Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!nsc!srm From: srm@nsc.UUCP (Richard Mateosian) Newsgroups: net.misc,net.theater Subject: Re: Theatrical anecdotes Message-ID: <1930@nsc.UUCP> Date: Sat, 1-Dec-84 07:49:54 EST Article-I.D.: nsc.1930 Posted: Sat Dec 1 07:49:54 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 05:55:59 EST References: <> Reply-To: srm@nsc.UUCP (Richard Mateosian) Distribution: net Organization: National Semiconductor, Sunnyvale Lines: 51 Summary: In article <225@ssc-vax.UUCP> adolph@ssc-vax.UUCP (Mark Adolph) writes: > >This is another unsubtle attempt to get a net.theatre started. Alas, they've started net.theater instead. >I'd like to >hear from all of you theater people your most amusing theatrical anecdote. I have a lot of candidates. Like the time Joe Spano was playing Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre". At a certain point he slammed his fist on the table and the table fell off the edge of the stage into the audience. It was someone else's turn to speak, and somehow they managed to pull it off. By the way, that show was the first thing Joe Spano did that was any good. Now he's a big TV star. Last night I attended a performance of Harold Pinter's "Old Times" at San Francisco's ACT. After the show, the cast spent about a half hour discussing the play with the audience. Barbara Dirickson (Kate) told an amusing story about some of the things they hear the audience say during the exceptionally long pauses that Pinter writes into the script. At one point she is lying on the floor, stage front, no one is speaking, and someone in the front row turns to her companion and says "I don't know how much more of this shit I can listen to." Or, during another pause, someone in the balcony remarked "Do you think they've forgotten their lines?" Last week I attended a performance of Simon Gray's "Otherwise Engaged" at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. There are some extrememly funny lines in that play, especially in the first act, before it gets "heavy". The principal character, named Simon, is discussing with his brother the brother's recent interview for assistant headmaster of his school. The brother describes an excruciatingly embarrassing moment. "I did something I haven't done since I was twelve. (Long discussion of details of the interview) As I bent forward to hear what he said, I farted." Pregnant pause. Simon: "You haven't farted since you were twelve?" Or, earlier, when Simon tells his brother that he's expecting a certain visitor -- a critic. The brother recalls one of Simon's dinner parties fourteen years earlier when he had an encounter with this critic. The critic had been drunk and had made comments to the effect that school teachers of a certain category (to which the brother belonged) were all latent pederasts. The brother had confronted the critic later, as they were leaving, and had almost threatened violence. The brother has kept this incident alive in his memory, constantly dwelling on it. Then, before the brother can leave, the critic arrives. Of course, he doesn't remember the brother or the incident. He learns that the brother is a teacher of the given category and begins to make remarks. The brother tries to confront him with the former incident and at one point says dramatically, "I'm the latent pederast!" Pregnant pause. The critic replies "Oh, then you're in the right job!" Oh, well. It's very funny on stage. -- Richard Mateosian {cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!srm nsc!srm@decwrl.ARPA