Civilian Report & Recording #20130418LO - All the World’s a Stage

RECORD #20130418LO
TYPE: CIVILIAN REPORT AND INTERVIEW
RELATED PERSON(S)/ENTITY(S): Teresa Felle, Record-Keeping Assistant (TF), Ernest Killingsworth, Branch Record-Keeper (EK), Anthony, civilian (A), Patricia Lion, suspect (PL), Bernard Innsworth, suspect (BI), Rutherford Lewis, suspect/victim (RL)
STATUS: CONFIDENTIAL
(Recording begins at 4:39 PM Local Daylight Time, in the Interview Room of the London Branch of the Chatter & Melody Society, 393 Bethnal Green Road, Tower Hamlets, London, England.)
(RECORDING BEGINS)
(TF) I’ll be recording this. Is that alright with you?
(A) Yes! Yes… anything is alright, well, uh, anything reasonable, at least.
(TF) Okay. Please state your name.
(A) Anthony. Just Anthony.
(TF) Okay…
(Audible keyboard clacking)
(TF) What are you here to report?
(A) Some odd… events, I guess, that happened during several different musical showings.
(Audible keyboard clacking)
(TF) Thank you. You may begin.
(A) Okay. So, I’m what most of my friends call a musical theatre nerd. I’ve always loved theatre, but I’m too shy to perform on stage myself. But, during high school, I started getting involved with theatre tech. You know, lights, sound, set, all the stuff that doesn’t involve performing myself. I really got into musicals specifically in my sophomore year, when my school put on ‘Singing in the Rain’. Even though I’ve been out of school for nearly five years now, I still can’t help but love musicals. Les Miserables, Cats, Mamma Mia, Beetlejuice, all of them.
All of this is to say that I love musicals and have a pretty good idea of what goes on backstage. And so I went to see the current production of Hairspray about a month ago in Manchester. It was a good show, all in all, great actors, great production value, but what really stuck with me was the last song. It’s called ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’, and I really like it. Have it on my iPod and everything. But this particular performance just seemed, well, more right. The whole thing just felt right, like every other time I had ever heard that song was just a good recreation of this one. And I know that’s not exactly objective, but I know that it’s true! And one other thing I noticed about this production was…well, it’s one of the reasons I came here.
The whole time, the performance just felt so real. Like all the actors were really the characters they were playing. It just felt so real. That’s the only way I can describe it. Real. Not in a too-good-to-be-true way, but in a dedicated craft sort of way, like, authentic or something. But for a split second, during ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’, it’s like… the mask slipped a fraction of a millimetre, or the makeup was smudged just a little bit, it, well, the illusion was suddenly broken. It wasn’t real anymore. But, somehow, that didn’t detract from the performance. It seemed all the more real because it showed that real people were behind the perfection. Nobody else seemed to notice it. I think the only reason why I even felt anything change was that I had experience in the backstage of productions like Hairspray. There was just a tiny flicker in the lighting, or maybe a minuscule crackle on one of the actor’s mics, or, hell, one of the set pieces was moved just a bit off its spike. There was just something that threw off the perfection.
But when the show finished, I kinda just forgot about that feeling. I guess I got caught up in the applause and cheering and everything that follows a successful production. But something, something made me remember the feeling. And looking back now, I think I’ve felt it before. Back in college, I helped with a community theatre production of Legally Blonde. That one’s a very fun musical. I was in the booth working sound for that one. Everything was going well, up until the third time we put the show on. Everything was going fine until the climax of the song ‘Legally Blonde Remix’. That was when the feeling of everything being so real was present again. I think it was there for the whole of the show, but I only remember it being then because of the same ‘slipping’ feeling. When one of the actresses shouted her line, ‘Mister, you’re fired!’, everything ‘slipped’ again. I think it slipped more than during Hairspray, but my memory isn’t the best and I’m only just recalling it now.
Even now, I think I’ve experienced the ‘slip’ before. In high school we did In The Heights, and there was a slip at the climax during that one. The same happened when I helped out on a production of Newsies in college, and when I saw Rent, and West Side Story, and Wicked in New York on Broadway, and… so many other that I must not be remembering. And, well, the clearest memory of a slip I’ve got is when I saw a production of Little Shop of Horrors. It’s a horror musical, but the first time I saw it, right after graduating from college, there was a slip. A big one for sure. During the ending when Audrey II takes over the world, the slip happened. But that time, I think the slip saved me. Everything was so real that I was getting panicked, and I think the rest of the audience was too, but they didn’t know what to do. That plant was slowly crawling towards us, and to this day I do not know how the crew managed that. But the slip happened right when it reached the end of the stage, where the orchestra pit was. And, well, even though it was still coming, I stood up and started clapping. I gave that plant a one-man standing ovation. And someone else joined me. Then two more people. And soon enough the whole theatre was giving a standing ovation. Everything was normal after that, but I can’t help but think that I stopped Audrey II. Even though my claps were really quiet, almost muffled, like I was clapping from inside a feather pillow.
…
Oh, that’s it.
(TF) Thank you, Anthony. Would you like to fill out this contact form so that we can follow up with you later?
(A) No. I mean, no offence, but I just wanted to tell someone. And you guys seemed to be the best choice so…
(TF) That’s fine. Thank you for your report.
(Anthony leaves)
(TF) You saw it, right? His hands.
(█) YES. FEATHERS. DEXTEROUS FEATHERS, THE KIND CRAFTSMEN HAVE.
(TF) Good. I’m not hallucinating. Turn the backup off.
(RECORDING ENDS)
(RECORDING BEGINS)
(EK) Follow up. This Anthony fellow seems to be one Anthony Woodsman, twenty-seven years old, experienced in theatre crew stemming from high school. Reliability, solid. Nothing even vaguely suspicious in his history whatsoever. His description of clapping muffled as if by a feather pillow, the connection to musical theatre specifically, the ‘slipping’, and, of course, █‘s description of ‘dexterous feathers’ all point to Mr. Woodsman being an unwilling devotee of the Songbird. I would not be surprised if some of the productions he was a part of or attended took place on the Grandest Stage. Especially that last one, Little Shop of Horrors.
(█) FROM WHAT I RECALL, THERE WAS ONCE A SHOWING OF LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS WHERE THE AUDREY II WAS ██████████ AND WAS ONLY STOPPED BY A ██████ FROM MELBOURNE.
(EK) Thank you. None of this is especially concerning. We’ll just need to monitor Mr. Woodsman and make sure he doesn’t go Angel. Not very uncommon to find those around here. It’s far more pressing to monitor the Grandest Stage and make sure it doesn’t get closed. Follow up ends.
(RECORDING ENDS)
(RECORDING BEGINS)
(EK) I believe you’ve been in before. You’re the one who gave the report about the ‘slipping’ during musicals, right?
(A) Oh, yes. Something… else has happened, that I think might be connected to the ‘slipping’.
(EK) Okay. The assistant who you gave your earlier report to, Ms. Felle, is busy at the moment, so I’ll handle this one. Ernest Killingsworth.
(A) Anthony. But I guess you already knew that.
(EK) Ha, yes. Please, sit. Recording alright with you?
(A) Yes.
(Audible keyboard clacking)
(EK) This report concerns..?
(A) The actions of some of my old classmates. Patricia Lion, Bernard Innsworth, and Rutherford Lewis.
(Audible keyboard clacking)
(EK) Thank you. You may begin.
(A) So, after giving the first report, I decided to reconnect with some old classmates from college fore personal reasons. Patty was a frequent actress in the plays I crewed, as was Bernie. Ruth was another crew member, did mostly costumes. So we got together, had a few drinks at the local pub, White Hart. Eventually, Patty mentioned that her brother was a part of a small local production of Fiddler on the Roof. I had never seen that musical before, and so I decided to go with the rest of them.
It was pretty good for a small production, and I didn’t quite feel the ‘real’ sense until the scene when the Russians disrupt the wedding celebrations. Then it became all too real. But this time, I could tell that Patty and Bernie could feel the ‘realness’ too. Ruth seemed oblivious. The Russians ‘injured’ the actor playing Perchink as planned, but they suddenly continued to ride roughshod, attacking the other actors for real. At this point, I thought that I could do the same standing ovation thing as before, but when I tried to get up, it felt like something was holding me down. I could still move my head, and when I looked towards Patty, I saw that she was holding some sort of branch, or maybe root? It was dried up, but as the Russians continued to attack the wedding guests, it started to look more and more alive. It grew leaves, and started growing. Looking back, it also seemed to have curled around Patty’s head too… But that’s when I noticed that the branch was holding me down.
I tried to call out, but it felt like roots were holding my mouth closed. The Russians on stage were still attacking the guests, and most of them were on the ground and not moving and bleeding and… It was just horrible. And Patty was there, holding the thing that seemed to be keeping me down. But I was sitting right next to Ruth, who seeme to be unaffected by the plant or the violence, and so I elbowed him sharply. He looked at me with a surprised expression, but as I gestured towards the stage and mimed slashing with a sword, his eyes widened and I could tell that he recognised what was happening. Then I motioned towards Patty.
Ruth… well, Ruth seemed to take the only course of action right then. He got up, walked over to Patty, and ripped the branch out of her hands. It looked like it had anchored itself to her and the seat she was in, but Ruth wrenched it free with little difficulty. Then… he proceeded to beat Patty over the head with it. She didn’t move, its, well, almost like she wanted him to do it. I wasn’t paying attention to the stage anymore, but I did feel like I could move again. So I got up, and started the muffled standing ovation. And it worked. The Russians stopped attacking, and everyone began to file out for intermission. But… Ruth, and Patty, and Bernie too, they were still just there. Ruth had finished beating Patty, and both were kinda just standing there. Both were covered in blood, and splinters, and who knows what else…
I fled. I’m not ashamed. I was terrified. I ran and ran and ran until I got out of that damn theatre and… then I called the police. I said that I had been at the showing and had seen two attendees fighting in the bathroom. They showed up, broke up the showing, and discovered… the victims.
Eight people died there. Not Patty’s brother, I don’t think he had anything to do with the violence. Patty is… missing, as is Bernie. Ruth got taken to the hospital for ‘splinters and blunt force trauma’. That’s all I know.
(EK) Thank you. Would you like us to follow up with you on this one?
(A) N… actually, yes. Here, I’ll fill out the form…
(Audible pencil scratching)
(EK) Thank you.
(A) No, thank you. I’m sure the police won’t care about what Patty was doing in there…
(Anthony leaves)
(EK) Good lord… something this deadly hasn’t happened since, goodness, the assassination attempt. Turn it off, please…
(RECORDING ENDS)
(RECORDING BEGINS)
(EK) Alright. Follow up. Patricia Lion, Bernard Innsworth, and Rutherford Lewis remain missing three days after Anthony gave his statement. All of the eight who died in the Fiddler on the Roof incident died from ‘blunt force trauma’ and ‘great loss of blood’. We contacted Mr. Woodsman and he has not been contacted by any of his missing friends. He remains a devotee of the Songbird, and may well start growing feathers soon. If that happens, I recommend recruiting him. Follow up ends.