Yesterday I attended a matinee performance at the Berkeley Rep Theatre’s Thrust Stage. The performance was a one-person play/monologue: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, written by and starring Mike Daisey. I liked the show—which focused on Jobs’ idiosyncratic personality and also the horrendous labor practices that occur at the Chinese slave factories where all the Apple stuff is manufactured (more on this later).
But I couldn’t fully enjoy the show because of an incident that happened before it started. The Thrust Stage lived up to its name.
First, the stage was poorly designed for safety. There were two stages—a smaller one on top of another one—both black. The bottom one jutted out into the front aisle where people filed by to find their seats. From where I sat, you couldn’t see the bottom portion, which was about a foot high.
For some idiotic reason the theatre was too dimly lit for people to make it safely to their seats.
The dangerously dark Berkeley Repertory Theatre on Sunday, February 27, 2011.
Add into the fact that 75% of the audience was from the WWII generation and no one on the staff had the brains to figure out that this was an accident waiting to happen.
Which it did: twice.
One woman tripped over the left corner of it and fell onto her elbows and knees. She got up quickly and walked up the ramp to her seat. She seemed ok.
Another older woman (easily 70+ years old) tripped over the right corner and fell flat on her face. She lay prostate on the floor with her arms straight down at her sides. It didn’t appear that anything cushioned her fall.
Someone helped her up. She made her way to her seat in the front row near the left side of the stage and sat next to her husband (I presume). The husband did not seem to be aware that his wife took a tumble because he didn’t say anything to her when she sat down. (It probably was too dark for him to see down the aisle.)
The worst part was that NO ONE on the management staff checked on the woman after she sat down. How could someone that old take a fall like that and NOT be injured in some way?
The woman is not made of rubber. Whatever body part she landed on should have had ice packs applied to it—at the least. More importantly, she should have been evaluated for a head injury.
There was an usher who sat a few rows down from me. She saw the fall and did nothing. (Too concerned about getting her free seat to the event.)
I can’t believe the woman wasn’t in some sort of pain. Maybe her adrenaline was pumping after the shock of the fall and she wasn’t feeling any? Maybe she was too embarrassed to complain? But I bet after the 2-hour performance—or certainly later last night—she had to be sore, stiff, and/or bruised—at the least.
At worst, she could have suffered a brain injury—like Natasha Richardson, the actress who fell while skiing. Ms. Richardson said she was OK, and then later that night got a severe headache, was rushed to the hospital, and died. Horribly sad. She was 45 years old.
I kept thinking about that during the performance. And also if a fire broke out—how many people would trip over the stage and get trampled while trying to flee.
Isn’t that stage design and the poor lighting in a public place a fire hazard? Where’s the Berkeley Fire Department when you need them to inspect something?
Where’s an EMT person in a theatre full of old people – just in case?
After the show ended, I approached the idiot usher who saw the accident and did nothing. She was handing out flyers. She couldn’t care less that she was not helpful to the fallen woman. She shooed me away and told me to speak to the manager.
I told the manager that the stage was a death trap (what if the woman fell and hit her head on the corner of it?) and that it was a disgusting lack of concern not to check on the welfare of the woman after she fell. The manager looked dumfounded (an indication of her IQ perhaps?). I told the manager my name in case the woman sued her for bodily injury, as I was a witness to the idiotic negligence at the Rep.
Here’s the irony: part of the show was an exposé of the atrocious working conditions of Chinese workers building American products. We were supposed to feel bad for the Chinese people and help them in their plight.
But no one on staff at the Rep felt like helping for the elderly American woman who fell flat on her face.
Another irony: the Rep was the first theatre to show Green Day’s American Idiot musical. Someone forgot to tell the staff that the theme was: You DON’T want to be an American Idiot—not the other way around.
Another complaint: The Rep info said parking at a particular garage was $3 with validation. We parked at the correct parking garage (according to the Rep instructions) and got a validation stamp inside the theatre. The parking garage bandit charged us $10. HUH? He said he didn’t honor validation. The sign said: Sunday Parking: $5 all day. I guess he didn’t honor the sign either.
Where is the Berkeley Police Department in rooting out thugs that rip off the public? If the Berkeley PD would like to investigate the extortion going on at the parking garage, the thug looked like Moammar Gadhafi’s kin.
BTW, never going back to the Rep again. I doubt the elderly woman will either. I hope she is OK.
“Music can change the world because it can change people.”- Bono