Warning: Acting may be dangerous to your health

[rsc]

Last night jwg and I went to the Gloucester stage production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. However, owing to some unexpected drama, the journey could not be completed.

Somewhere deep in the fourth and last act, the older brother Jamie, while seriously drunk, says something that so enrages his younger brother Edmund that the latter punches him in the jaw and knocks him down. In this particular instance, Joe Pacheco, playing Jamie, misplaced his fall and hit his head on the corner of a piece of furniture. House lights up, cast and crew stop what they're doing to attend to the profusely-bleeding Pacheco, people rush off to (presumably) summon medical help. It was pretty scary, but it seems that the only damage he sustained was a nasty gash that probably required stiches. Needless to say, there was no way the performnace could continue.

I certainly hope the actor is all right. He never lost consciousness, and indeed could be heard saying that he wished he could keep going and finish the show. I don't think he really supposed that could happen.

Someone from the company assured us that arrangements could be made for those of us in the audience to see the last 20 minutes of a future performance, but I suspect we won't bother. It's an extraordinarily depressing play, and from what I remember from having read it forty-some years ago, it doesn't get noticeably less depressing any time in the last 20 minutes.

I've never seen anything like this happen in the theater before, although I know things like this do happen from time to time. All I can say to all you actors out there: Be careful!

Comments

[phornax.livejournal.com]

Perhaps that particular ensemble will take to wishing each other "break your face," following the old thespian tradition?

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

There's a list somewhere of various accidents that have occurred during productions over the years of a certain Scottish play authored by one W. Shakespeare.

Scary biscuits....

[stealthpup.livejournal.com]

I've never seen anything like this happen in the theater before, although I know things like this do happen from time to time. All I can say to all you actors out there: Be careful!

At a children's production where I was ushering, some some years back, the tech folk had arranged some sort of flash-bang thingie. One Sunday afternoon, the flash-bang thingie set the set on fire. Ironically enough, it was the youngest member of the cast with the first response -- she walked over, in character, and threw the contents of her juice glass on it. (That "miscue" told the rest of us that This Was Not A Drill.)

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of Leonard Warren dying onstage at the Met after singing "O Gioia" in Forza del destino.

I had a similar experience to feste_sylvain's. I was doing a high school production of The Hobbit: The Musical and one of the flash-pots caught a papier-mâché tree during the big battle sequence near the end, sending flames roaring up to the ceiling. I was hiding in a "cave" awaiting my next entrance and had no idea all the fuss and commotion weren't due to the fight scene until I felt the heat of the flames quite close to me.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of Leonard Warren dying onstage at the Met after singing "O Gioia" in Forza del destino.

I didn't know (or had forgotten) about that one, but I remember hearing that early on in a Met production of Janaček's _The Makropoulos Case_ the singer performing a minor character (I can't remember his name or title), who had climbed a tall ladder onstage to retrieve a document, had a fatal heart attack and fell to the stage. Although there was presumably no connection between the climbing of the ladder and the heart attack, I understand that in subsequent performances they did some restaging to eliminate the use of the ladder.

I can name that tenor in two notes

[(Anonymous)]

I remember hearing that early on in a Met production of Janaček's _The Makropoulos Case_ the singer performing a minor character (I can't remember his name or title), who had climbed a tall ladder onstage to retrieve a document, had a fatal heart attack and fell to the stage.

Richard Versalle.
The character he was playing is called "Vitek," I think.

e-hugs from my new gig, at Penn State -

Xopher

Show stopper

[jwg.livejournal.com]

This was definitely an example of a show stopper.

It did take a few seconds to realize that the action on stage was not part of the play and that the blood on his forehead was real.

Re: Show stopper

[rsc.livejournal.com]

More especially so for us, because after his fall he was largely hidden from our sight by other set furniture. But the next words from the stage being "I think we need somebody" was something of a clue, as was the reaction of a woman a row or two behind us, who could probably see him more clearly.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I've been wondering (assuming everything is all right) if they'll insert a line intending to explain why Jamie has a bandage on his head (as he most assuredly will). I imagine the oft-repeated line (James Sr.'s, not Jamie's) about "never missed a performance" has special resonance for the cast today.