Heath Ledger was right . . . sort of . . .

Recently, I was reading one of the last interviews with Heath Ledger where he talks about his role of the 'Joker' in the upcoming "Dark Knight", Batman film. He described the Joker as a 'disturbed, murderous character with zero empathy' and further states how it became a difficult role to shake off once filming wrapped. According to Ledger, the persona of the 'Joker' remained with him and, as of the date of this interview, contributed to his inability to concentrate and sleep. His subsequent death weeks later, his autopsy and later toxicology analysis revealed that he had died of a mixture of otherwise harmless medications. Sad to say, this guy was on pills to relax, to give him energy, to keep him awake, and help him fall asleep. The deadly mix is what got him and its kind of troubling to see a young person, movie star no less, that feels he needs pills to get through daily life. But aside from that, I do believe Heath Ledger was accurate about being troubled over the character of the Joker. I too, experienced the same thing.

In 1995, I starred in an Off-Broadway show, titled "Theatre of the Macabre". See the picture below taken during the show.

I co-wrote this show with a partner of mine, Robin Reseen. Furthermore, I designed and engineered all of the magic and escapes within the context of the show. Theatre of the Macabre was conceived as a very dark show revisiting the lives and deeds of some of history's worst killers, and extracting what little dark humor we could from those stories. There were elements of Grand Guignol Theatre within the context of it. It was a bloody show, but alot of fun to do. It ran for three years playing three times a week (at one point four) at the 13th Street Repertory Theatre, the Kraine Theatre in the East Village, the Trilogy in Times Square and the Wings Theatre off Greenwich Street in the West Village, respectively. Three quarters of the shows in the three year long run were sold-out in advance. Two actresses, one with a speaking part and the other without, joined me in the show. Over the course of three years we had maybe a dozen or so actresses. All were very good in their own way and lent their unique personalities to their roles in the show. Theatre of the Macabre played at midnight with a matinee on Sunday at 3pm and get this, the ticket price was only ten dollars!

The initial conception of and subsequent writing of the show took more than a year. Before any writing, there was the months and months of research. Every afternoon, I would sit in the reading room of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue with books spread out before me on those large oak tables and yellow legal pads filled with notes from materials that could not be removed from the library. It was here in the quiet, away from the noise of the street, I studied and read about history's greatest crimes and criminals. I made much use of the copier services and reference center and took alot of notes (all before the internet made researching at home in your pajamas a reality). From 10am--3:15pm, when I headed off to my night job, I studied the lives of some really terrible people; despots, sadistic rulers, all to find a base of characters for the show. Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, John List, the Hillside Stranglers, the Zodiac Killer, John Wayne Gacy, Peter Sutcliffe, Caryl Chessman, Gary Gilmore, and Richard Speck. On microfilm, I read the newspaper accounts of Albert Fish, the serial killer of the 1930s who ate the children he murdered, Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler" who gained admittance to women's apartments by saying he was an electrical repairman, and Ed Gein, the lonely "momma's boy" who made soup bowls out of the skull's of his female victims and on whom was based Hitchcock's thriller "Psycho." Elizabeth Short the victim known as "The Black Dahlia", Leopold and Loeb, the two rich kids who, in the 1920s killed a classmate 'just to see what it would be like' and Dr. Sam Shepherd who horribly murdered his wife in the 1950s became characters in the first draft of the show. Political criminals; Heinrich Himmler, Robespiere, Vladimir Lenin, Pol Pot and much later, the unknown person with the moniker of Jack The Ripper all were considered.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Robin was doing his own research. We would then write seperately away from one another's influence. Once we completed our scene's we would meet up and read to each other what we had. Often times, Robin would suggest an element to my scene that I had not thought of and vice verse. To this day, I still feel it was the best way to collaborate--it brought out the best in both of us.

Later, we completed the first manuscript on a Remington electric typewriter in Robin's 54th Street studio apartment sometimes re-typing an entire page to make one sentence change.

Most of the characters in the show; Elizabeth Bathory, the queen who bathed in the blood of murdered girls, Vlad the Impaler, the Romanian Prince who impaled his enemies, and in some cases, his friends on wooden stakes, then ate at a banquet in front of them; Lewis Payne, one of those who conspired to kill President Lincoln; Peter Kurten, the "Dusseldorf Ripper" who sadistically murdered young girls, King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, who lived well but died horribly; Anne Boelyn who suffered and was later beheaded in a gruesome fashion by her husband; Dr. Ignatius Guillotin, inventor of the Guillotine who eventually lost his head in his own invention. Dick Turpin, the dashing seventeenth century English highwayman who danced with women along the road before he robbed them of their jewels . . . were real people whose lives and deeds we dramatised and added dark humor too.

Other characters were created by us such as Guy Keltick, the incompetent hangman of Hyde Park who ended up torturing his victims because he couldn't learn the proper mechanics of hanging; the Duval Bros, consisting of Claude, imprisoned for counterfeiting, Francois, for forgery, and Alain, for anarchy all who escaped the medieval dungeon they were chained into; Mr and Mrs. Samuel Walcott, whose bodies were consumed by the roots of an overzealous apple tree; Ellen Davenport, the master poisoner who, after killing each husband, had them buried in the fireplace in her home, were characters we had entirely made up based on amalgamations and dramatizations of real-life occurences.

Each story was concluded through magic illusion or escapes. The setting was the drawing room of a mansion where skulls exploded, pictures moved and the slitting of my assistants throat took place as she sat in a chair. I, was the lonely, duplicitious, unctuous, trecherous, evil host who made these things happen all while I told the stories of others. I brandished a sword and was not above slicing my assistant if I felt like it. I wore alot of make-up and concoted this role of a dark, sadistic, trecherous character. I laughed at the pain of others and glorified in the most depraved and sadistic of their deeds because . . . that was my role and I played it convincingly. I worked on the presentation. Costumes and make-up were designed to help me get into the role. 2000 performances over the course of three years were done and like Heath Ledger, I had a hard time shaking the persona. Many people have wondered why a show that was repeatedly sold-out is not still playing. Well, that was one of the reasons. I felt the role slowly changing my life, I was becoming this person.

When I performed other shows I found it hard to step out of the role. Even without the clothes or the make-up, I could still feel that voice coming back. It was tough . . . and I know completely what he meant.

There is truth to the fact that roles can overtake you. Even still, I think trying to conquer this problem by mixing and matching medications is not the answer.