papajim2jordan wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 6:37 am
A performer at Moscow’s famous Bolshoi Theatre was crushed to death by a falling
prop on stage. Yevgeny Kulesh, 37, was killed by the piece of scenery as it was lowered for a set change. Witnesses said the actor appeared to exit the stage on the wrong side during the performance of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera ‘Sadko’...
All actors, in some way, suffer for their craft, with the very act of losing oneself inside another being coming at a high price. All that pushing and prodding of one’s pain, joy, love, loss and failure required by the craft is invasive by nature, demanding exposure that few of us would willingly suffer.
But there are those roles where the physical extremes parallel, or outpace, the emotional ones; where art is found in extraordinary action, an “our body, ourselves” melding of the abstract of emotions with the concrete of bone and sinew. In that, 2010 emerged as one of the most grueling in recent memory — bodies drenched in sweat, ribs cracked, pounds lost, pounds gained, muscle memory stretched to the limits. The year has turned acting into an extreme sport for some stars, an extreme pleasure for spectators. (Mercury News)
In 1987, my brother, an I.A.T.S.E. Local 1 full member, was nearly killed as the set of "Phantom of The Opera" was being loaded into its Broadway theater. The scene shop hadn't built a platform to specifications (he and I had seen this before, for a set at the Delacorte Theatre, in Central Park, in 1974). He stepped on it and fell 10' to a concrete floor. His injuries were massive and only a former Vietnam medic kept him from bleeding out. He had to have brain surgery (they had to lift his brain to patch a hole below it in his skull). He spent a year in recovery and has lifelong issues he deals with to this very day. He did, eventually, return to the backstage, after having gotten a law degree. He's currently the business agent for another I.A.T.S.E. union, having retired from Local 1.
There are accidents and there is negligence. His injuries were due to negligence and corner-cutting. Specs called for safety tabs on the platform even if it wasn't bolted in place. They were never installed.
When the I.A.T.S.E. members walked off the set, production should have been halted. Instead, scabs were used, and a woman's life was lost.
I do not know if Alec Baldwin knows the 4 Rules we all know. I do not know if actors who MAY know them are still strongly discouraged from checking prop weapons to be certain they are safe.
Assume the scenario that Baldwin does NOT know the 4 Rules. He's given a prop gun and told it's "cold", movie lingo for safe and unloaded. He doesn't know that you NEVER touch the trigger till you're ready to fire and aiming at your target. Was he pointing it roughly in the correct direction and ordered to simulate firing? I don't know.
Now what if he does know the rules: Is he ordered to suspend his own judgement in favor of the armorer? And follow directions?
How did Baldwin come to pull that trigger?
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."