts, in practice, it plays out like an unsupervised recess with slightly dimmer lighting. These children, unfazed by the hushed pleas of their overwhelmed chaperones, chat, giggle, and shift in their seats with the kind of restlessness typically reserved for long-haul flights. The ushers, gallantly trying to restore order, “shush” and wave their hands in desperation, but by the end of it, even they seem to accept defeat.

And let’s not forget the inexplicable movements: People entering and exiting as if the theater were a train station rather than a performance venue. Some disappear for long stretches, only to return just as a crucial scene unfolds. Others engage in loud, drawn-out negotiations over seating arrangements as if assigned seating were a mere suggestion rather than an actual rule. During this most recent play, an entire discussion erupted mid-performance between the ushers and a group of patrons trying to sort out their seats. Never mind that the row was half empty. Naturally, this logistical crisis required the full brightness of a phone flashlight pointed directly into the eyes of unsuspecting audience members.

And after all this—after the endless chatter, the interruptions, the disrespect—we reach the grand finale. The moment the play ends, we witness an astonishing transformation: applause erupts, the Soviet-style monotonous clapping begins, and a standing ovation almost inevitably follows. The same audience that spent the entire performance treating the theater like a waiting room suddenly becomes deeply moved, unable to contain their admiration. Bouquets are handed to the performers (but only to the female ones, of course, as tradition dictates), and all is dandy. It’s as if all previous offences are wiped clean with a few minutes of performative appreciation.

And here lies the real absurdity. We convince ourselves that our reverence for culture is unquestionable. But respect isn’t about showing up and clapping at the right moments; it’s about presence, attention, and knowing when not to make yourself the center of the experience. And let me be clear, I’m not saying this as some self-proclaimed cultural authority or as someone who moved here from abroad to impart knowledge. This isn’t about proving that things are “better” elsewhere. It’s about asking whether we, as a people who take such pride in our artistic traditions, actually uphold them in practice.

Compare this to Broadway, where strict etiquette ensures that performances are uninterrupted, or Toronto, the city I’m from (and home to one of the largest theater districts in the world; I bet you didn’t know that!), where the same standards apply. The idea of people casually chatting or scrolling through their phones mid-performance would be unthinkable in either place. Latecomers are barred from entering until intermission, and audience members are expected to actually pay attention to the performance they paid to see. Imagine the horror on the face of a Broadway theater usher if a patron started scrolling through TikTok in the middle of Glengarry Glen Ross! And yet, in Yerevan, we accept this behaviour as inevitable, as though it were simply part of the “charm” of our local theater culture.

So what’s next? Do we let this slide and resign ourselves to the idea that respecting performances is just “not our thing?” Or do we, for once, hold ourselves accountable for the experience we claim to value? If we truly love and respect the arts, perhaps it’s time we start proving it—not just by attending but by behaving like an audience worthy of the performances we claim to appreciate.

Or maybe it’s time we stop calling ourselves a nation that values theater and just accept that, in 2025, a good Wi-Fi connection is far more captivating than anything happening on stage. Because, if the only way we engage with culture is through distraction, indifference, and an exaggerated standing ovation that serves more as self-congratulation than genuine appreciation, then maybe we don’t deserve it at all.