Everyone has a rough time sometimes, and what we normally do is turn to some comical relief to try and ease some of those heavy burdens. But I recently found out what it’s like when the shoe is on the other foot and you see some real public meltdowns.
It was a Thursday night, geared up with a few drinks in my belly, a few friends and I stroll out looking for laughs to see Fiona O’Laughlin at QPac. After booking the tickets 6 weeks ago we were just alittle excited to see the action unfold tonight. After running slightly late we shuffle into our seats and sit down for the show. She comes out, making a wonderfully vague entrance. After the first 5 minutes of the show we were convinced her vagueness must have been due to maybe a late night after she excused it as ‘just waking up from a nap’...how professional, but we are seeing her for lack of professionality on stage, so we rolled with it. After 10 minutes, things started heating up with constant pausing, rants, and a stint where she lay down on a lounge on stage like we were watching Masterchief stoned on a Sunday night. 20 minutes in, and the first ticket holders leave, a few squeaks and gasps from the crowd start erupting as more people edge to the end of their seats to leave. As this point, she is clearly intoxicated and swallowed some Valium right before heading on stage and its finally kicked in. It was like watching someone have a midlife crisis on stage and was completely confronting. At the point where more people started to leave, she finally looks up from her drunken ramble and peers out through the lights, ‘What!? You’re leaving? Idiots!’. I look to my friend, pleading with her as we are completely unsure what to do. She gives me a reassuring look as says ‘If it gets worse, we will leave.’ At that point, she fell off the lounge onto the stage and microphone clangs, echoing through the already half empty theatre. It is at this point we cut our losses and rise to leave when the announcement comes on that the show will not go on.
I have never quite experienced something so bizarre as to literally watch a mind shatter so publicly, and in such a work environment. It was brought to mind again whilst the Morning Show announced that she had ‘Collapsed on stage and taken to hospital’. Which I guess in many ways is very true. I could have videotaped myself after half a bottle of tequila and made a better performance I’m sure. With all that said, we learn a vital lesson. When in doubt, go home. Nothing is more embarrassing than losing your mind publicly, and being drunk in a One Woman show. Although, much love to her, we went to see her because her life seems like such a mess it’s fun to laugh at someone else’s crap, so I guess now the show is on the other foot, what happens when the comedian isn’t laughing anymore?
No comments:
Post a Comment