Just a live theater thing

It's been said that, regarding an eggs and bacon breakfast, that the chicken makes a contribution, the pig makes a commitment. I'd like to point out how much actors in a stage production make a commitment.

This is how fast things can go wrong. It was a college production of Hamlet. It was the final dress rehearsal, but we had a full house of high school students who had been promised a free show and the opportunity to write a paper on it for extra credit in English class.
From one moment to the next, during the last scene, we went from a fine production going according to plan, to…By the end, two people were bleeding, three people were soaking wet, one person was upside down and Horatio was beating up Hamlet, upper stage left.

First, to recap the play. In my opinion, Shakespeare was the greatest writer of the slow motion train wreck in history. All the tragedies - one thing happens at the outset and after that, everything else is inevitable. Even when somebody tries to fix it, they just make it worse.

Hamlet’s father dies unexpectedly. They send for Hamlet, who is several countries away at school. Since this is a period of many small kingdoms, the response by the neighboring kingdoms can be summarized as “Oooh, yummy!” The territory is pretty well up for grabs and everybody’s going to be interested in moving in. Who’s going to hold it together? Not Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude; this wasn’t a period for queens and she wasn’t in any way strong-minded or extraordinary. She’s just a nice girl who had a long and successful, likely arranged, marriage to a man she seems to have become quite fond of.

Probably not Hamlet, even if he can get there in time. (Everything traveled slowly, including news, so he didn’t hear for a while and then had to make it all the way home.) He’s young and even allies might not be enough to help; they’ve been contacted, but still…
However, Hamlet’s father has a brother, Claudius. He’s not really in the line of succession, but Claudius steps in anyway, bolstering his claim as best he can by marrying Gertrude (also not in the line of succession). I don’t think you can blame her for going along with this. All things considered, nobody’s arguing because the alternative is being conquered. This would likely mean the end of Gertrude, Hamlet, Claudius and anybody else who might be seen as a loyalist. So, King Claudius it is.

Hamlet arrives after a long journey to find this situation. He’s not happy. On the other hand, he knows that since Claudius and Gertrude aren’t going to have any kids due to their age, this only delays his ascension to the throne. He can go back to school after grieving, secure at least in the knowledge that he’ll inherit the kingdom.

Well, that was the plan – until the ghost of Hamlet’s father shows up to talk to his son. Turns out that Claudius wanted the throne, planned the whole thing and poisoned his brother, the king. Now that Hamlet knows this, he’s really between a rock and a hard place.
The honorable thing to do is to avenge his father. If successful, this puts the kingdom right back where it was – neither Gertrude nor Hamlet is likely to be able to keep it or themselves alive. And Claudius is now a powerful man in a powerful position – can Hamlet even manage it? Of all the options available to him, quietly slinking back to school is the only one that gives him a reasonable chance of survival. And he’d still be king eventually. When Hamlet does make the decision to take Claudius on, it’s a really big deal.
There are some other characters that matter; Hamlet’s girlfriend Ophelia, her brother Laertes and her father Polonius. Also Hamlet’s bff Horatio. Other minor characters aren’t that big a deal.

Since anybody associated with him is going to be in danger, he decides to break up with Ophelia, presumably to protect her. Problem is, he breaks up with her so good, she up and kills herself.

He’s now being generally uncooperative and eventually lets Claudius (but no one else) know he’s on to him. The rumor starts going around that he’s mentally unstable and Polonius volunteers to spy on him to report back to Claudius. Hamlet hears an intruder behind a curtain and kills him. Ok, Polonius was spying – but Hamlet could have checked to see who it was first.

So when Claudius lets Laertes know he’d like some help in killing Hamlet, Laertes doesn’t ask why. He’s in. They arrange an exhibition fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes. Laertes is outmatched, but it hardly matters, since his sword is poisoned. All he has to do is scratch Hamlet.

Somewhere under Claudius’ tunic, there’s both a belt and suspenders. The backup plan is a poisoned goblet of wine – actually poisoned in front of everybody by dramatically dropping in a large poisoned pearl (don’t even ask). The victor, it’s announced, will get the wine and the pearl. Personally, I think this might also be a way of bumping off Laertes – Claudius isn’t the kind of boy who leaves witnesses. Or he could just have Laertes killed on the spot for killing Hamlet, before Laertes can mention that it was Claudius’ idea. Either way, Laertes hasn’t got a long career ahead of him. (I went back and looked it up - Laertes was told about the pearl. I still think he wasn’t intended to survive the evening.)

So, the grudge match takes place. Everything goes according to plan; Laertes scratches Hamlet. However, Gertrude has already tried to defuse the situation, or else she just gets thirsty – she toasts the fighters, taking a good swig of wine. So, Hamlet feels the poison burning and, knowing he’s going to die, kills Laertes. Gertrude drops like a rock and Hamlet figures that out, grabs the wine and pours it down Claudius’ throat. That’s it for the king.

Next, Horatio (who’s way too attached to Hamlet) grabs the wine and is going to drink the rest of it, because he can’t live without his best friend. Meanwhile, word of the imminent arrival of the promised ally (Fortinbras) comes; Hamlet wrestles the wine away from Horatio and convinces him that he has to survive to tell Fortinbras and the world what happened. And Hamlet expires just as Fortinbras marches in. The End.

So, that’s how it’s supposed to go. How it went…

First thing you have to understand is the stage and set. Thrust stage with a flat back wall and stage surrounded by the audience on three sides. Actors could enter and exit from the sides, through the audience (2 diagonal aisles to the lobby, say southwest and northwest) and through the back wall – from a large doorway arch 12 feet off the ground. That entered on a landing and stairway that paralleled the wall to another landing about 6 feet down. From here, the last 6 feet of stairway was on a hinge, so it could be swung into different positions to represent different parts of the castle. No railings or handholds of any kind. The stage itself was about 18 inches up from the floor level for the first audience row. When we were in the ‘throne room’ set, a low dais was set in the southwest corner of the stage. The light/sound booth was placed high above the northwest audience aisle. Curtains prevented light leakage (there was a camera so they could see the stage), but it wasn’t soundproof. There were constant reminders to not speak above a whisper in there during the show.

Next – costumes. It was the end of the year and we were out of money and strapped for time. The decision was made to rent the lead actors’ costumes and take everything else out of the storage room. If you were female, you wore anything with a long skirt that fit. This is how, in a play where the men were in tunics and tights, I was put in a lovely Jane Austen number with an Empire waistline and hobble skirt. When the rental costumes arrived, the only person available to sign for them was Christy, the student who was head costumer; she had to sign that she was personally financially responsible for any damage to them.

Thing to know about Christy was, she was mean. She held grudges. You did not want to piss her off. Case in point – she never liked me much. So for a summer stock musical, she put me (playing a fortune teller) in a full floor length skirt made of heavy upholstery material. It was 95 degrees outside, well over 110 degrees onstage during the show. They made us take salt tablets on our way in the door and watched to make sure we swallowed them. And we had a 3 minute cancan number. By the end of the summer, I had thighs like a power lifter. Never passed out, though.

Last – we had a great director, David Morgan. Everybody, even the bit parts with no lines, got a character description we could play with. I (dubbed the Flower Girl from Elsinore) was supposed to have arrived at court only a few days ago, scared to death and completely overwhelmed. My cohort, the youngest page, was supposed to be convinced that he was destined for greatness, going to be Majordomo someday and running the whole place, and that his nose was always either up in the air or up somebody’s ass. Think Eddie Haskell at court.

We made it to the last scene, perfectly. It was time to enter the throne room to watch the grudge match. The page and I came in, followed by the king and queen, and then the rest of the procession, through the back wall, 12 feet in the air. I took one step down, then tried to take the next step. My foot went nowhere. The hem of my dress wouldn’t let it go over the edge of the step I was on. I remember trying to turn my foot and squeeze it down to the next step, but I was tipping the whole time. There was nothing to grab; if I grabbed my cohort, we’d both go down. So, I fell.

Luckily, I fell in a straight line and not sideways; I hit the stairs and bumped down to the landing on my hands and knees. Skidded forward til I was looking at a six foot sheer drop, but managed to stick the landing. The entire audience was on their feet, screaming. I got to my feet and heard the director ask if I was all right.

Now, I thought I’d done it myself. It shouldn’t have happened; I’d rehearsed with the skirt. So, I was pissed and my adrenaline was up anyway. I yelled back “I’m all right!” “Are you sure?” “I’m all right!” “Do you want to go to the Green Room?” “No! I’m all right!!! Keep going! Keep going!” At this point, I think they were a little afraid of me, so we kept going. That’s when I discovered that my palms and legs, from the knees down to my shoes, were scraped raw. They weren’t gushing blood, but I was seeping real good. And my dress had torn up the back, past the waistband, nearly to the neckline. For the rest of the show, I stood next to the Queen’s throne, facing in, so a bunch of high schoolers got a good view of my non-period underwear. (In this period, they didn't wear underwear, but there’s a limit to authenticity.)

Now, I could have totally gone to the Green Room and sat the rest of the show out. My only job, other than set decoration, was to catch Gertrude when she fell (Shari, who played her, tried to do the graceful balletic fall but could sometimes be a little more…realistic) and spend the rest of the show with her head pillowed in my lap. Show must go on, my ass – I should have just said “Hey, Shari, fall softly. See ya later!”

So, except for my dress flapping in the breeze, everything went back to normal until the duel. The boys of Elsinore started going at it. After a particularly brisk sally, Hamlet turned and walked away for a minute, giving Laertes an opportunity to foul him from behind. And Laertes didn’t. Instead, he just stood there looking at his foil. Which was broken in half. And sharp as hell.

Stage foils are normally tipped with thick rubber, painted silver to match the sword. That was gone, along with 12 inches of metal which had gone flying off into the audience. (Nobody else was hurt; not sure how that happened.) Richard, our Laertes, didn’t know what to do. An experienced actor would have stage-whispered “Hey, Frank (Hamlet) – stick your left arm out, I’m going under your armpit.” The costumer, Christy, was screaming from the sound booth “Don’t bleed on the costumes! I’ll f’ing kill you if you bleed on the costumes!” (There was a lot more of it, but that’s the summary. Christy had a vocabulary that would have done a drill sergeant proud.)

Richard stuck Frank. Hamlet bled on the costumes. The high schoolers got an advanced-level seminar in profanity. Hamlet killed Laertes and Gertrude dropped like a rock. I did my job and just sat there, looking shell-shocked as directed. I wasn’t acting.
Hamlet grabbed the wine and went to kill Claudius, who’s still sitting on his throne. Frank’s adrenaline is now going nuts, both because the show’s gone wrong and because he’s bleeding. From a sword. In the back. He hit Claudius and the throne, doing ninety. The whole thing went off the dais backwards into the aisle.

Claudius is laying on his back in the throne, feet and chair legs up on the stage, looking like he’s ready for the dentist to start. And about half the wine hit Claudius right in the face, hard. Hamlet’s sprawled all over him. He got the goblet and himself back upright and back onto the stage, but Claudius has to stay there. He’s dead, after all. For the rest of the show, I heard dead Claudius sporadically making little ‘blowhole’ exhalations, trying not to sneeze or drown.

Horatio makes his grab for the goblet. Like many stage props, it was carved out of wood, stem separate from the cup, pushed together and held there by glue, friction and gold paint. That’s all. So, when Hamlet starts trying to wrestle it away from him – it just comes apart. Hamlet has the stem, Horatio has the cup. The rest of the wine flies out of the cup and dashes them both in the face. And the pearl…Remember the pearl?

It also flew out. It could have gone six feet in one direction and been offstage. Instead, it bounced 24 feet in the other direction, in high cartoon-like slow motion hops. The audience watched it silently, dumbfounded; some of their heads bobbed with it as they watched.

At that point, we lost Hamlet completely. Frank just busted up laughing and couldn’t stop. He was hanging onto Horatio, trying to stay standing.

Horatio (Don) was a helluva nice guy, but he took theater very seriously. He was also wired a little tight, being not long back from Viet Nam. The time we had a grenade go off in the Green Room (that’s a different story), he came completely apart from what we now call PTSD. Never saw anything like it and I don’t blame him a bit. He is, incidentally, the only cast member that managed to stay in theater as a career, directing and running a dinner theater for years. I like knowing that.

So Frank’s cracking up, we’re only a few lines from the end, and Don can’t seem to get him back on track. He tries giving little two-inch knuckle punches to Frank’s ribs with his upstage hand (like the audience can’t see that – it’s a thrust stage. We’re surrounded.) Frank laughs even harder. Don punches harder and from farther away. Frank keeps laughing, Don starts hiss-swearing. “Stop laughing. Stop laughing. I’ll f’ing kill you if you don’t stop laughing.” Frank laughs harder. And so on.

It did end. Hamlet died, Fortinbras showed up and Horatio survived to tell the tale. (They could have asked the flower girl from Elsinore, but apparently, I’m chopped liver?) The high schoolers all went off to write their reports, which I’d have paid good money to read. I found out I didn’t trip on my own. Mr. Nose-In-The-Air page stepped on my hem. I got a new costume out of it; no more hobble skirt.

And I got the award that year for The Most Dramatic Entrance. I deserved it.