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From: co20waz@sdcc3.UUCP (Bruce Jones)
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.theater
Subject: Re: Theatrical anecdotes
Message-ID: <2518@sdcc3.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Dec-84 22:11:29 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcc3.2518
Posted: Tue Dec  4 22:11:29 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Dec-84 05:15:34 EST
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Xref: watmath net.misc:7078 net.theater:7

> 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

*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
More Anecdotes
A friend of mine, who is a stage hand in San Diego, told me about a
Passion Play staged in Old Town some years ago.  It seems that the
actor who was to stab Christ with a spear had failed to notice that
the spear he was holding didn't have a rubber point, instead it was
tipped in steel (not sharp).  When jabbbed, the guy on the cross
hollered "Jesus Christ, I've been stabbed!"