Many moons ago, back in the mid to late eighties, a friend of mine was directing a college production of Jesus Christ, Superstar. He invited me to opening night.
Now, this production ends with Christ on the cross, ascending to heaven. They had built a mechanical cross, that would rise slowly and dramatically, up past the curtain line. For opening night, several cages of doves had been hung above that curtain line, and as Christ rose past them, the cages would open and the doves would fly out over the audience.
Lovely idea, really.
But, (and there’s always a “but”, isn’t there?) the day of the show, the actor who was to play Christ was injured in a car accident. Broke a leg, literally. There was, of course, an understudy. This understudy was about fifty pound lighter than the lead.
Some of you can see where this is going.
The mechanical cross was geared somehow to the actor’s weight. Nobody thought about this, so no adjustment was made. At the conclusion of the play, when the appropriate lever was pulled, instead of ascending slowly and gracefully, Christ was shot up like a cannonball, struck a rafter and fell back to the stage in a heap.
The cages opened, but they had been hung too close to the lights. Instead of the planned, beautiful spectacle, fourteen dead doves fell to the stage, several of them, right on top of poor Jesus.
All in all, not the best opening night….
