| Orpheus Descending, etc | |
| Posted by: aleck 05:28 pm EST 12/20/17 | |
| In reply to: What are the 'best' onstage mishaps that you've seen in live theater? - GrumpyMorningBoy 10:15 am EST 12/20/17 | |
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| The performance with the greatest number of mishaps had to be the performance I saw of Orpheus Descending with Vanessa Redgrave. It started with three ladies sitting at a table in the middle of the cafe owned by the Redgrave character. One of the ladies started coughing -- I think it was Bette Henritze. The cough continued and continued until the actress said in a "Southern drawl": "I need to get myself some Coca-Cola." Then she walked off stage. The other ladies tried to continue with some small talk that would have made Tennessee Williams proud until one of them paused and called off stage: "Honey, you OK there?" The actress returned -- carrying a soda bottle and sipped from it while finishing the scene. Then, the door to the cafe wouldn't stay shut. It takes place in winter and every person who came through the door and tried to close it, couldn't. It kept bouncing open. Then when Redgrave arrived, she tried to look to see what was wrong with the door -- in character because she was the owner of the cafe. She would do her lines and then drift back to the door to try to figure out how to get it to stay closed. During the intermission you could hear a lot of hammering going on! In the second act, a gun was supposed to go off to kill (or wound, I forget) Redgrave's character's husband. He was standing on a second floor landing of the set and while the gun did not go off, the actor reacted as if it did and tumbled down the staircase. It was hilarious. I also saw the first preview performance of the tryout run of The Wiz in Philadelphia. It ran over three hours long. The dancers were bumping into each other and the scenery kept falling down. (It was like the Play That Goes Wrong.) But the audience was dancing in the aisles so all was forgiven. Also in Philadelphia I saw Bette Davis display a meltdown (or was it a meltUP since it was a rant) in Miss Moffat on stage and then storm off the stage. The audience kind of thought that it was kind of part of the production and that Miss Moffat had just gone off her rocker a little. I think it was the next day that Bette Davis claimed she was ill and the production closed. |
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