Santa dying in front of a bunch of kids. Yet another Russian Reversal.
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I was in a show where one of my fellow performers had a heart attack on stage.
He’d been having pain before which he used various excuses to dismiss, I pulled a muscle playing tennis, this is just indigestion, the like. We fed him some aspirin and went on with the show. I wasn’t on stage at the time of the attack, but those who were were quite impressed. (Can’t remember their descriptions, turned color or some such.) It was relatively mild, he finished the show and went home.
He was in enough pain that he couldn’t sleep that night. He stayed up all night and then showed up the next day for the matinee. I don’t know what he was feeling at that time, but he looked ok, and no one could convince him not to go on. So, he did the matinee without incident and then someone insisted on driving him to the emergency room.
He was replaced for the rest of the show’s run.
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Do you think his motivation was dedication, denial, or both?
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There was definitely a lot of denial going on, considering his excuses for both upper arm pain and chest pain. Maybe some dedication as well, but I think the denial was stronger. After all, even after the weekend of shows was over, he still had to be convinced to go to the emergency room.
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The only silver lining is that a few days later one of the kids is going to see Father Frost at the mall, decide that he’s witnessed the Resurrection, and start a religion. “And he rose again on Twelfth Night … and I saw it with my own eyes!”
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Can you just… not?
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That reminds me of Tommy Cooper
The assistant smiled at him as he collapsed, believing that it was a part of the act. Likewise, the audience gave “uproarious” laughter as he fell, gasping for air.
At this point, Alasdair MacMillan, the director of the television production, cued the orchestra to play music for an unscripted commercial break (noticeable because of several seconds of blank screen while LWT’s master control contacted regional stations to start transmitting advertisements) and Tarbuck’s manager tried to pull Cooper back through the curtains.
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Indeed, a real shame for everyone involved.
A sad thing, indeed.
Was reminded of this topic today, as I got to play Santa today. To get the beard to stay in place properly, I had the rubber band go from just under my nose in the front to somewhere in the vicinity of the crown of my head in the back.
I thought I was just popping into the classroom in character briefly and then after meet ‘n’ greet I would leave and come back dressed normally to teach the lesson. Nooooo, my boss wants me to teach the lesson that way. Ya know, having a rubber band wrapped around your head for close to an hour and a half is rather agonizing and while I wasn’t expecting a heart attack, I was seriously wondering how much I was putting myself at risk of stroke.
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