Dealing with Unexpected Moments in the Theatre
Apr 21, 2007 13:34:05 GMT
Post by maxx02 on Apr 21, 2007 13:34:05 GMT
I thought this was an interesting article, partially because it refers to The Coast of Utopia and partially because some of us remember Rufus' own not quite so dramatic moment of something unexpected in R'n'R--
From todays NYTimes:
Sometimes Not Just Curtains Fall Onstage
Martha Plimpton heard a thud. When she turned and saw her “Coast of Utopia” co-star Richard Easton prone on the stage floor during the second preview, she presumed he had merely tripped. But Ethan Hawke, who had seen Mr. Easton collapse, said he “thought Richard had passed away.”
The two actors found Mr. Easton unconscious. “I never thought I’d say those words, but I said, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ ” Ms. Plimpton recalled.
The Lincoln Center audience that night in October did not respond, thinking that the moment was part of the show, especially since Mr. Easton’s character had just finished a fiery diatribe that ended with “That is my last word,” and since the house lights remained down.
“The audience just thought, ‘Oh, Tom Stoppard is getting all Pirandello on us,’ ” Mr. Hawke said, referring to the “Utopia” playwright. “Breaking the fourth wall is harder than you think.”
It is an oft-overlooked part of every stage actor’s life, that moment when something goes awry, and the performer must handle the external distraction while maintaining control of the show. Most events are far less dramatic than Mr. Easton’s collapse, yet any intrusions on this artificial world can be unnerving — and potentially exhilarating.
“They can be traumatic and a little scary, but also fun, like a crazy adventure,” said Raúl Esparza, now appearing in “Company.”
The trickiest part is deciding whether to break the fourth wall and acknowledge the audience. Usually, actors agree, the play’s the thing.
During a performance of “Taboo,” the flamboyant musical with Boy George, a man in the balcony began screaming, “Leave me alone, don’t touch me,” and ranting that he was being harassed only because he looked weird; the house lights came up, cutting off Mr. Esparza in midsong.
But the actor stayed in character and responded, “If you look weird, you belong up onstage with us.” (Mr. Esparza was later told that the man had refused to let an usher examine his bag.) Mr. Esparza acknowledged that if a similar incident occurred during “Company,” he would probably just stop the show.
That is what Michael Cerveris did. Mr. Cerveris, opening on Broadway next month in “LoveMusik,” was singing his solo opening number in the Broadway musical “Titanic” when a busload of tourists filed in, making a busload of noise. “I just stopped singing and went off,” Mr. Cerveris said. He returned to the stage, but a second load arrived, driving him back to the wings. The third time was the charm, and the audience loudly applauded his perseverance.
But Mr. Cerveris handled disaster far differently in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” when he took over as Hedwig for the show’s creator, John Cameron Mitchell. When he slammed a door on a night with member of the press in the audience, a huge chunk of the back wall suddenly collapsed.
“There were loose wires and Christmas lights and debris with nails sticking out,” Mr. Cerveris recalled. But Hedwig’s life was “a catalog of disasters, anyway,” he said, and the intimate, campy show had room for ad-libbing. So after ascertaining that the musicians onstage had (barely) escaped injury, Mr. Cerveris turned to the audience and deadpanned, “If I could survive the Titanic, I certainly can survive this.”
Some performers take the “show must go on” attitude no matter what: Eylon Nuphar, a creator of “Be,” the new “Stomp”-with-dancing import, says her show always goes full speed ahead — as it did in Madrid, when she was briefly knocked unconscious in a collision with another actor (”the cast improvised around me”) and when
set the curtain on fire.
“We didn’t stop drumming for a second,” she said, “even though the audience wasn’t looking at us anymore, and the plastic smell wasn’t excellent.”
But sometimes the show simply cannot go on, and the actors must find a way to respond. In “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” the car malfunctioned so frequently that the cast felt compelled to entertain the audience, said Mr. Esparza, also a veteran of that show. He and his castmates would tap dance, talk about their lives and answer the audience’s questions.
“It’s fun at first,” he said. “But little by little you see the audience turn hostile, until after 45 minutes, they don’t care anymore.”
When an audience member had a heart attack during one of the most terrifying scenes in “The Pillowman,” the show had to stop. “We heard the heavy breathing and didn’t know what was happening,” said Jesse Shane Bronstein, a cast member. “I was a little shaken by it.”
But when the performance started again, the actors did not acknowledge the incident. Billy Crudup simply returned to the beginning of the story his character was narrating, while Mr. Bronstein — as the boy acting it out — remained frozen until Mr. Crudup reached the point where the show had stopped. The younger actor then resumed acting out the tale.
“It was hard to start and stop the play like that,” Mr. Bronstein said, “but I thought Billy handled it really well.”
Of course these days there is one predictable disturbance: the ringing cellphone. “I hear it every three or four nights,” said Denis O’Hare, now appearing in “Inherit the Wind.” “It doesn’t do you any good to get mad. You just have to ignore them and soldier on.”
But playing off the unpardonable interruption creates extra satisfaction. While appearing in the zany “Pig Farm,” Mr. O’Hare said, he heard a phone loudly and repeatedly blaring a melody. “My God, that’s beautiful,” he said, still in character. “What is that?”
John Ellison Conlee, who was appearing with Mr. O’Hare, replied, “On a clear day chimes carry over the mountains.” The two men then set off on a two-minute improvised riff that ended when they both sighed and said, “Anyway ...,” and went back to the script.
“Half the audience thought it was planned,” Mr. O’Hare said with a chuckle.
In the fall the “Coast of Utopia” audience realized that Mr. Easton’s collapse was not scripted only when Mr. Hawke made an announcement, stepping center stage and, as Ms. Plimpton did, asking for medical help. (Will Coholan, a stagehand, stepped forward to perform CPR.) That night the actors had no need to stay in character. After what seemed like an eternity, they said, emergency medical workers finally took Mr. Easton, who had suffered an arrhythmia, to the hospital, and everyone went home. “It was the only time I didn’t finish a show,” Mr. Hawke said. “That felt strange.”
But leaving the theater early was nothing, Mr. Hawke said, compared with how he and Ms. Plimpton felt when Mr. Easton returned. They felt normal with the understudy in the scene in which Mr. Easton had collapsed, but with Mr. Easton back, they were petrified about it.
“I just kept looking at Ethan,” Ms. Plimpton said, while Mr. Hawke said he was busy “hoping the moment would just pass.”
It is a feeling the two actors can’t quite shake. “It all depends on how Richard performs it,” Ms. Plimpton said. “If he does it differently, it’s fine, but when he does it just like that night, then we spend the whole scene feeling worried.”
From todays NYTimes:
Sometimes Not Just Curtains Fall Onstage
Martha Plimpton heard a thud. When she turned and saw her “Coast of Utopia” co-star Richard Easton prone on the stage floor during the second preview, she presumed he had merely tripped. But Ethan Hawke, who had seen Mr. Easton collapse, said he “thought Richard had passed away.”
The two actors found Mr. Easton unconscious. “I never thought I’d say those words, but I said, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ ” Ms. Plimpton recalled.
The Lincoln Center audience that night in October did not respond, thinking that the moment was part of the show, especially since Mr. Easton’s character had just finished a fiery diatribe that ended with “That is my last word,” and since the house lights remained down.
“The audience just thought, ‘Oh, Tom Stoppard is getting all Pirandello on us,’ ” Mr. Hawke said, referring to the “Utopia” playwright. “Breaking the fourth wall is harder than you think.”
It is an oft-overlooked part of every stage actor’s life, that moment when something goes awry, and the performer must handle the external distraction while maintaining control of the show. Most events are far less dramatic than Mr. Easton’s collapse, yet any intrusions on this artificial world can be unnerving — and potentially exhilarating.
“They can be traumatic and a little scary, but also fun, like a crazy adventure,” said Raúl Esparza, now appearing in “Company.”
The trickiest part is deciding whether to break the fourth wall and acknowledge the audience. Usually, actors agree, the play’s the thing.
During a performance of “Taboo,” the flamboyant musical with Boy George, a man in the balcony began screaming, “Leave me alone, don’t touch me,” and ranting that he was being harassed only because he looked weird; the house lights came up, cutting off Mr. Esparza in midsong.
But the actor stayed in character and responded, “If you look weird, you belong up onstage with us.” (Mr. Esparza was later told that the man had refused to let an usher examine his bag.) Mr. Esparza acknowledged that if a similar incident occurred during “Company,” he would probably just stop the show.
That is what Michael Cerveris did. Mr. Cerveris, opening on Broadway next month in “LoveMusik,” was singing his solo opening number in the Broadway musical “Titanic” when a busload of tourists filed in, making a busload of noise. “I just stopped singing and went off,” Mr. Cerveris said. He returned to the stage, but a second load arrived, driving him back to the wings. The third time was the charm, and the audience loudly applauded his perseverance.
But Mr. Cerveris handled disaster far differently in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” when he took over as Hedwig for the show’s creator, John Cameron Mitchell. When he slammed a door on a night with member of the press in the audience, a huge chunk of the back wall suddenly collapsed.
“There were loose wires and Christmas lights and debris with nails sticking out,” Mr. Cerveris recalled. But Hedwig’s life was “a catalog of disasters, anyway,” he said, and the intimate, campy show had room for ad-libbing. So after ascertaining that the musicians onstage had (barely) escaped injury, Mr. Cerveris turned to the audience and deadpanned, “If I could survive the Titanic, I certainly can survive this.”
Some performers take the “show must go on” attitude no matter what: Eylon Nuphar, a creator of “Be,” the new “Stomp”-with-dancing import, says her show always goes full speed ahead — as it did in Madrid, when she was briefly knocked unconscious in a collision with another actor (”the cast improvised around me”) and when
set the curtain on fire.“We didn’t stop drumming for a second,” she said, “even though the audience wasn’t looking at us anymore, and the plastic smell wasn’t excellent.”
But sometimes the show simply cannot go on, and the actors must find a way to respond. In “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” the car malfunctioned so frequently that the cast felt compelled to entertain the audience, said Mr. Esparza, also a veteran of that show. He and his castmates would tap dance, talk about their lives and answer the audience’s questions.
“It’s fun at first,” he said. “But little by little you see the audience turn hostile, until after 45 minutes, they don’t care anymore.”
When an audience member had a heart attack during one of the most terrifying scenes in “The Pillowman,” the show had to stop. “We heard the heavy breathing and didn’t know what was happening,” said Jesse Shane Bronstein, a cast member. “I was a little shaken by it.”
But when the performance started again, the actors did not acknowledge the incident. Billy Crudup simply returned to the beginning of the story his character was narrating, while Mr. Bronstein — as the boy acting it out — remained frozen until Mr. Crudup reached the point where the show had stopped. The younger actor then resumed acting out the tale.
“It was hard to start and stop the play like that,” Mr. Bronstein said, “but I thought Billy handled it really well.”
Of course these days there is one predictable disturbance: the ringing cellphone. “I hear it every three or four nights,” said Denis O’Hare, now appearing in “Inherit the Wind.” “It doesn’t do you any good to get mad. You just have to ignore them and soldier on.”
But playing off the unpardonable interruption creates extra satisfaction. While appearing in the zany “Pig Farm,” Mr. O’Hare said, he heard a phone loudly and repeatedly blaring a melody. “My God, that’s beautiful,” he said, still in character. “What is that?”
John Ellison Conlee, who was appearing with Mr. O’Hare, replied, “On a clear day chimes carry over the mountains.” The two men then set off on a two-minute improvised riff that ended when they both sighed and said, “Anyway ...,” and went back to the script.
“Half the audience thought it was planned,” Mr. O’Hare said with a chuckle.
In the fall the “Coast of Utopia” audience realized that Mr. Easton’s collapse was not scripted only when Mr. Hawke made an announcement, stepping center stage and, as Ms. Plimpton did, asking for medical help. (Will Coholan, a stagehand, stepped forward to perform CPR.) That night the actors had no need to stay in character. After what seemed like an eternity, they said, emergency medical workers finally took Mr. Easton, who had suffered an arrhythmia, to the hospital, and everyone went home. “It was the only time I didn’t finish a show,” Mr. Hawke said. “That felt strange.”
But leaving the theater early was nothing, Mr. Hawke said, compared with how he and Ms. Plimpton felt when Mr. Easton returned. They felt normal with the understudy in the scene in which Mr. Easton had collapsed, but with Mr. Easton back, they were petrified about it.
“I just kept looking at Ethan,” Ms. Plimpton said, while Mr. Hawke said he was busy “hoping the moment would just pass.”
It is a feeling the two actors can’t quite shake. “It all depends on how Richard performs it,” Ms. Plimpton said. “If he does it differently, it’s fine, but when he does it just like that night, then we spend the whole scene feeling worried.”
