When I was an undergrad, I performed in a production of The Yeomen of the Guard. It’s Gilbert and Sullivan’s only tragicomedy. The lead character is a jester named Jack Point. Our Jack was delighted to have achieved his dream role, and I doubt any Point ever worked harder. He and his (real life) wife constructed an amazingly detailed and colorful Jester costume for him and also made him a stick with a little Jester head on it with a little jester cap that matched his cap. Also, he could really juggle. His most difficult solo number he rehearsed endlessly so that he could patter it while juggling, and most impressive (to me) he tossed his balls at the end so that one ball struck the ground in time with the last three beats of the song.
The other important thing to know about the character of Jack Point is that his love marries another man and abandons him, so Jack falls down at the end of the show. Typically this is interpreted as his death, although some endings make it clear that he is not dead and others leave it ambiguous.
Our (wonderful) director had worked with Point and together they decided that his would be a true death. Our actor was a young and healthy man; a death from heart failure made no sense. So after his love and partner abandoned him and as the chorus swelled, our Point would pull out a knife and stab himself, falling just before the lights went down. Our director said that artistically she preferred not to have bows in order to preserve the stunned silence following the death, but she just couldn’t do that sort of thing to the hardworking cast. So our production was to have suicide, blackout, then bows.
Due to scheduling difficulties, our final performance was a matinee. I dislike closing on a matinee; the energy is very different than an evening show. But so it was, and we dealt with it. The other thing that we failed to consider was that people bring their kids to matinees. Lots and lots of kids. Well heck, it’s Gilbert and Sullivan, and Gilbert and Sullivan are funny, right? The production had been somehow oversold, so the producer decided that kids would get to sit on the floor in front, leaving the actual seats for the less limber ticket holders.
The kids were a fantastic audience and they loved Jack Point best of all! They loved his colorful costume, they loved his cap, they loved his stick, they loved his songs, they howled with laughter at his terrible jokes even though I don’t think they got most of them. Despite the matinee, and probably because of the double row of fans right at the base of the stage, the performance was wonderful.
During the emotional final number, they watched solemnly as Jack pleaded with his love. Rejected, he began to rock back and forth laughing wildly. As he pulled out his knife, some of the children gasped audibly. At least one shouted a warning. Jack stabbed himself and fell, the lights went down, and the last thing I saw from the stage was a double row of huge-eyed white little faces.
Well, the lights came back up and the chorus began to appear for bows. The audience clapped, and the kids perked up, but as more and more actors came onstage without a sign of Jack, they became tenser and tenser. And then, the very last castmember, Jack leapt onto the stage brandishing his stick. There was a yell of delight and joy and true relief from the kids on the floor. They screamed and laughed and clapped.
I think, and I mean this in a truly reverent sense, I think I saw a little of what the disciples must have felt on the first Easter.
