by Tim Rayborn
Time magazine noted, in an article from January 16, 1950: “The war made horror trite and started emptying the Grand Guignol’s seats. Another blow: the theater’s chief playwright, Andre (‘Prince of Terror’) de Lorde, died (in bed) at the age of 90. No new twists in torture or tricks of realism—e.g., ‘blood’ that coagulates as it cools—could lure the crowds back. Even worse, the sounds of skulls being crushed and bodies plopping into acid vats began drawing guffaws instead of gasps.”
Indeed, author Anaïs Nin noted that she went to a performance in 1958 and the theater was empty, so the signs of its imminent death were clear. Still, the shows continued to try to shock; one play from 1960 had the wonderfully explicit title Les Coupeurs de Têtes (“The Choppers of Heads”). But such lurid dramas were not enough to sustain enthusiasm. Facing the inevitable, the Grand Guignol closed its doors forever in 1962. Charles Nonon, the theater’s last director, observed, “We could never compete with Buchenwald [the concentration camp]. Before the war, everyone believed that what happened on stage was purely imaginary; now we know that these things—and worse—are possible.” Another Time magazine article noted with eloquent humor on November 30 of that year, concerning the theater’s closure: “The last clotted eyeball has plopped onto the stage. The last entrail has been pulled like an earthworm from a conscious victim.”
Actors who gave their all for their final performances
The history of theater is filled with stories of actors who, whether in ill health or just overexertion, taxed themselves so heavily that they expired from their craft and gave their audiences more memorable performances than they had planned. Here are a handful of notable examples:
Edmund Kean (1787–1833) was a British Shakespearean actor, whose talents took him on many travels, including two trips to the United States, which may seem surprising given the testy relationship between the two nations in the early nineteenth century (the War of 1812 and all that). He was also successful in Canada, which makes more sense, since they never rebelled. His performance in Quebec so impressed some Huron natives in the audience that they wanted to meet with him after the show. He told them that he desired to become a member of their tribe, and they granted his wish, even giving him a new name, Alanienouidet. Kean was quite ready to stay indefinitely in their village, but some of his friends compelled him to leave, and then kindly sent him to an asylum to recuperate and think things over.
Among his accomplishments, Kean is credited with restoring the tragic ending to King Lear, which, believe it or not, had usually been performed with a happy ending for the previous century and a half. This new (yet old) depressing ending didn’t go down well with everyone; they must have missed the whole part about it being a “tragedy.”
His final—and quite tragic—bow came during a performance of Othello. Taking the title role purely out of financial need, he arrived at the theater knowing full well that he was in no condition to go on, but he persevered. During act III, scene 3, he collapsed, telling his son (playing Iago) that he was dying. Indeed, he never recovered and died some weeks later.
Irish actress Margaret “Peg” Woffington (1720–1760) enjoyed a brief but illustrious career in London, during which time she had affairs with the Earl of Darnley, an MP, and noted actor and dramatist David Garrick (1717–1779). Her status was such that she was able to become a member and then the president of a previously all-male dining club, the wonderfully titled Sublime Society of Steaks (now there’s a restaurant chain waiting to happen). Woffington’s life was a mixture of successes and not-so-great times, and her career came to a sudden end in 1757. In a Covent Garden production, she was portraying Rosalind from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Everything seemed to go well enough, but by the fifth act, she felt unwell. In the middle of speaking a line, she trembled, yelled “O God! O God!” and collapsed, apparently from a paralytic stroke; she was quickly removed from the stage. She never acted again and spent her final years convalescing. A portrait was painted of her in 1758, in bed and gazing at the viewer with a sense of resignation.
The French actor and dramatist Zacharie Jacob (late sixteenth century–1667/68), known by his stage name, Montfleury, was famous for his dramatic roles, and his dramatic girth, so much so that Molière mocked him for his size. He in turn fired back at Molière, but his temper was not satisfied with a mere trading of insults. He also accused his rival of having committed incest, and denounced him before King Louis XIV. When Molière married the young actress Armande Béjart in 1662—a woman half his age—it was viewed as scandalous. As we have seen, some thought that Armande was in fact the daughter of Madeleine Béjart, rather than her younger sister, as was claimed. If so, this could very well have meant that Molière was her father, since he and Madeleine had been lovers at the time that she was born. It would bring Molière down to Earl-of-Oxford levels of “ick,” if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed.
In any case, Montfleury played this allegation up as much as he could to make himself look better, but the king apparently did nothing about it. Alas, Montfleury only had a few years to live and his poor health caught up with him in 1667. While playing the role of Orestes in the neo-Greek play Andromaque by the playwright Jean Racine (1639–1699), he overexerted himself and ruptured a blood vessel, possibly due to a metal belt that he wore to support his enormous belly being cinched up too tightly. He collapsed onstage and died shortly thereafter.
Henry Irving (1838–1905) was a well-respected Victorian actor and, in 1895, he became the first actor to be awarded a knighthood. Novelist Bram Stoker worked for Irving as the manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, and most scholars agree that Irving provided a model for the character of Dracula (while the historical Vlad the Impaler provided the name and the setting). Indeed, Stoker had originally wanted to write the story as a play, with Irving taking the role of the infamous count, but the actor had no interest in it. He called the story “dreadful” and rejected the idea completely.
Irving was renowned for his Shakespearean roles and traveled widely, and his end came about in a suitably dramatic way. He was touring and giving a performance in Bradford in 1905. On October 13, while acting the title role in Alfred Tennyson’s play Becket, Irving reached the point in the play where Thomas Becket is murdered by Henry II’s knights. As he spoke Becket’s dying words, “Into thy hands, O Lord, into thy hands,” he suffered a stroke and collapsed. He was taken to a nearby hotel, where he died shortly afterward. It was an appropriate way to go for one who was seen by many as the most important actor of the age.
Finally, beginning in about 1823, one encounters a number of accounts of rather spectacular deaths on stages; these descriptions were published and reprinted in various magazines and collections of anecdotes. They are worth quoting at length because of the splendidly formal and verbose way that they are retold:
Mr. John Palmer, well known as an actor on the London boards … terminated his dramatic career and his life on the Liverpool stage, in 1798. [Palmer received news of his son’s death, causing him great distress. He still attempted to perform and] he fell a sacrifice to the poignancy of his own feelings, and in which the audience were doomed to witness a catastrophe which was truly melancholy. In the fourth act, Baron Steinfort obtains an interview with the Stranger [Palmer’s role], whom he discovers to be his old friend. He prevails on him to relate the cause of his seclusion from the world: in this relation the feelings of Mr. Palmer were visibly much agitated; and at the moment he mentioned his wife and children, having uttered (as in the character) “O God! God! there is another and a better world!” he fell lifeless on the stage. The audience supposed for the moment that his fall was nothing more than as studied addition to the part; but on seeing him carried off in deadly stiffness, the utmost astonishment and terror became depicted in every countenance. Hammerton, Callan, and Mara, were the persons who conveyed the lifeless corpse from the stage into the scene room. Medical assistance was immediately procured; his veins were opened, but they yielded not a singl
e drop of blood; and every other means of resuscitation were had recourse to, without effect.
Clearly, getting overly emotional onstage could lead to tragic consequences. Sometimes, actors could get so absorbed in their characters that it apparently did them in:
In the history of the stage, there are several instances … of performers who in favourite characters, have given way to such an intensity of feeling, as to occasion instant death. In October, 1758, Mr. Paterson, an actor long attached to the Norwich company, was performing the Duke, in “Measure for Measure,” which he played in a masterly style. Mr. Moody was the Claudio; and in the third act, where the Duke (as the Friar) was preparing Claudio for execution next morning, Paterson had no sooner spoken these words,—
—Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do loose a thing
That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art;
than he dropped in Mr. Moody’s arms, and died instantly. He was interred at Bury St. Edmunds, and on his tombstone his last words, as above, are engraved.
Another actor kept an audience applauding for far longer than they should have, though he paid the ultimate price for it:
A gentleman of the name of Bond, collecting a party of friends, got up Voltaire’s play of “Zara” (which a friend had translated for him), at the music room in Villiersstreet, York Buildings, and chose the part of Lusignan for himself. His acting was considered as a prodigy; and he so far yielded himself up to the force and impetuosity of his imagination that on the discovery of his daughter he fainted away. The house rung with applause; but finding that he continued a long time in that situation, the audience began to be uneasy and apprehensive. The representatives of Chatillon and Nerestan placed him in his chair; he then faintly spoke, extending his arms to receive his children, raised his eyes to heaven, and then closed them forever.
Such wonderful eloquence in the face of certain doom!
4
An Abundance of Superstitions, Curses, and Bad Luck
There is probably no other field in the arts that is as plagued with superstitious beliefs as the theatrical world. The sheer number of superstitions is staggering, mystifying, and often comical. Some of you may be familiar with a few of them, such as never saying Mac—er, “the Scottish Play,” the fear of unlucky colors, the unlucky peacock, and other such prohibitions and anxieties. But there are many more, and in this chapter we’ll delve into some of the best (worst?) of them, as well as how and why some of them came about.
What motivates otherwise rational people to throw out said rationality and instead decide to cling to these strange and often inhibiting practices? Well, our conscious, thinking minds are only a part of our mental makeup, and it could well be that superstitious beliefs reside in a deeper, older part of our brains, one where we want to make order of the seemingly random chaos around us and try to find connections to help us do that.
Many of these beliefs probably have origins in old folk practices that themselves came about by accidental discovery. Someone did something and saw a certain outcome for good or bad, and so decided that their actions must have influenced that result. It’s the old correlation/causation conundrum. So, while we may scoff at what we see as silly fears and self-imposed limits, most of us have engaged in them at one time or another. Don’t deny it, or otherwise be prepared to break a mirror or walk under that ladder on Friday the 13th to prove your point. Are these superstitions all much ado about nothing? Read on and decide for yourself …
Never whistle backstage
Beware! If someone whistles backstage, the play will fail, the actor in question will fail, or die, or have bits fall off, or whatever! Actually this particular prohibition, which is believed to bring about bad luck for a production, has a practical purpose and a logical origin. In earlier times, the rigging in theaters resembled that of a ship, and sailors were often hired to operate ropes and pulleys to change scenes and sets. In the days before electricity, cues for scene changes and other directions were communicated by various whistles, which were a kind of code language, borrowed from similar practices used by the sailors on their boats. If an actor absentmindedly whistled backstage, there was a danger that this could be misinterpreted as a scene change, resulting in a disaster for the production, and possibly even injury or death if, say, a heavy backdrop was moved before everyone was clear of it.
Now, obviously, such changes are all communicated by intercoms, video, cue lights, and other such wonders of technology, but the prohibition remains due to tradition, and it’s probably best if no one challenges it.
Never wish anyone “good luck”
Instead, one should always say “Break a leg,” or perhaps “Merde!” which is simply French for, well, you know. We’re not quite sure when this practice began; it may have been as recently as the 1930s. Bernard Sobel wrote The Theatre Handbook and Digest of Plays in 1948, and he noted that “before a performance actors never wish each other good luck, but say ‘I hope you break a leg.’” This is one of the earliest references, which may mean that this particular superstition hasn’t been around for too long. There are many explanations for this odd tradition, some plausible, some pretty ridiculous. Here are just a few:
Wishing everyone “good luck” is tempting fate, or malevolent spirits, which are only too happy to come in, disrupt things, and make a mess of the production.
In Shakespeare’s time, “break” often meant “bend,” so if one was “bending a leg,” they were bowing, or making a “Reverence,” a type of greeting, especially to one’s social superior: placing one foot behind the other and bending the knee. The phrase thus might have originated as a wish that the actor receive many curtain calls and take many bows (i.e., that he would give a splendid performance).
Another theory claims that those who were seated at theaters would stomp their feet rather than applaud a fine performance. If they stomped hard enough, they might break the legs of the chairs they were sitting in; yes, this one seems like a bit of a stretch. An even less plausible theory asserts that in ancient Greece, audiences did the same foot-stomping, but in the hard stone amphitheatres, they risked breaking foot or leg bones if they stomped too hard. So, a “broken leg” was a sign that one had given an excellent performance.
An American legend says that the phrase refers to John Wilkes Booth, the actor who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. When fleeing from the scene, he broke his leg, either from jumping down to the stage as he fled, or perhaps falling off of a horse. Why anyone would want to give a performance in memory of a notorious murder is unclear, but these kinds of things aren’t exactly logical.
One more theory is that the phrase originated with vaudeville shows, when producers overbooked the number of acts that a show could contain. Each act had a chance to prove that they were worthy, but if they were rejected, they could be pulled before reaching the stage proper. “Breaking a leg” meant that an act was able to move past the visual plane of the curtains lining each side of the stage, which were known as “legs,” and actually be on the stage, at which point they would be paid. So wishing that someone would “break a leg” may have originally been a wish that they were worthy enough to be paid for their performance.
The mysterious ghost light
According to theater lore, a “ghost light” must be left on after the theater closes and everyone has gone home for the night. This light is a single source of illumination that must never be turned off, electric bills be damned. From a practical point of view, it allows the first person to enter the theater and the last person to leave to move about without falling and breaking something, a leg or otherwise. But of course, it’s not just a practical tradition.
As the name implies, the light remains on to ward off evil and/or angry spirits from descending into the theater and causing trouble. If the light is turned off and the spirits are inadvertently summoned, they could cause all manner of problems for the future of the production. Alternatively, the light may provide just enough illumination
so that if any such ghosts want to perform, they will be able to do so, and so leave the plays of the living undisturbed. Some say that this is also the origin of the practice of leaving the theater “dark” one day a week (i.e., closed); it gives aspiring spectral thespians a chance to hone their skills. Incidentally, one should never actually say that the show is “closed” on that day off, because that invites the possibility that it will actually close for good.
And what about the days before electricity? Well, some believe that gas lamps or even candles were used for the same purpose, but flames obviously could be exceedingly dangerous. Having your theater burn down would be much worse luck than annoying the occasional spirit visitor.
Speaking of open flame, it was long considered unlucky to have exactly three candles burning onstage as a part of the set during a performance. If this were to happen, the actor positioned nearest to the shortest candle would either be the next person to die or the next to get married; an interesting commentary on one’s potential fate?
Peacock feathers are forbidden
One fairly widespread belief is that no one must ever bring even a single peacock feather to a theater, much less take it onstage, whether as part of a set or a costume. Such a reckless action will almost certainly result in disaster befalling the production, including everything from set damage to injuries to a failed show. The unique shape and designs of the feather top are believed to represent an evil eye that will curse the production.
