That'll learn him! : Play Canceled After Actor Breaks Character to Fight an Audience Member

[doxydad]

The show must go on, unless the lead actor breaks character and jumps into the audience to fight a drunk heckler. Then the show gets canceled.

Producers sounded the death knell on a Los Angeles revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof this week after the fourth wall was beaten down by a confrontation between actor John Lacy and a noticeably drunk man who wouldn't stop heckling.

According to witnesses, the man catcalled whenever the Maggie character was onstage and yelled insults at other actors, who played on faithfully until things turned homophobic when Brick, an oppressed gay character portrayed by Anton Troy, rejected Maggie in a scene.

"Because he's a fag," the heckler reportedly yelled.

That's when Lacy—playing Big Daddy—lost it.

http://gawker.com/cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof-shut-down-after-actor-fights-audi-1585695004

[PumpkinAle]

1. John Lacy you deserve a standing ovation

From the gawker article:

Lacy explained, "Brick tried to respond, and he said it again. I just said, 'What did you say, motherf*cker?' … I went through our fake stage door, took off my vest, went into the audience — as he stood proudly to stare at me with a stupid grin on his face — [and] I pushed him, and he was drunk, so he easily just collapsed… I knew better than to start throwing punches. I had made my point. I silenced the heckler, and thankfully, one of the audience members — this enormous 6'5'', 280-lb. filmmaker named Tim Sullivan, who happened to be gay and was not at all happy with what was happening — reached over and picked this guy up by his shirt collar and literally carried him out of the theatre."
Though the actors resumed their lines and finished the show, Lacy was summarily fired and Troy apparently immediately quit in solidarity. With both lead actors gone, the production was forced to shut down early.
http://gawker.com/cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof-shut-down-after-actor-fights-audi-1585695004

Lacy should never have been fired. The drunk jerk should have been ejected well before it got to the situation that it did.

[Sweet Freedom]

2. Agreed

The house manager should have stepped in. (I've had this happen twice: once when I was in the audience and once when I was on stage. Both times, it was awfully rude and distracting.)

[gratuitous]

5. Geez, what were people waiting for?

Some drunk asshole ruining a live performance, until one of the cast members has to take it upon himself to do something. Was everyone in the house just waiting for someone else to do something? Where was the house manager? How about an audience member letting the lout know his contribution to the proceedings was neither welcome nor needed? One of the actors has to come down off the stage? Why not just have a cast person say, "We're not going to continue under these conditions," and then everyone walks off stage?

Damn, this is a depressing story.

[lame54]

3. It's one of those inter-active plays

[Bombero1956]

4. Didn't you notice the powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity?

Ain't nothing more powerful than the odor of mendacity.

[nolabear]

6. ...