A Bored Audience Misbehaves, Is Rude. Write Them Off? Or...

How do you know what an audience is really thinking? Polite applause only tells you so much. Lagging ticket sales aren't precise about cause. Focus groups aren't reliable. So then there's this story about millennials' reaction to an O'Neill play they were attending:
About two scenes into the play, the students began to grumble among themselves. It was clear they felt they didn’t relate to the story. They were bored, and they resented being forced to attend a three-hour play. But instead of