The last time my company performed in Brazil was kind of a disaster. Not in the sense that the show was poorly received. Not that at all. It was just that all the material for the show arrived three days later than expected and theatre was just massacring the artists (umbrella spine through someone's leg, nose smashed in by a double bass, the usual).
For the most part, things went much more smoothly this time around. True, the audience wasn't as full as the last time, but at least this time everyone left intact. There was, however, one monumental moment of drama.
As always, it was a show like any other. And then, during the second to last act, the point used for the two aerial acts decided it had had enough and just ceased to function. It would no longer go up or down. This was during the dance trapeze act, and act which has a whole helluva a lot of going up and down.
At this point in the show, those who aren't directly implicated in the trapeze act are busy setting up the structure and trampoline for the finale. Fortunately, we've gotten good at this and it happens really fast.
I say fortunately, because right around the time we managed to set everything up, things started to get a little crazy backstage.
The technician that mans the ropes during the trapeze act was yelling for assistance and everyone with a free hand was trying to fix the unknown problem. You know that wall of ropes that controls all the fly bars and whatnot in a theatre? Well A decided that the best course of action was to climb those ropes and hack at the rigging of the trapeze.
The aforementioned ropes
While this successfully dislodged a sandbag from the ceiling, a sandbag that had the courtesy not to land on anyone I might add, it did nothing to help the trapeze situation.
It was at about this time that F, the technician in charge of pulling the trapeze act, started yelling at D to get off the trapeze and, well, off the stage. B decided that the best course of action was to go on stage and dance around while the rest of us scrambled to get the next scene in place, but despite our good intentions, we had to stop. We managed to get the trapeze a little higher, and while it was technically out of the way for the trampoline number, holy crap, it was still just above the trampoline!
Notice the painting that is the shadow
of the trapeze? Awesome.
Like I said, it wasn't technically in the way, but seeing a trapeze hanging over where you're about to jump... it shakes you up a little bit.
The technicians were worried it would be a seven hour repair job, but thanks to a mysterious length of cable hiding in one of the trunks, it only took about two and a half hours. And hey, this time no one bled, so that's kind of a win, right?
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