DEAR AUDIENCES: IT’S RUDE TO BOLT

The rude behavior of a growing minority of San Diego audiences continues on its boorish course. Despite Maureen Brown’s articulate and polite denunciation of the practice in a Times commentary (Feb. 23), the unruly hordes continue to arrive late and dash away, stampeding even before performers have finished taking their well-earned bows.

Nowhere is the habit worse than at the San Diego Symphony’s weekly concerts. There, a rumbling herd of latecomers interrupt the mood of the first piece on the program, as they are allowed to shuffle in, generally during the break between movements.

That is merely a prelude to the behavior at the finale, when, before the last note dies away, nearly a quarter of the audience bolts for the exits. All pretensions of civility and courtesy that should be paid to an exceptional group of musicians are trampled in the mad rush to leave. Presumably, the patrons are rushing to avoid a terrible post-concert traffic jam.

San Diego’s laid-back audiences appear to have transferred behavior learned at sporting events, where prodigious fourth-quarter exoduses are common, as fans bustle to avoid hourlong traffic jams.

What may be OK at a football game is verboten at a concert, however. Even if the rules of decorum and conduct were the same, gridlock is not likely to occur when the concert is over. We’re talking about 2,000 people--not 52,000. That amounts to maybe 1,000 cars. One has to be keen-eyed at night or on a Sunday afternoon to catch a traffic jam caused by that few cars on downtown’s mostly empty streets.

In another light, audience participation in a recent after-theater forum at the Old Globe proved vastly different from what was expected. “Cats-Paw,” William Mastrosimone’s drama at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage through May 4, is about terrorism and the pawn-player relationship between journalists and terrorists.

Globe spokesman Bill Eaton asked Susan McBride, KGTV’s (Channel 10) North County bureau chief, to the forum to offer a professional journalist’s insights and comments on the play to the audience. But the audience wasn’t buying.

No sooner had Eaton introduced McBride, than the audience members--sensing a target for long-pent-up frustrations with TV newscasters--homed in on her. Instantly they directed a stream of angry questions at her, having little to do with the play. Discussion of play, plot, characters or terrorism went out the window. Here was society’s real enemy, television, in the person of McBride.

People took out all their hostilities on McBride, based on everything they had ever seen on television. Before Eaton could get the discussion back on track, they had railed at McBride on subjects ranging from newscasts to sex, violence, ratings and commercials.

McBride was surprised, though not shocked. “I get that all the time,” she said of strangers who recognize her while grocery shopping. But will she go back to the Globe? “I’d do it again in a minute.”

NEOFEST: It’s nearly festival time in America’s Finest City. Sushi, San Diego’s ne plus ultra of the avant garde, will offer a twist this year with Neofest, its annual potpourri that provides glimpses of 30 of the country’s top performance artists. This year it will take place during June in locations throughout the city.

This programming was caused by the delays in finishing the Lyceum Theatre in Horton Plaza, which will still be used, Sushi’s Lynn Schuette said. Performances will also take place at Sushi, 852 8th Ave.; Sherwood Auditorium at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, 700 Prospect St., and the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s playhouse, 1620 6th Ave.

The fourth Neofest will run from June 1 to 27. West Coast artists will dominate. The nine acts vary in their emphasis from visual art and mixed media to music, theater and dance. El Cuerpo Mutable, a dance and theater troupe from Mexico City, will perform June 19 and 20 at Sushi. “Small Spectacle” by Lisa Kraus of New York, another dance act, will be performed at Sushi.

Solo artists include the June 21 and 22 appearances of New Yorker Ethyl Eichelberger, a Theatre of the Ridiculous veteran, at the Rep, and Mark Anderson of Milwaukee on June 25 at Sushi.

“MA FISH, a Bay Area interdisciplinary group, will appear June 14 at Sherwood Hall. San Diegans Eleanor Antin and Mary Corrigan will present a world premiere performance piece June 6 and 7 at Sushi.

Neofest opens June 1 and 2 in the Lyceum Space theater with “Games,” an interdisciplinary piece by eight Los Angeles performers.

FILMFESTS: “Que Viva Mexico,” Sergei Eisenstein’s flawed cinematic love poem to Mexico, will open a monthlong Latin American film festival Thursday at UC San Diego. Financed by Upton Sinclair in 1932, the film project was left incomplete when funds ran out. It was reconstructed in 1979.

Sponsored by the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, the festival will include “Black God, White Devil” April 24; “Sugar Cane Alley” May 1; “Memories of Underdevelopment” May 8, and “Erendira” on May 15. All films are free and will be shown at 7:30 p.m. in the Undergraduate Science Building.

Six films representative of new German cinema will be shown, also at 7:30 p.m., starting Thursday at UCSD. All are free and will be screened in the Third College Lecture Hall, Room 107, except “The Swing,” on Monday, which will be shown in the Mandeville Center Auditorium.

The other films are “Celeste” Thursday; “Five Last Days” Friday; “The Guardian and His Poet” Saturday; “Herschel and the Music of the Stars” Sunday, and “Sugar Baby” Tuesday.

ARTBEATS: Bob Dylan and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers kick off their joint U.S. tour with an 8 p.m. June 9 concert at the Sports Arena. Tickets go on sale Saturday. . . . Another 1960s icon, artist Peter Max, opens an exhibition Thursday at the Circle Gallery that runs through May 12. . . .

Lithographs and oils by Anthony Benedetto, ranging up to $30,000, are on exhibit at the Art Loft, 731 S. Highway 101 in Solana Beach through May 4. You may know Anthony under his singing name, Tony Bennett. . . .

Luke Theodore Morrison, for 20 years a member of the Living Theatre, will present “Legacy of the Four Horsemen” at 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday and April 24, 25 and 27 at Sushi. . . .

The dates of ARTWALK were listed incorrectly in last week’s Arts Watch. The event, which offers open houses and tours of art galleries, artworks and artists’ studios, will be April 26 and 27. Guided tours are available at $2.50.