Absurdity of Stage Deaths

1895

Nature Outrageously Violated Instead of Being Shown a Mirror.

A French dramatic critic, with some show of medical knowledge, represents that nearly all actors and actresses outrageously violate nature in their imitations of death. He cites, in corroboration of his charge, the customary theatrical death of "Camille," in the younger Dumas' favorite emotional play of that title. According to the author, his heroine is affected with pulmonary consumption, and an incidental attack of hemorrhage of the lungs extinguishes her life.

There is absolutely nothing dramatic to be made out of this mode of dying, if fidelity to fact be obeyed. The gushing of a stream of blood from the mouth would be realistic, but the imitation of such a phenomenon is never made by actors, male or female, nor would any discreet manager tolerate such a piece of stage business. Again, the overwhelming suffocation which produces the rapid death in Camille's case is never accompanied by convulsions, such as her dying representatives on the stage almost always assume. In natural death from this cause the sufferer simply collapses from failure of the vital powers.

Theatrical poisoning scenes are also usually untrue to nature. It is popularly believed that when a fatal dose of laudanum or morphine is swallowed the victim immediately sinks into a deathlike sleep, as is commonly seen on the stage, whereas the first effect of this poison taken in like quantity is invariably to excite and enliven. Nor is the mode of dying after the hackneyed cardiac stage stab in conformity with the laws of nature. The actor simply falls at full length or in a heap, whereas the everyday member of society gives a spring when the heart is struck before entering eternity by this unhappy gate. Even the modern Othello has not inherited enough of Shakespeare's wonderful fidelity to truth to die naturally after a stab through the heart. — Baltimore Gazette.