by Alan TownendThe victim didn't know whether to die or wait a bit. A long silence
followed and the poor man decided to «die» gracefully. Apparently
the sound effects person had let off the explosives by mistake and
there weren't enough to go round for a second attempt. My heart
went out to the person playing the condemned man but shortly
afterwards the curtain went down and so concealed his
embarrassment.
Perhaps the saddest example of a theatrical disaster that I sat
through was the occasion when an actor hadn't gone over his lines
thoroughly enough before the performance started. I won't go into
too much detail about the play. Suffice it to say that it was a very
serious drama concerning a man who was convinced that everyone
was against him. He was complaining about prices going up, which
he claimed was the reason for his business going under. As an actor
he had nothing going for him. He looked wrong, his voice was
unpleasant and worst of all he kept forgetting his lines. The audience
was getting restless and several people had already left. The final
straw was a big soliloquy towards the end of the play. He was in the
middle of the stage and forgetting his lines. Each time he forgot he
dashed to the left then remembered that the prompt was on the
right and ran to the other side. What was supposed to be high
tragedy developed into high farce. The main point of the speech was
that he would give up all his possessions, go without everything and
do without everyone. He certainly got his wish. At the end of the play
he only had me and two others to give the final round of applause.
Vocabulary Explanations
going on about
talking about in detail not go down very well
not be accepted easily by go around
walk about go through
complete (a performance of) go together
combine/join up go out
are turned out/off go about looking for
trying hard to find went out
left home/the house