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I stumbled on this the other day.
Perhaps the best worst show story EVER.
The original text is posted at: http://www.theatrebristol.co.uk/cont...ategoryID=1023
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Leo Bassi - A True Story By Bim Mason
Last week I went to the interesting artist-producer talk called Nurturing Risk, given as part of the In-Between Time festival at Arnolfini.
The speakers explained the ways that risk was involved in their work.
What was at stake were future careers or current reputations, upsetting friends or wasting invested time and money.
I couldn't help comparing this with the risks faced by other kinds of performers. What follows is a true story recounted to me by Leo Bassi when he was in Bristol last October.
Leo was invited to perform at an arts festival in Philadelphia, USA. He performed his show in a slick new arts centre and afterwards wondered why, since Philadelphia had an overwhelmingly black population, there were hardly any black members of the audience.
Wanting to make contact with that culture he stated his intention to the organisers of going down to the centre of the black neighbourhood to do a show on the sidewalk.
The organisers strongly advised him not to for fear of his own safety but when pressed they offered to drive him there. However having offloaded him they refused to stay in the vicinity and said they would pick him up in an hour.
The locals were surprised to see this fat, besuited, middle-aged white man in their midst, even more so when he began setting up a street show and began a frenzied break-dancing routine. Their suspicion and derision turned into wonder and amusement at this attempt to do black dance, thereby making fun of his whiteness, and he gathered an enormous crowd.
Suddenly, from behind him, some men grabbed him and proceeded to beat him up. He didn't fight back but protected himself as they kicked him onto the ground, destroying his props, breaking his ribs and pulping his face.
The audience were against these self-appointed guardians of the black ghetto but were too fearful to intervene, except for one woman who screamed at them that he was just trying to make them laugh; she cradled him on the ground and with the help of a few others possibly saved his life.
At this point a police car, called to the big public disturbance, screamed up and the two officers waded into the crowd beating people indiscriminately, including the woman and her supporters. The police dragged the semi-conscious Bassi to their car and took him straight to the hospital, assuming him to be a rather stupid white tourist who had wandered into the neighbourhood by mistake.
As they arrived at the hospital and were bringing out a stretcher-trolley, a gunfight broke out. An ambulance had been followed to the hospital with the aim of finishing someone off before they got inside the doors.
One of the police officers was shot and Bassi was left lying helpless in the gutter by the car. During the shoot-out police shot one of the gunmen and he fell on top of Bassi and breathed his last into Bassi's face.
In the confused aftermath, Bassi's blood-soaked body was being wheeled towards the mortuary when he was discovered to be alive - nobody knew who he was because the two original police officers were either dead or injured and, being in costume, he had no identification.
Therefore, unable to be registered into the hospital, he was parked in a side-room and left for several hours. By this time the festival organisers had got back to the site of the performance and could see no sign of him; somebody explained what had happened but they were given the impression he had been killed on the street.
After frantic enquiries to various hospitals the police informed them that he had been alive on arrival at hospital but had been killed in the shoot-out. All this was being relayed to Bassi's wife waiting anxiously in a hotel. Eventually an orderly discovered Bassi and, after having cleaned up the copious amounts of blood all over him, discovered that his injuries, although bad, were not life-threatening.
Because he had no money or health insurance, and was able to walk, the two of them decided to slip him out of the hospital. The orderly paid for a taxi to take him back to his hotel early the following morning. At the hotel reception they refused him entry because of his ghastly appearance until they found out who he was.
The festival organisers were preparing their statement to the media about the death of one of their guest international artists so were hugely relieved, as, of course, was Bassi's wife and Bassi himself.
When the story got out Bassi was feted by the American theatre establishment and greeted as a hero at a theatre conference in New York, where he had the opportunity to draw attention to the sharp, black-white divisions in American society. Subsequent to this he met well-known film directors and was invited to appear in their films.
Bim Mason
Perhaps the best worst show story EVER.
The original text is posted at: http://www.theatrebristol.co.uk/cont...ategoryID=1023
------------------------------
Leo Bassi - A True Story By Bim Mason
Last week I went to the interesting artist-producer talk called Nurturing Risk, given as part of the In-Between Time festival at Arnolfini.
The speakers explained the ways that risk was involved in their work.
What was at stake were future careers or current reputations, upsetting friends or wasting invested time and money.
I couldn't help comparing this with the risks faced by other kinds of performers. What follows is a true story recounted to me by Leo Bassi when he was in Bristol last October.
Leo was invited to perform at an arts festival in Philadelphia, USA. He performed his show in a slick new arts centre and afterwards wondered why, since Philadelphia had an overwhelmingly black population, there were hardly any black members of the audience.
Wanting to make contact with that culture he stated his intention to the organisers of going down to the centre of the black neighbourhood to do a show on the sidewalk.
The organisers strongly advised him not to for fear of his own safety but when pressed they offered to drive him there. However having offloaded him they refused to stay in the vicinity and said they would pick him up in an hour.
The locals were surprised to see this fat, besuited, middle-aged white man in their midst, even more so when he began setting up a street show and began a frenzied break-dancing routine. Their suspicion and derision turned into wonder and amusement at this attempt to do black dance, thereby making fun of his whiteness, and he gathered an enormous crowd.
Suddenly, from behind him, some men grabbed him and proceeded to beat him up. He didn't fight back but protected himself as they kicked him onto the ground, destroying his props, breaking his ribs and pulping his face.
The audience were against these self-appointed guardians of the black ghetto but were too fearful to intervene, except for one woman who screamed at them that he was just trying to make them laugh; she cradled him on the ground and with the help of a few others possibly saved his life.
At this point a police car, called to the big public disturbance, screamed up and the two officers waded into the crowd beating people indiscriminately, including the woman and her supporters. The police dragged the semi-conscious Bassi to their car and took him straight to the hospital, assuming him to be a rather stupid white tourist who had wandered into the neighbourhood by mistake.
As they arrived at the hospital and were bringing out a stretcher-trolley, a gunfight broke out. An ambulance had been followed to the hospital with the aim of finishing someone off before they got inside the doors.
One of the police officers was shot and Bassi was left lying helpless in the gutter by the car. During the shoot-out police shot one of the gunmen and he fell on top of Bassi and breathed his last into Bassi's face.
In the confused aftermath, Bassi's blood-soaked body was being wheeled towards the mortuary when he was discovered to be alive - nobody knew who he was because the two original police officers were either dead or injured and, being in costume, he had no identification.
Therefore, unable to be registered into the hospital, he was parked in a side-room and left for several hours. By this time the festival organisers had got back to the site of the performance and could see no sign of him; somebody explained what had happened but they were given the impression he had been killed on the street.
After frantic enquiries to various hospitals the police informed them that he had been alive on arrival at hospital but had been killed in the shoot-out. All this was being relayed to Bassi's wife waiting anxiously in a hotel. Eventually an orderly discovered Bassi and, after having cleaned up the copious amounts of blood all over him, discovered that his injuries, although bad, were not life-threatening.
Because he had no money or health insurance, and was able to walk, the two of them decided to slip him out of the hospital. The orderly paid for a taxi to take him back to his hotel early the following morning. At the hotel reception they refused him entry because of his ghastly appearance until they found out who he was.
The festival organisers were preparing their statement to the media about the death of one of their guest international artists so were hugely relieved, as, of course, was Bassi's wife and Bassi himself.
When the story got out Bassi was feted by the American theatre establishment and greeted as a hero at a theatre conference in New York, where he had the opportunity to draw attention to the sharp, black-white divisions in American society. Subsequent to this he met well-known film directors and was invited to appear in their films.
Bim Mason