Subj:.....Pets On Stage (S171)           From: Anaise on 5/9/00   Drawing from Flicker.com...

Illinois Shakespeare Festival

Theatre Animal Stories
- collected by Scott Walters
[Note: the following was written for the
1994 Illinois Shakespeare Festival program guide but didn't
make it.  This is the first publication of this article.]
 

Most people who have thought about the theatre agree that what
makes it unique is its liveness: the actors and the audience
in the same place, at the same time, doing and seeing something
that is being done only at that moment, in a way which will
never be duplicated. When things are working right, everyone
experiences the electrifying sense that anything can happen.

When there are animals onstage -- as is the case this year in
"Two Gentlemen of Verona" -- that sense is increased tenfold:
not only can anything happen, but you can bet it probably will.

Animals are a wild card, the joker in the theatrical deck. Un-
shackled by stage fright, unfettered by fear of failure, an
animal onstage is a potential loose cannon that can explode at
any moment, an anarchist with a stink bomb always ready at hand.
Spectators know this, which is why there is always a ripple of
anticipation that flows through an audience the minute that an
animal sets foot onstage. Because they know that at any moment,
despite every precaution, with no provocation and little
warning, an animal can suddenly do the unexpected.

In fact, the unexpected has become so expected when animals are
onstage that I know of at least one show that has built it into
its script.  In the touring production of Will Rogers Follies,
there is a dog act at one point in the show, which is then
followed by an actress standing in front of the curtain saying
some lines.  Well, she's barely into her speech when a dog from
the act trots across the stage in front of her, sending the
actress -- and, of course, the audience -- into gales of
uncontrollable laughter.  That this was a planned event was
discovered in a group discussion of stage disasters, where
several people who had attended different performances of the
play confirmed the same "mistake." Hey, if it works, use it...

Nearly everyone who has worked in the theatre for any length of
time has an animal story. Mine involves a production of the
musical Camelot, in which I was a member of the chorus.  We had
reached that part of the show where we all chirped Lerner and
Loewe's paean to spring, "The Lusty Month of May," after which
the mangy, old knight Pellinore is supposed to enter with his
mangy, old sheepdog Horrid in tow.

Now, one of the stagehands had been assigned to take this dog
out for a walk just prior to each of his scenes, but that night
there had been an emergency backstage, and the stagehand had
not had an opportunity to do so.... Yes, you know what happened
next.  Unfortunately, the actor playing Pellinore didn't, and
he continued to pull the sheepdog across stage by his leash,
oblivious to the fact that he was leaving a trail of ... er
... gifts every three feet or so as he went.  The dance number
that followed -- oh, yes, I said dance number -- acquired
entirely new choreography as we all tiptoed through the tulips
in our ballet slippers. In addition, the heretofore innocuous
lyric, sung by our angelic Queen Guenivere, "What's this
fragrance wafting through the air" took on an entirely new
meaning...

Ah, the magic of theatre.

In search of...

Usually when I write an article for the Illinois Shakespeare
Festival program, I begin by rereading the play I'm writing
about and then go to the library to find books and articles
about it. However, given the subject matter of this article, I
decided to try another route.

Having recently been introduced to the wonders of the Internet,
that marvelous electronic highway that can instantly put you in
touch with people all over the world, I decided that there was
probably a wealth of stories "out there" that I could use in this
article. So I subscribed to five theatre newsgroups, and posted
the following message:

I'm writing an article on Crab, the dog in Two Gentlemen of
Verona, for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival program.  I am
interested in hearing any stories you might have about experiences
with animals onstage.  Of course, if the story is about "Two
Gents" it would be wonderful, but I'll take stories about any
production at all...

Then I waited.

Not for long, though, because the stories started to flow in from
all parts of the United States: Illinois, Maine, California,
North Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Utah, Brooklyn. Within a few
days, I had an anthology of very funny animal tales.  While it
was difficult to do, due to space constraints I had to narrow the
list down to a few that I considered to be "classics." I'd like
to share them with you now, and as much as possible keep them in
the words of those who wrote them. I hope you enjoy them as much
as I did.

Animal Tales

Since this is an article about Shakespeare, let's start with one
of his plays. Michael Faulkner writes:

I was in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare
Santa Cruz, a summer festival on the West Coast with a million-
dollar budget.  As Starveling/Moonshine, I was cast with a small
Toto look-alike named Scooter. Scooter was as rambunctious as any
dog I have ever met, but he became immediately calm on stage.

Still, he managed to find something different every performance.
One time, just as I was giving my final "Moon" dialogue in the
wedding scene, "All that I have to say is to tell you that the
lantern is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thornbrush, my
thornbrush; and this dog...", I looked at Scooter, who was enrapt
in the act of licking his... [Editor's note: use your imagination
-- this is a family program].  I jerked his leash, playing it as
a dog owner whose dog was embarrassing him in public, very much
in the moment, and it brought the house down.  Once the laughter
subsided, I got another nice roll from finishing the line:
"....my DOG.
Probably a moment the immortal Bard had never envisioned...

But what about the rest of the animal kingdom? From Brooklyn, Tony
Rust writes:

I heard of a production of Oklahoma where they wanted a Hen and
her chicks to walk in a nice line together, so they tied their
little legs together.  Needless to say, the hen got scared,
jumped into the pit and was neatly followed by the chicks... plip
plip plip, one at a time over the edge.
I must confess, the picture this called up in my imagination kept
me laughing for quite some time.

Apparently chickens are not the only ones infected with this urge
to imitate lemmings.  Harry Hill writes about a pig in the
Canadian premiere of Three Parts Benedict:
 

He made his entrance just before the Act II curtain.  With a
little non-electric prod, the Assistant Stage Manager sent him
onstage; then the curtain was to fall.  One night the curtain was
just a wee bit late, and the pig made a bee-line -- did you know
pigs can make bee-lines? -- for the apron, from where he fell
squealing into the orchestra pit, surviving the plunge is if
nothing had happened. I'm glad we had an orchestra pit, or else
the occupants of the front row would have had a late breakfast.
Which would have made the play Three Parts EGGS Benedict

Accidents will happen, and sometimes things don't work out quite
as happily as in the stories above.  Both Andrew Golla and Tony
Rust wrote to tell me the same rather macabre, but irresistibly
funny story, which I will piece together from both versions:

I heard the story of a production of Jesus Christ Superstar where
they wanted live doves to fly down at the end of the show just
after Jesus had died.  Unfortunately, they didn't have time to
rehearse this effect (of course).  So opening night they put the
doves in rigged boxes up above the stage among the lighting
instruments. At the end of the play, when the big moment arrived,
the lines were pulled, the door to the box opened, and the cast
was pummeled by dead doves!  Apparently, their box had been
placed a little too close to the hot lights... It was reported by
one of the ushers that she heard one audience member explaining
to an obviously confused child, "When Christ died all the little
animals, out of respect, died also.
As Andrew Golla wryly notes, "I guess that's why there are no
little animals around anymore."

I have saved the most apocalyptic story I received for the end.
It is also another dog story, so this essay will end as it began,
in the canine kingdom. It also was contributed by Andrew Golla,
who seems to have cornered the market on weird animal stories:
 

There was a community theatre being started up in a small town
in Minnesota.  They wanted to get off on the right foot, so they
decided to pick a play which would be very popular and provide a
large draw:

Rehearsals were going well, they were halfway through and the
kids were doing just fine, so they decided to add the dog.  The
dog was great, went everywhere it was supposed to when it was
supposed to. Fine.

So they got to opening night.  During the song "Dumb Dog" the dog
started to wander a bit -- ok, not an insurmountable problem.
First it wandered off left, then back on again, then upstage,
then off again, then on again, then downstage....

...to the footlights...where it relieved itself.  There was a
spark, an arc, and suddenly the dog burst into flames.  People
started screaming, kids were crying everywhere -- backstage,
onstage, in the audience -- so the stage manager decided to drop
the asbestos curtain, and he did...behind the dog.

So now we have the burning dog isolated in front of the curtain,
and the kids in the audience all becoming emotionally scarred for
life.

Epilogue: The show closed that night, the community theatre shut
down, and the dog suffered bad burns, but eventually recovered.
"The sun'll come out -- Tomorrow..."

So those are my favorite animal stories. I hope it adds to your
appreciation of tonight's performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona.
After reading them, however, I think you will appreciate more
fully what might have been the motivation behind the following
story, contributed by Robert Chynoweth:

I was in a production of Two Gentlemen of Verona and the concept
was that it was a traveling side-show.  Crab was made of wood and
then painted to look as much like a dog as possible.  We put
rollers on for feet, a rope around his neck and a leather strap
for his tail and pulled him around the stage...of course always
acting as though he were a dog.

Mr. Chynoweth assures us that "the audience enjoyed it." But I
don't know, kind of takes some of the excitement out of it, don't
you think?

--Scott Walters

(C) 1994 Illinois Shakespeare Festival