It was raved as the best review to hit Broadway for decades: "a new audience, a new theater and a new cast every night!" Just as the directors and producers were ready to secure their spot in theatrical history, the New York City Police Department and the New York County District Attorney's Office stepped in.
"Just too many people were dying due to Mac . . . eh hem, the Scottish Play for it to continue," Defense Attorney Jack Moriarty said in a statement early Monday morning. "Far too many deaths, and far too many good theaters destroyed."
Moriarty is right in one way: The unforgettable production of the Scottish Play left a path of destruction in its wake. This is evidenced in the damage done to the theaters on Broadway, the surrounding ones on 47th, 48th, 45th etc, along with the damage done to Times Square during the encore "Outdoor Performance to End Words." Originially conceived of as a scientific experiment to test the cataclysmic effect of the English letters M, B, C, T, E, H and A once admitted post modernist Stern Jean and his German compatriot Hans Schadenfreude got their hands on the script, all hell (or rather all previously cemented bricks) broke loose. Tragically (and ironically) Herr Schadenfreude didn't make it to opening night, as he was forced to step in for the title character due to a lack of audience turn out at the first show. There is a memorial service to his memory and the thousands of other performers, audience members and critics that perished in the two weeks of the shows.
In fact, the only knowledge of the show itself that we have comes from Mr. Jean. In his liner notes to the playbill he said: "This production will shock you in every possible way: It will disturb your checkbook, your wallet, your credit cards, as well as rupture and damage most of the organs in your body in the process." Jean and Schadenfreude's concept was to make these figurative words a reality through the magic of the theater. "Every night, a new cast will be assembled, and without rehearsal, be thrown on stage in the pit of the Elizabethan drama. Here they will begin softly chanting the word, their voices growing every louder and louder. From there the true drama begins." (Mr. Moriarty described this true drama as "mass homicide.")
As the curtain lifts at 8 p.m. each evening (aside from the occasional Sunday matinee which Jean describes as "especially challenging") the early screams can be heard from the occasional audience member struck by projectile saliva or by a falling buttress. By 8:30 the theater has imploded and lies in complete debris - in the especially moving performances, one of the players will rise out of the debris with a shrill shout of "THE WORD!" before he is ultimately struck dead by a rampaging taxi cab or one the out of touch ushers.
Despite its incredible expense (the constant buying up of New York theaters) and controversial material (not to mention lack of dialogue), many in the art world have embraced this production as a "brutal confrontation of man with his own social and corporeal mortality in a manner which no other medium could accomplish."
