5 Disasters That Theatre Survived Before Covid-19
Amanda Murphy, Features Writer
Niki Hatzidis, Features Editor
1. The Fidnae Stadium Disaster, Rome, 27 AD
Atilius didn’t have any money, but he had a plan: build a huge stadium, host gladiator games in the stadium, and make BANK. And he’d be damned if he’d let a little thing like having no idea how to build a stadium stop him from building a stadium.
In 27 AD, Emperor Tiberius lifted an eight-year ban on gladiatorial games. Why he’d banned them in the first place is anybody’s guess. Games are fun!
Look at this guy having fun.
Suddenly, Roman citizens whose bloodlust had gone unslaked for 6 years rushed out to the stadiums to SEE. SOME. DEATH!! And boy, did they get more death than they bargained for at Atilius’s stadium in Fidnae.
The sudden surge of 50,000 bloodthirsty Romans was too much for the already flimsy foundation of the stadium, which collapsed. 20,000 Romans were killed, many more were injured, and the irony of dying under the weight of an arena constructed for blood sport was lost on everyone.
The Roman Senate responded by prohibiting poor people from hosting gladiatorial games because poor people don’t know how to be responsible with large buildings. Then, they passed a law requiring all amphitheaters to be built on a solid foundation... which is one of those laws that you don’t know you need until you need it.
In addition, new amphitheaters were required to be inspected and certified by someone who knew how to build a building. You may recognize building inspection as a tradition that stuck around if you happen to be inside of a structure that hasn’t collapsed on top of you.
Poor Atilius was banished. Years later, on an island near Greece, a neighbor reported witnessing Atilius’ straw house being blown down by a wolf, who ate him.
2. English Antitheatricality, 1642- 1660
If there are two things that Puritans hate, it’s Mirth and Levity. Both could be found in abundance in London’s theatres in 1642. English Theatre had experienced a 60-year Renaissance under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I and her nephew King Charles I. Some guy named Shakespeare wrote all these plays, you’ve probably never heard of him.
A Puritanical Parliament ordered ALL English theatres closed in 1642. Between 1642, and when the theatres reopened in 1660, England underwent a Civil War. King Charles I was executed and the Puritans took over the English government with Oliver Cromwell as the Lord Protector of England.
In the Puritans’ antitheatrical religious philosophy, theatre encourages immoral behavior because bad characters do bad things and get rewarded for it.
Boys playing girls playing boys fill the audience’s trousers with Mirth and Levity.
In 1660, King Charles II kicked the Puritans’ clenched little butts off of his throne and restored the Monarchy to England. A renowned Mirth and Levity fan, King Charles also restored theatre. Since the dry years had left a dearth of playwrights and actors in the city, women were invited to join in out of desperation.
During the Restoration, Aphra Behn became the first professional female playwright, and her plays mostly starred bad characters doing bad things and being rewarded for it. Restoration comedies reflected the lewd and lascivious sensibilities of the king and his court, which were at least a partial response to the long Pure reign of the Puritans.
Girls playing girls playing boys wearing trousers: we’ve never looked back.
3. The Actor’s Equity Association Strike, August 1919
In 1896, six old rich men got together and formed the Theatrical Syndicate, an organization that controlled three-quarters of all theatres and theatre bookings in the US. Ah, the good old days, when wealthy businessmen could meet for lunch, form a monopoly, and determine the future of thousands, all before cocktails had even been served.
By 1913, the Syndicate had dissolved, but thanks to the Syndicate’s nearly 20-year centralization of US theatres, actors were met with the same labor conditions no matter where they worked. The Production Manager’s Association (PMA) made the rules for
actors working in theatre. Any theatre. Rehearsal time was unlimited and unpaid. Actors had to provide for their own costumes and pay their own travel expenses. And a Production Manger could fire any actor, at any time, because he felt like it.
And so, in 1913, actors organized to form the Actor’s Equity Association. They submitted their list of demands to the Production Manager’s Association, who said, “sure,” and continued doing whatever they wanted.
Actors were considered “artists”, not “laborers”, so when the AEA went to the American Federation of Labor for support in organizing a strike, the AFL said, “Get a real job. Why don’t you cry about it? That’s what you’re good at. Actors.” Then they watched as the actors wrended their hands towards the sky in despair and cried just enough to look convincing, but not hard enough to ruin their makeup.
On August 7th, 1919, the Actor’s Equity Association declared a citywide walkout during the evening’s performances. The walkout was so successful that within 2 weeks, only 5 theatres in New York City were still operating. The Barrymores (of Drew fame) were among the stars who threw their support behind the AEA. The AEA organized benefit performances to raise money for the strike, and their success got the attention and support of the American Federation of Labor, who finally agreed that acting is a labor. In September, the Production Manager’s Association signed the AEA’s 5-year labor contract, which included most of their demands.
The successful organization of the AEA caused a shift in how stage performers were viewed as not only artists but laborers, leading to the subsequent formation of many different unions for stage and screen performers.
And rich old men were never allowed to hold a monopoly on theatre again.
4. Moose Murders: The Worst Show Ever...
On February 22nd, 1983, Arthur Bicknell’s mystery farce Moose Murders opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. It ran for one night and went down in history as the worst Broadway play ever made.
Only a Chosen Few have actually seen the original Moose Murders. Subsequent revivals have been but weak echoes of the first True Experience. What we, The Unchosen, are able to glean about the show comes from reviews by The Chosen (theatre critics of the day).
Remember, critics are vultures. They will pile on a dead carcass until there’s nothing left but the bones. When starved, they attack the weakest vulture and eat him. What I’m saying is, for all I know, Moose Murders was a perfectly adequate play. Here’s the story:
The Holloway family find themselves snowed in at the Moose Lodge in the Adirondacks. The elderly Mr. Holloway is a vegetable (not like a lima bean, as his daughter points out, but like a paraplegic). And Mr. Holloway’s gross hippie son wants to have sex with his own mother! In what must have been a chilling foreshadowing for the actors playing the help, the Moose Lodge’s caretakers are out-of-work performers. A couple of them are murdered by a guy dressed as a moose. I think the vegetable Mr. Holloway stands up to kick the moose guy in the crotch at the end. Hooray?
One critic, Frank Rich, asserted in his review that there would “now always be two groups of theatergoers in this world: those who have seen Moose Murders, and those who have not.” I have seen Moose Murders. I am The Chosen. You are The Unchosen. (editor’s note: maybe don’t alienate the reader, Frank)
In another review, Frank Rich described Moose Murders as "the season's most stupefying flop—a show so preposterous that it made minor celebrities out of everyone who witnessed it... I witnessed it. I am a celebrity. I am Chosen (editor’s note: Frank are you ok? Call me.)” According to Variety, “There are bad plays, terrible plays, and plays like Moose Murders.” And Brendan Gill had this to say: “It would insult the intelligence of an audience consisting entirely of amoebas.”
Amoebas. Notorious intellectual elitists.
Whether Moose Murders was as bad as critics say is lost to history. As a writer myself, I like to give artists the benefit of the doubt. It’s way more fun to be mean than to be nice. Maybe the show had potential. Like a kick to the moose crotch, you can’t knock it till you try it.
5. ... Until That Time You Flubbed Your Line in Your High School’s Production of Grease
To call New Rochelle High School’s production of the musical “Grease” a flop is an insult to all things that flop, from fish to pancakes. To call it a failure is generous because, in order to fail, you have to at least have tried.
Not since Moose Murders has an entire theatre full of people felt so helpless and so uncomfortable so simultaneously. As I watched the show’s pathetic opening number, I felt my neighbor’s butts clench. Row by row, audience members clenched their butts and ground their jaws, afraid to make a sound: sweating in the silence and solitude of shared shame. The only people were having less fun than we, were those poor kids in the show.
“Stranded at the drive-in. Feeling like a... tool.”
The moment that he uttered the wrong line, a chilling silence befell the entire auditorium. The young man’s eyes welled with tears. They were not, as we knew, Danny’s tears of heartbreak for the loss of Sandy. They were the tears of shame from a young Theo Schumacker, for a more potent loss: the loss of his future in the theatre. My own cheeks felt hot. I blushed for him. But the show had to go on.
“What will they say... Monday at... Monday at... tool!”
At this, young Theo burst into tears and had to be escorted off the stage by the musical director. Moments later, a gaggle of half-dressed teens were forced out from the dressing room to begin the Prom scene early. I didn’t think the show could have possibly been any worse than the first two acts, but there we were at the Prom, and it was so much worse. Morale crushed, the high schoolers were barely audible as they flubbed and stumbled their way through the high school dance. Rizzo’s solo number consisted of actor Aly Lindberg staring, terrified, directly into her boyfriend’s eyes in the second row for three and a half minutes. Finally, the end-of-year school fair rolled in. When it was time to sing “We Go Together”, the only people left on the stage not crying were the deaf keyboard player and a brave Freshman actor by the name of Coogan McMillan.
If the auditorium had collapsed, death would have come as a welcome relief. Alas, we are The Chosen. And we will never be the same.
Amanda Murphy was a playwright and producer before the pandemic. Her cat has an Instagram, @precioustheplaguecat.
Screenshot of Dustin Clare in the Starz tv show Spartacus Photo of Mark Rylance’s Twelfth Night from the New York Post:
https://nypost.com/2013/11/10/mark-rylance-leads-all-male-casts-in-new-shakespeare-shows/
Vester Tilly as the Principal boy, Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesta_Tilley#/media/File:Vestatilley01.jpg
The Shubert Organization Banner: shubert.nyc
Screenshot of John Travolta in the Paramount film Grease, Song Facts:
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/john-travolta/sandy
Photo of Moose Murders by Arthur Bicknell by Gerry Goodstein on the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/theater/21moos.html