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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