CMU School of Drama


Thursday, April 19, 2012

Brazilian Actor Found Hanged While Playing Judas in Passion Theater Show

christianpost.com: A Brazilian actor has suffered brain injuries after accidentally hanging himself during a theatrical performance as he played the part of Judas in a Passion of Christ play. The accident took place on Good Friday in Itarare City in the south-west region of Sao Paulo state.

5 comments:

js144 said...

So... I don't really know how to react. I think that the word "unlucky" doesn't even begin to describe this situation. I'm not sure what happened or how he failed to tie his safety harness but what is disturbing is how this is turning into a public suicide attempt. I think that the assumptions being made in this case, before anyone knows anything is only hyping this up when it could be prevented. Any number of things could have happened and his re-entery into the world will be traumatic if this blows out of proportion. Yes, he should have checked the harness, and there should have been people watching his every move. I know that in any single production, we have run crew members that are told to merely stand there and watch a match get struck. If there was a scene like that in our theater, you can bet we would have three people watching that for safety hazards.

beccathestoll said...

This horrible accident should serve to highlight the incredible importance of safety checks and clear procedures when it comes to hazardous scenes, props, etc. this is why there is such a strict chain of command with these things, and it is a shame that that chain seems to have failed here, or not been in the best configuration to begin with. As noted above, we stress the importance of safety checks here by having crew members assigned to fire watch, establishing "ready" and "not ready" signals whenever someone is flying or engaging in tough stage combat, handing off weapons in a specific order and only letting certain people handle them, etc. I hope firstly that the victim in this case will recover, and that something like this can in the future be prevented by implementing safety checks like the ones we have here.

seangroves71 said...

This truly is an unfortunate incident, no matter what the size of the show, where it is, who is in it having an accident like this is a tragedy. as Becca points out though, this is the reason why stage hands are given the duty of being watchers. We all are familiar with the term fire watch or safety watch. These are in place to make sure that the "stunt" in question is going as planned. especially for a stunt like this, the question comes to mind who was responsible for confirming the safety line was secure. and why was it only the actors who finally realized that something was wrong.

njwisniewski said...

I also really don't know how to react to such a headline, I was a little horrified at the thought that a fatality like this would have been almost took place in a public theater. I can't even imagine the first reaction of the people working behind the stage, were they knowledgable of what was happening, or were they also did they not understand- like the audience? And how do you handle a situation like that- how long is too long to know/ determine when something is going terribly wrong? Then again, who am I to ask such I question- I myself don't exactly know what the circumstances were for such a thing to happen. Thank gosh he's still alive, hopefully they can determine what went wrong with his harness to prevent such a mistake from happening again.

AJ C. said...

This is a sad thing to happen to anyone, anywhere. No matter how hard we try to replicate dangerous events on stage, we need to make sure they stay a replication and not actual. Being aware and making sure there is time to rehearse, practice safety procedures, and establishing checks and procedures is the key to all of this. We might not be able to account for everything possible, but having the procedures in hand is the first step. It can't be up to the audience or actors to realize something is wrong, it should be up up to someone else who isn't doing anything else at the time. Everyone can help, but making sure that there is a direct was to stop or prevent an emergency or accident from happening should be more clear in the beginning.