Play cancelled after actor breaks character to fight an audience member
The Los Angeles revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was a major hit. When I say hit, I mean the fight between the lead actor and a member in the audience.
A drunk man in the audience would not stop heckling the actors on the stage. According to the witnesses, the man taunted whenever the Maggie character was onstage and yelled insults at other actors, who continued to act despite the insults. Until things turned very homophobic when Brick, an oppressed gay character portrayed by Anton Troy, rejected Maggie in a Scene.
“Because he’s a fag,” the drunken heckler yelled out in the middle of the scene. That is when Lacy-playing Big Daddy-snapped and broke character.
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.”
Although the actors continued on with the show, Lacy was fired and Troy quit the show. With both of the lead actors gone, the production for ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof‘ was shut down early.
Moral of the story, don’t break character, you may just lose your job.
What would you have done? Should you always stay in character? Share with us your thoughts in the comments below!
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