BAM's fall season may be drawing to a dramatic, somewhat morbid close with Krapp's Last Tape and the next-to-penultimate performance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, but the winter season will launch with a bang when Kevin Spacey takes the stage next month as the title character in Richard III. Or, rather, with a "zap!" Spacey has been breaking character to reprimand noisy audience members during recent performances of the production, currently running in Sydney, Australia, even shining a laser pointer at some restless spectators.
Last week during one of the performances of the Sam Mendes-directed production of Shakespeare's history play, the Telegraph reports, a spectator's phone rang. Spacey, breaking character, yelled, "Tell them we're busy!" The audience shared his sentiment.
The very next evening the tyrannical king took another noisy audience-member to task, the Sydney Morning Herald reports:
just after the interval, there was some rustling and murmuring in the audience within earshot of the evil monarch.Spacey, quick as you like, dipped into his tunic and withdrew a green laser light, pointing it at the offending audience members who, we are told, were suitably chastised as the point—SHUT UP—was wordlessly made.
(L.A. Times; Photo: Manuel Harlan)
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