Corpsing

I just this week discovered the term corpsing, even though I may have done it onstage once or twice in my time.

Corpsing is when you break character onstage and wind up laughing, causing another actor to laugh. Apparently, thanks to Wikipedia, the BBC attributes this to an actor once playing a dead person onstage, but laughed and so obviously showed the audience he was alive. Oopsies.

I thought about posting this topic, because I saw Stephen Colbert break character on his show this week and it cracked me up. For a great audio example of corpsing, check out this clip from the BBC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UvzHkqarPk

Most memorably this happened to me during two closing night performances. I was doing The Hollow in 2002 and an actress onstage with me changed her line to say "Don't you know that's the only way with Edward? Stand on a table and shout! Unbutton your blouse!" The last sentence had been added for my benefit, as an inside joke between us. And I tried to keep it together, but would up covering my laughter in my hands and turning my back to her as I got control of myself again. Yes, the audience noticed.

Another closing night performance this past summer of Lend Me a Tenor had most of us onstage cracking up, and there was no way to hide it. If you've never seen the show, two actors are in blackface make up as part of the central plot. Well closing night one of the actors hugged an actress in the final scene, smearing his make up onto her. When she reeled around to face me, as part of her blocking, she, I and the actress next to me just couldn't keep straight faces. And as I remember we laughed our way through the end of the scene. Most unprofessional, but hysterical. The audience loved it.

Theater 101

So the very first lesson I ever learned in theater when I did Oklahoma! back in 1994 and I was a lowly chorus girl was: Never let the audience see you in costume.

I don't understand why people think it's ok to hang out in the house after a show (and I mean the theater house, not your own living room) in costume chatting with friends. The whole point of being in a show is to portray someone else. It's not you onstage, you're playing another person. And the whole point the audience has come to the show is to see characters, not people they know onstage. (Yes, they've come to see their friend Joe Schmo, but they've come to see their friend act, not be Joe Shmo onstage. Big difference.) So putting on the costume and make up changes you from Joe Schmo into whoever you're playing. So TAKE IT OFF before you go see your friends and family after the performance! The costume and make up and wig create a mystique. They separate the fantasy from reality. So if before a show, or during intermission, the audience sees you in costume, you've completely blown the fantasy world for them.

This is why I ABHORE those closing nights, walk-off-stage-chat-with-the-audience things. And it's why I WILL NOT talk to you before a show if I'm in costume. Also, if I am visiting a friend in a show, I don't want to see her in costume either! Keep it together until afterwards and we'll go out and have a drink and chat. But until then let's all remember why we are in theater in the first place, and separate our characters from ourselves and the imaginary from reality.