Jul 19 2010
∞
I studied tech theater in college…
… and during a particularly loathsome version of Mother Courage
- the director was going through a divorce and had no sense of humor
- sans a sense of humor, she removed all of the funny from the delivery of all of the funny lines
- Brecht without funny is punishing
- the show ran 3 hours — sans funny
- there was a giant turntable for a stage that would break down at irregular intervals and the costume crew would have to turn it by hand
- the going-through-divorce-sans-humor-director decided that for the scene with the dead chicken, the props master would have to kill a chicken every night (this, thankfully,was changed after the lead threw a fit so they found a fake chicken)
- the second act ran 30 minutes without a single tech call - zzzzzzz
We started playing Trivial Pursuits over headset to try and stay focused/awake. It helped.
One night, a couple of the actors had been drinking and during the fight scene, they actually started to fight. Awkward.
Another night, at an after-show party, the actor who had to fire the rifle asked what he should do if it didn’t go off. The director said, “say BOOM!” The next night, the gun wouldn’t go off, “BOOM!” It almost woke up some of the audience.
