Something amazing I saw today at a theatre...

[CapnHook]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:27am

It was an original play for a senior thesis...

At the beginning of the play, the main character and two secondary characters tell a poem. Then, the main character says "let me tell you from the beginning" but he wasn't speaking to the audience, he was writing in his journal.

Well, a lot of **** happens. Here comes the amazing part...

First, let me describe the set...it is a bare, simple set. Stage right is a bed for a bedroom, center stage is a couch for a living room, and stage left is a steel fence which is the balcony of his apartment.

So it is the end of the play, and this guy has started this journal after meeting a girl. He has never written a journal before, but after meeting her, he began one. And his relationship just ended.

He enters his apartment...very distrought...and stands in the doorway and doesn't move. He sees his journal on the couch and stares at it. Then he quickly moves to it and picks it up, then runs to the balcony and CHUCKS IT INTO THE AUDIENCE as if he were on the tenth story and were chucking it into the street or across the street onto the roof of the opposite building.

And I mean he CHUCKED IT. RIGHT into the audience! It zoomed over my head and I turned around and someone house right caught it. A couple pages ripped out and floated down to other audience members.

The lights dim, and the main character again says the poem he recited in the beginning of the play, this time extremely angry. Blackout.

It was very effective and unexpected. I have never felt so taken aback in that way before. It surpassed the boundries of a play. In a play, you DON'T break the fourth wall. And if you do, it is typically how the play is and the actors recognize it. But in this instance...the character was never aware of the audience. It was still a fourth wall. The audience felt the fourth wall break, but the actors never did, and it was still very believeable.

Amazing.

[broadwaybelter]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:29am

guess its one of those "had to be there moments"

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:39am

So - you've never seen something thrown into the audience where the actors weren't purposely throwing something AT the audience?

[Dre2387]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:41am

I can imagine it. that is pretty powerful.

I'm one of those people that, when hearing a story, can place myself right there and imagine the whole thing.

[etoile]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 2:10am

It's all fun and games until it pokes an eye out. Then it wouldn't be so amazing.

I think it was reckless behavior.

[JC14]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 2:46am

Updated On: 4/10/06 at 02:46 AM

[SirLiir]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 3:04am

Um...what did JC14 say?

[jasonf]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 10:54am

That sounds kind of dangerous...I mean, in a play I did with my kids last year a sword they were using (plastic) broke mid-fight and the "blade" went flying - luckily it didn't hit anyone - I can't IMAGINE intentionally giving myself a heart attack like that!

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 11:10am

I agree that it does sound really amazing.

However, I also am giggling about an actor chucking a journal into the audience and imagining the audience's faces.

It seems that could be kind of dangerous all in all.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:08pm

Was there a theme here? Or did he just chuck it out and the fact that it hit people is what made this experience amazing? What was the show about? It sounds rather pretentious to me.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:14pm

It wasn't the audience's reactions that made it amazing. It was the fact that the fourth wall was broken by this simple action and still kept true to the world of the play.

I have seen tons of theatre where the audience was part of the show, or the characters would break and speak to the audience or what not. But I have never seen the fourth wall successfully broken like this. Amazing.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:47pm

I would be so pissed if I went to see a play and somebody threw something at me from on stage.

[Dre2387]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:11pm

if it was a successfull Broadway show, it would be a prop from a show that you could either keep or, if you really don't care, sell on ebay. I wouldn't really be pissed off that much.