You might remember one of the memorable episodes in Mark
Twain’s Huckleberry Finn—the stunt pulled by the characters known as “the Duke”
and “the King,” scam artists Huck runs into while rafting on the
Mississippi.
The pair rent out a theater and then advertise a performance
of a show they call "The Royal Nonesuch," to which women and children are not to
be admitted. Naturally, all of the men
in town—expecting some X-rated action—buy up the tickets, only to learn they
have been hoodwinked when all they get for their money is the sight of “the King”
prancing in his birthday suit across the stage.
Tonight, I felt like one of Mr. Twain’s suckers.
I attended what was advertised to be a performance of
Tennessee Williams’ seldom-produced play, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, at the
New World Stages. I am a long-time
admirer of Williams’ work and welcomed the opportunity to see this play about
an artist barely clinging to his sanity.
So…the audience is sitting there 15 minutes past curtain
time, with nothing but a makeshift set suggestive of a bar to look at, when out
bounces someone who introduces herself as Maria Torres, the
director/choreographer.
Ms. Torres announces that they will be unable to perform the
play because a member of the cast was not able to go on (whether due to
sickness or injury was unclear, at least to me). However, she didn’t want us to leave
empty-handed; instead she wanted to share with us a bit of what it was we would
have seen if we had, indeed, seen it.
She awkwardly read aloud a couple of paragraphs from
the program and explained how they had intended to embellish the play with bits
of choreography and works of art to make the production more multi-dimensional
(as if Tennessee Williams were incapable of accomplishing this through his use
of language). She then brought out a
couple of performers who gave us two very brief segments of under-rehearsed (improvised?)
choreographed movement.
The whole thing lasted perhaps ten minutes, including a very
lengthy pause between the first and second fragment.
And that was it. Ms.
Torres sent us on our merry way, expressing the hope that we had been
sufficiently intrigued to come back when things were up and running.
Members of the audience were dumbfounded. And no one on the staff at New World Stages
would take any responsibility for this fiasco, which they were surely aware of
long before we all showed up. One couple I spoke with said they had understood the actors would be performing with scripts in hand. I also overheard someone else saying some ticketholders had been contacted earlier in the day about the pending cancellation.
In any event, we were marched out to the exit without so much as a sheepish apology—much less the offer of a refund or rain check.
In any event, we were marched out to the exit without so much as a sheepish apology—much less the offer of a refund or rain check.
I must say, in over fifty years of theatergoing, I’ve never
experienced anything like this. Yes,
there have been canceled shows, but these have always been accompanied with
apologies and refunds or tickets for another performance.
Not this time.
Caveat Emptor, everyone!
Feel free to tell your friends about this blog, and to share your own theater stories by posting a comment.
Feel free to tell your friends about this blog, and to share your own theater stories by posting a comment.
