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

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.