One of the worst plays I have ever been in (described here in excruciating detail) was a musical version of Three Men in a Boat … Never have had I had such shame onstage. My friend Jackie refers to such shame as “white-hot shame“. Very different from your ordinary run-of-the-mill shame when you spill a drink in public, or trip in front of a group of people. Being in a bomb of a show has its SPECIAL brand of shame, which is “white-hot”. I would openly laugh at the play and my fellow actors WHILE I WAS IN IT, WHILE I WAS UP THERE. I did not care. All I cared about was cooling off that white-hot shame. It was ba-a-a-a-ad.
And the first sentence of one of the reviews was: “Not since the Titanic has there been such a nautical disaster.”
Now. It SUCKS to be in a bomb. But still. There’s something weirdly cool about being in such a bomb, and having such a TERRIBLE review.
All of this was brought on by the following quote, sent to me by my dad. It’s a doozy. Here’s the setup:
British actor Ralph Richardson was performing in Graham Greene’s play Carving a Statue. Graham Greene saw the performance. And then wrote Richardson a letter. In the letter was the following sentence:
Alas, you fancy yourself as a literary man, and as I have as little faith in your literary ability as in your capacity to judge a play, I have found you–not for the first time–incapable of understanding even your own part.
I love theatre stories. Some of them, I’ve heard, are even true, and the British ones are the best.
A favorite of some friends of mine over there a long time ago went more or less like this. A young Ralph Richardson gets a sudden round of attention, and as fate will have it he is appearing in a rather bad play amateur play outside of London just as the public is starting to recognize him.
The amateur production is a shambles. The actors forget their lines, the scenery wobbles, the cues are missed, and as one woeful thespian struggles to get through a dull speech at last the future Sir Ralph loses his patience. He ambles down to the footlights and squints at the crowd. “Is there a doctor in the house?” he calls.
From the dark a voice answers. “Yes, I am a doctor.”
“Well, doctor,” drawls Sir Ralph. “Isn’t this a dreadful play?”
Mind you, there have been times I’ve wanted to do that. Or turn just before my exit with a chipper salute to the audience: “Sorry!”
Linus – that story is genius. I choose to believe it is true. Oh, how often have I wanted to do that too!!