In answer to the first query, I can only confess to being unrepentantly happy to be typecast as the evil, blood-letting old man, and lacking the sufficient drive, talent and prettiness to go a-Hamleting. The answer to the second adds up to the deeper meditative pool of this blog entry. It's undeniable. I've died a ridiculous amount of times on stages up and down these mighty British Isles. Part of this comes from playing so many character parts, which almost by default occupy a peripheral or (to be polite) 'featured' role in the action. You simply can't kill off the lead (at least until the end) - unless your director's Alfred Hitchcock and your corpse is Janet Leigh, the drama will implode. My repeated dabblings in villainy and the macabre have doubtless also played a part. I rarely think of it this way, but every character pent up in The York Dungeon must have died at some point. Nothing else would explain the ghastly paleness and startling proliferation of weeping head wounds. So whip out your favourite Chopin death march, and allow Mercadé, messenger of doom and part-time slobbering policeman of Love's Labour's Lost, to induct you into the many, many deaths of James Swanton...
(Note: I'm not planning on dying in any serious way in Pickwick & Nickleby. However, I will be caning myself into a bloody pulp towards the end of the night. Come for that reason alone!)
BAHM-BAHM-BA-BAHM, BA-BA-BAHM-BA-BA-BA-BAAAAAAHMMM!
1. Puss in Boots (2005)
Crime Scene: Methodist Church Hall, Poppleton
Victim: The Ogre
Method: Self-transfiguration to a mouse and subsequent braining against castle wall.
Details: The one that started it all. After being raised on David Leonard's stentorian baddies in Berwick Kaler's annual line-up of compassionate rubbish, it was a true thrill to become the ludicrous rotting core of pantomime villainy. My Ogre was a monstrosity, and quite deserving of all he got. My height was enhanced to truly loony extremes, not only by the Karloff-style boots that Richard kindly provided for my feet, but my insistence on the anachronistic addition of a top hat, which ensured that I projected at least a foot out of vision at all times. Add in a dollop of green make-up, a straggly black wig, a Son of Frankenstein sheep-skin and the mangled vocalisations of Fredric March's Mr Hyde... and we have a creature crying out for a killing, ladies and gentlemen. The death was the inevitable denouement to Puss's ever-so-clever scheme to escape being made into cat pie. A petty, small-minded contest was established, with the Ogre compelled to transfigure himself into steadily less compromising entities (though no water goblets, sadly enough). Our state-of-the-art church hall special effects unit meant that I would step into the wings during a series of short blackouts, allowing a substitute actor to take my place; an illusion that never quite worked, mostly due to the impossibility of moving anywhere in haste when you're pushing eight foot and in danger of demolishing the very flimsy set. A bear came first, I think - the supremely unintimidating cuteness of a child in mask and costume. I'm not sure whether anything followed that, but I do recall that the dubious finale was the Incredible Hulk vaulting in to wreak some tame, family-oriented mayhem. I was finally cajoled into transmogrifying into an unconvincing rubber mouse. (Don't ask me why an Ogre would so blindly deliver on the whims of an obnoxious talking cat... probably the tall person's version of short man syndrome.) To top it all off, that darned cat doesn't even eat me. Oh, no. That would be too easy. Instead, I'm hurled into the wings, an action so brutal that it provokes a high-pitched scream. This is probably a burst of agony from my future self, appalled at the first of my many off-stage deaths. Devastatingly ironic given that I'd got my panto break, aged nine, playing a mouse in the same church's Cinderella. Oh, how the wheel spins round!
Rating: 7/10
2. Macbeth (2005)
Crime Scene: Georgian Theatre, Richmond
Victim: King Duncan
Method: Stabbed to death by shady supposed ally with dagger fixation.
Details: The plot-based ramifications of the Scottish Play are so well-worn that to repeat them would be patronising. I'm firmly of the opinion that Duncan had it coming. Or at least, my version of Duncan. He was pretty frail (easier to knock over), pretty irritating (forced merriment through and through) and drummed into hyper-redundancy by the cuts (severely edited version, this one). This destruction disappointed me on a few counts. To start with, it was my long-time theatrical arch-rival, Sir Christopher Guard, who'd be doing the killing. Chris and I have a fraught theatrical legacy. In the years that followed, I was Scrooge to his Bob Cratchit, Merrick to his Treves, and finally - triumphantly - Richard III to his... Richard III (a weird production, better not to ask). Stoked by a viewing of the seminal bloodshed of Roman Polanski's Macbeth (which does show the Duncan murder, and coheres a little too neatly with the Sharon Tate tragedy for comfort), I had every hope that there'd be a picturesque orgy of blood-packs and steaming rubber entrails to contrast with the sleek finery of our old-fashioned theatre. This didn't seem so very irrational at the time. After all, our Banquo was favoured with a truly sensational Tarantino rip-off for his dispatch, in which the full company swayed, grinned and clapped to the peppy accompaniment of 'Stuck in the Middle with You' - a collective glorification in the S&M-tinged ecstasy of a seductive Murderer knife-dance. Surely Duncan deserved a send-off that was at least decipherable from the text, despite not being shown. Such was not to be, and I had to content myself with returning as a Caligari-style ghost at some point in Lady Macbeth's midnight wanderings. Come to think of it, I remember rehearsing an opening to the play that would have been at least equally satisfying. I was originally to suffer a protracted, expressionist crucifixion at the hands of the Weird Sisters, only then settling into prayer for my first appearance. This image would have resurfaced at the conclusion, with the Christ-like agonies of kingship now transferred to Malcolm. A neat idea, adventurously dark given the average age of the cast, and a real pity that it didn't make it into the final play. So, yes... Off-stage again. Begrudgingly. But since this production lay in the enduringly capable hands of Mr Crisp, it did lead rather pleasingly into mortality number three...
Rating: 3/10
3. A Christmas Carol (2005)
Crime Scene: Manor CE School
Victim: Ebenezer Scrooge
Method: Moralistic inter-dimensional vision of possible future grave-site.
Details: Now this was a fun one. That I never felt I got it right is almost beside the point. Crisp balanced the elements so thrillingly that it was a true privilege to be obliterated. Everyone knows the scene: Scrooge's nightmare vision of the winter cemetery in the company of Christmas Yet to Come. We had a black gravestone at centre stage, on which 'Ebenezer Scrooge' was slowly, agonisingly engraved with a stick of chalk. At this massive distance from the production, I have a feeling that we got the same person who played Belle (Scrooge's spurred lover of Christmas Past) to write the name upon the stone, and this would certainly have added a certain darkness to the proceedings that I consider inseparable from the Crispian theatrical aesthetic. In order to keep as much of Dickens's flavourful narration as possible, our production had a substantial chorus. (One of my central gripes with Dickens adaptations in general is the curious resistance to using Dickens's language, which is uniformly excellent - even if it risks being a little too 'complete' and having all the characterisation done before the actor gets a look-in.) Done out in top hats and flock coats, they looked like the ghosts of the Sweeney Todd ensemble gone wrong. They proceeded to shout me into the dust of the earth with a vigorous round of chanting: 'Ebenezer, Ebenezer, Ebenezer Scrooge! Nobody, nobody, nobody likes you!' This would admittedly be slightly lame coming completely out of the blue - the chant had earlier featured as the playground bullying in Scrooge's tormented vision of his school days. It was like being caught in the middle of a cyclone - comparable to the cathartic thrill of doing a musical, in which your energy undergoes a massive boost from the analagous support of the orchestra - before I at last collapsed with an anguished (ie: overacted) cry of 'Oh, tell me I may sponge the writing from this stone!' In the best tradition of Noel Coward, I couldn't have liked it more! In general with the Carol, I was about as on-stage as you could possibly get. But whether a hypothetical future demise (for which the living representation of the character was present) really counts as a death at all remains a point for fierce debate. And I suppose that if you follow that train of logic, Scrooge's death occurred some time before he was buried, in an imaginary vignette that can only be situated... off-stage. Ah. Damn.
Rating: 9/10
4. Hickory Dickory Dock (2006)
Crime Scene: Methodist Church Hall, Poppleton
Victim: The Black Imp
Method: Suckered into enchanted grandfather clock by supernatural forces.
Details: That's the Black Imp in the picture above. Fearsome little devil. Sort of stylish in his silken trousers, impeccably pointed winkle-pickers and oversized gorilla mitts (a totally incongruous feature that I nonetheless insisted be imported from the Ogre of Puss in Boots fame). Not remotely interested in children, as the image would have you believe - although the character did lead to my all-time guiltiest backstage moment, when some poor, blithe, innocent infant tottered into my path, took one look at me, burst into hysterical tears and ran as fast as their wee little legs could carry them. King Ogre II, basically. And desperately in need of a killing. Panto plots are strained and tenuous enough when they spring from the wholesome medium of fairytales - once you start cobbling them together from fragmentary old nursery rhymes, you can guarantee that nothing will make sense. Hickory Dickory Dock is one of the select few plays for which I still have the script, but as I flick through it now, it's all a senseless, incoherent mess, brimming with daft wizards, greedy squires, resolutely heterosexual dames and villager after villager after villager... In other words, yet another opportunity for the immortal citizens of the Poppleton Methodist Players to play naught but themselves for a good two and a half hours of community-based tedium! I think the basic concept underpinning the Black Imp was that he originated in an ultra-evil hidden dimension accessible only by antique, pastel-painted grandfather clock. But naturally, a demented sorcerer must venture into this kingdom of shadows to bag himself a very shiny jewel (sounding pretty similar to Aladdin, this), which will give him all the diabolical derring-do needed to take over the world. Standard panto fare, in short. But in a moral universe more black-and-white than the kabuki-style design imprinted on my face, the panto baddie must be foiled. This can swing in one of two directions. I believe the sorcerer received the lower order of punishment: a character reformation at the eleventh hour, probably in response to being forced to marry the ugliest cast member. More to my taste is the full-on pulverisation ritual, deployed to lastingly obliterate a seed of unquenchable evil. I forget exactly how or why, but the Black Imp was drawn back into the clock as though dragged by a retinue of wild and conveniently invisible horses, howling in agony as the door was closed on him for all time. Who can tell what happened afterwards? Having no money whatsoever to fritter on a lavish array of wind machines and motorised wire effects, I got to go a grand old bit of physical comedy, contorting my body into wild arcs and dips as I tried to wedge myself into the surprisingly tiny chink at the front of the clock. I'm certain that I all but knocked the prop over on one night, but it was fun enough. Above all, don't ask me where the mouse of running-up-the-clock fame entered into the proceedings. Shameful... Utterly shameful. Almost as shameful as this adding up to another off-stage death - or at least, only partially on-stage. Curses!
Rating: 6/10
5. Murder Me Always (2006)
Crime Scene: Manor CE School
Victim: Fritz Fontaine
Method: Hammy enactment of self-written, self-indulgent hack work.
Details: Despite the title, I didn't get murdered in this. This is probably just as well, seeing as the unlucky person who did (the fictional 'director' of a play-within-a-play) was out for the count in ten minutes flat. Truly the Duncan of Murder Me Always... My secondary school used to hold a murder mystery event every October. These were always well-intentioned affairs, but farcically shoddy. It was accepted that everyone would be glued to their script, no set would exist beyond a selection of black drapes and whatever mouldering sticks of furniture could be dredged up from beneath the stage, and any acting that went on was ropey, generalised and thoroughly underwhelming. I'm still undecided as to whether Lee Mueller's writing is deliberately bad or not. (The age-old question: when does deliberately bad writing become just, well - bad? I suppose as soon as it becomes boring... which is an accusation you can levy at almost any of these paint-by-numbers murder mystery shenanigans.) I'll let you decide for yourself by quoting the relevant chunk. My character was an outrageously large ham (I told you there was minimal acting), sporting a pipe and white scarf at all times, who, with the pompous bombast typically restricted to Christopher Lee, insists on recreating the highpoint of the evening's cancelled drama: 'The play we were doing this evening was indeed a delight. I actually had quite a dramatic death scene. As you may know, Mr. Swanwallow, whom I was portraying, ingests poison and dies. It was a brilliant scene. Here, allow me to demonstrate before everyone else arrives. (acts this out) I come stumbling in through this doorway. I am clutching my throat and gasping for precious oxygen. I turn a few times and struggle to utter some prophetic final words. "Do not go gentle into that good night! Rage! Rage! Against the... Uhhh! Aggg!" ... Then I pitch myself and fall to center. (lies down) My hand reaches up, as if to welcome the oncoming image of death. I reach for the light. And alas, darkness. I die.' It's one of the rare occasions on which I've received a spontaneous round of applause for being insufferable and outlandish - the other that springs to mind was covering up Coupler's 'enthusiasm' for Young Fashion on the last night of The Relapse (an unforgivably dirty sight gag - and a complete accident) - so the play's prominent in my memory for that reason alone. Now! This was quite the on-stage death - but as with A Christmas Carol, it's one that's debatable through and through. After all, the character was alive and well and stumbling across the stage as normal only seconds later... Curse and double-curse it!
Rating: 5/10
6. The Elephant Man (2007)
Crime Scene: Manor CE School
Victim: John Merrick
Method: Bombastic religious breakdown followed by impromptu self-asphyxiation ritual.
Details: Typical, isn't it? When I finally get to an unquestionable, certified, one-hundred-per-cent genuine on-stage death, it requires a more sensitive treatment. This is about the closest I've got to method acting, so far as I really did end up struggling to breathe and became very red in the face in the process - unless it's the lighting, I think that's what's showing up above. It's not even worth making fun of this one, to be honest. The real Merrick had a truly horrible life, and the version we played was quite a bit more gratuitous than the scene that features in the Bernard Pomerance original (which won the Tony Award for Best Play way back in 1979). The action that directly preceded the death was that horribly awkward, dragged-out conversation between Merrick and Treves, in which Merrick attacks his master's skewed moral code with regards to sex and medicine ('Is it okay to see them naked if you cut them up afterwards?'), before the good doctor's patience is sufficiently frayed that he turns against the deformed, unhappy man he'd originally sworn to protect ('For God's sakes. If you are angry, just say it. I won't turn you out. Say it: I am angry. Go on. I am angry! I am angry! I am angry!). This exposes a last stubborn shred of belief in Merrick ('I believe in heaven...') and leaves the heartache of his beloved Mrs Kendal's banishment from the hospital unresolved. What followed was pretty nasty, oddly exhilarating, but black and bleak to the very core. Merrick first had to enter in tears, building his way towards an impassioned, frustrated crescendo as he repeats the words of his supposed benefactor: 'I am angry... I am angry... Go on, say it, you freak! I am angry! I am angry! I am angry! I am angry!' Being an actor with a greater than usual reputation for going over-the-top, it was certainly refreshing to have a scene in which this was positively demanded by the script. This can be very dangerous. When a character's entire emotional integrity hangs in the balance, these scenes can swing either way, and I've little doubt that the success of the final performance falls to individual perception. Certainly, when I recorded Erik's two monologues from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, both of which are as teary and anguish-laden as they come, they provoked a sharply divided reaction. The second has garnered 82 responses to date, and the range and dynamism of response is comical to say the least: 'That was the scariest thing I have ever seen. And I'm not exaggerating here'; 'It reduced me to shaking limbs and tears, and for that I give you my thanks'; 'I don't have words to express my gratitude and the emotions you provoked in me! That was the thing that made me tremble in fear and cry in sympathy for Erik! Just great and beautiful in a strange way. Because even in a man as ugly as Erik, there is beauty...; 'It's not that your voice is bad, I just can't imagine that voice singing in a way that would trick a person to fall of a boat or something'; 'You make Erik sound like a drunk Stewie Griffin, it's just overacting'; 'You WAAAAAY overdid the voice over and the sob of your vocalization sounds silly and ridiculous'. They go on like this, streaky bacon style, alternating flashes of light and dark... Whether the performance is a good one or a bad one (I'll admit that I'm not its biggest fan/Phan) is almost irrelevant, and, judging from these remarks, nearly impossible to determine... Sometimes it's just a case of trying to be fearless, dropping those troublesome inhibitions as much as you're able and really letting rip. When the situation demands it, it is your most solemn duty. In my humble view, the trials of the Elephant Man merit considerably more than a watered-down trickle of pathetic sentiment. It's a little like opera, these epic scenarios when you're expected to step up to the plate and deliver. Pavarotti frequently used to mention the sublime terror of hitting the high notes - Will he make it? Will he not? - and I suppose that there's a cross-over here. The modern vogue for understatement, whilst it certainly has its place, is too often rooted in embarrassment and narcissism... But enough ranting. Merrick goes on to read from Psalm 23, the perennially touching 'The Lord is my shepherd...', which turns up in innumerable film scenes as the condemned man walks to the electric chair (senseless Lugosi potboiler Invisible Ghost springs to mind). A bit of a cliche maybe, but no bigger than David Lynch's decision to wallpaper Merrick's death in his film of The Elephant Man with the strains of Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' (we opted for John Barry in our version, and made eager use of 'The Day the Earth Fell Silent' from 'The Beyondness of Things'). Then comes the suicide. The real-life Merrick could never lie down to sleep like normal people - he had to remain in a strained, half-croucing position on an evening, supported by an impenetrable fortress of cushions and bedding. It's never been verified that Merrick intended to take his life (for what it's worth, he was zealously Christian - or at least seemed to be), but it's bleak to speculate on how far his deformities might have progressed had his life been allowed to continue. And so, delivering on his wistful proclamation of earlier that 'sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams', Merrick leans back and suffocates on the weight of his own physicality. There was a lot going on in this death. It's fortunate that I consider it one of the few times I've (almost) got something right.
Rating: 9/10
Next time I'll be picking up with the eight (that's right, eight) remaining deaths I've had the pleasure to experience. Often twice in the course of the same play. Clearly there's public appetite to see me done in. Pleasures to come include a burning, a firing squad, a vaporisation and consumption by a giant green monster. What larks!
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