Yesterday Lionel Walsh, the director of the Inspired Acting Lab production of Salt-Water Moon, posted this story on Facebook: “Last night we lost power during the final performance of Salt-Water Moon. James, who plays Jacob, paused and asked the audience to get out their phones, turn on the flashlight and point it towards them. They played the rest of the show by cell phone light. It was beautiful and the audience jumped to their feet at curtain call. Thank you Lion’s Head for a fabulous run and great audiences. On to three days in Kirkland Lake.”
Quick thinking by actor James Kern, and generosity from the audience members who took up the challenge of becoming instant lighting designers!
Live theatre creates so many opportunities for communion. In this age of Netflix, where it’s very easy to stay home in our own individual pods glued to a screen, live theatre offers real connection to one another, and to art. And don’t we always remember the shows where something went not-quite-according-to-plan?
I think of our friend Hrant’s story about the styrofoam set falling slowly into the audience during a performance of one of his plays at Passe Muraille. Or the time an actor dislocated his shoulder during our production of Paper Wheat and the local doctor happened to be in the audience, ran backstage, and fixed it in time for Pete to get back onstage for his next entrance. One of the reasons that it’s fun to go for post-show drinks with actors is that they have so many stories about these moments where the unexpected makes its entrance into the scripted! In Shakespeare in Love, one of Stoppard’s characters has a line that runs something like, “Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.”
How wonderful when the obstacle becomes a magical moment like the one that happened on the weekend in Lion’s Head!
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