The Injured List: Fringe Casualties
Let’s face it, people. This is some full-contact theater, up in here. The Fringe muse can inspire, but she can also slap your ass around.
Yes, the venues are hot; we’ve all watched drops of persperation fly from performers’ noses every time they turn their heads, describing graceful, albeit funky, arcs over the footlights. Let’s just remember that as uncomfortable as you feel — sitting there in the dark, fanning yourself with your program like a pasha — the performers have it worse, by an order of magnitude. Or at least, once you factor in costumes, lights and physical exertion, by a good 10 degrees Farhenheit.
But that comes with the territory. Herewith, we honor those who’ve given their lives, or at least their ability to thumb-wrestle for a while, to Fringe.
Our first honoree is hardcore, people.
Who: Lynn-Jane Foreman, actor
Show: Missing Pages
How: Scripted onstage tussle becomes unscripted onstage fall. A nasty one.
Didn’t have room for it in the review, but wanted to honor Foreman’s grit. She takes a spill, landing on her tailbone, smacking her head against the stage. Does she take even a beat to gather herself? To take a breath, to shake it off? She does not.
She’s back in the scene immediately — delivering her lines sitting up on the floor until getting helped to her feet. Play goes on for a bit, during which time she shows not a trace of discomfort. Has some difficulty leaving stage after the curtain call, and the call goes up for a doctor. She is driven to the emergency room.
Diagnosis: Concussion, broken thumb.
I am reliably informed that she’s doing all right, and will be back for tonight’s performance and the others. (I am also informed that Fringe has added a second air conditioner to the Redrum venue, which will be a relief to her fellow performers, especially poor Christopher Guy Thorn, who spends the show in a heavy army jacket.)
You got a nomination for the Fringe Hall of Ouchy Fame? Someone faint from the heat, slip in a pool of their own sweat, or just spill your beer at the Baldacchino? Tell us about it below.
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11:14 pm
During a performance of Irish Author Held Hostage, our stage manager adjusted her chair. It went beyond the one inch lip of the risers upon which it was situated and she plummeted five feet backwards to the ground. She’s alive, thank God, with nothing broken, but the bruise was visible on the X-ray.
Being in The Bodega, and being sold out for a number of performances, we also had heat issues. On opening night, I sweat into my hearing aid, shorting it out. I was compelled to perform the rest of the show deaf. We also had two audience members leave b/c the heat nearly made them vomit. But other than that, it has been a dream!
2:16 am
I saw an ambulance rescuing a (74-yr old?) actress who apparently fainted during 4:48 Psychosis last Wednesday. I wasn’t at the show, but apparently a fellow actor recognized she was having difficulties with her lines and casually went over to her, catching her mid-faint. Maybe having the actors stand up on chairs for a whole hour isn’t such a hot idea in this heat…
3:35 pm
Maybe by year five, the organizers will have some of these more crappy venues in better shape to actually host a show in. Seeing casts and patrons, alike, struggle through performances isn’t my idea of a good night at the theatre, albeit fringe or other theater. Was I misinformed or are these pesky buttons supposed to be revenue items to help with the festival’s building fund, as it were?