I have loved the theater ever since I was young. In my teenage years, everyone around me was obsessed with films and video games. I enjoyed them as well, but my favorite pastime was going to see the nearest stage production.
I studied accounting when I went to college due to pressure from my parents. They knew my true passion. They were supportive of my dream of being a stage director, but they knew it was not realistic.
Still, I went to the theater three times a week. I would see productions with major actors, rising stars, and amateurs. I saw everything from the majestic to the asinine. Consuming mediocre work made it worth it to me in the end. I knew the potential for witnessing a masterpiece was always around the corner.
One day in 2004, I went to see a play about a group of addicts who double-cross one another for drug money. I was one of the few that gave the cast a standing ovation. The subject matter was too heavy for a lot of people in the audience.
After everyone poured out of the auditorium, I walked outside and saw one of the lead actors sitting on a curb. He had a shaved head, and appeared emaciated, his cheekbones sunken and hollow. He was brooding. I wondered if he was downcast because of the lukewarm reception.
I approached him and told him I enjoyed what he did up there. He leaned back and stared at me, as though he suspected me as a liar.
“You mean that?”
I told him I did, and that people would acclaim the production and him in the close future.
He stood up and patted me on the shoulder.
“Your words are very kind and they mean a lot,” he said. “Have you ever been to the Verona?”
I shook my head. I had never even heard of the place.
“It’s a venue. I perform there sometimes. It requires an invitation to attend. I usually don’t offer this to anyone, but if you’re interested and you have the time, it would be an honor to have you watch us. It’s some of my best work.”
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a stack of tickets. He handed me one.
“It is happening at midnight next Tuesday. Can you make it?”
I assured him I would.
As he walked away, I flipped the ticket over and saw an address on the back.
-
When I arrived on the boulevard there was no marquee. The block consisted of nothing but a closed laundry mat, an old tattoo parlor, and a yoga center. Gang-related graffiti was everywhere.
I saw a blonde-haired woman with a trench coat walking down a set of steps. They led to some kind of sub-basement of an old shopping mall across the way. I followed and saw her enter after the door was opened for her.
I knocked. No one answered. I reached in my pocket, pulled out the ticket, and presented it in front of me. When I saw a peephole, I put the piece of paper over it.
The door opened. A man who could not have been taller than five foot four dressed in a black suit with a cherry red tie waved me in. He acted as though he were in a rush and I was inconveniencing him.
The diminutive individual escorted me down a hallway decorated with dust-blanketed paintings. There was an oval-shaped threshold he led me to which was gold and black.
Looking through it, I saw the theater. The place resembled a bomb shelter converted into an entertainment room.
Something told me this venue had been for high-stakes gambling or other illegal events at one point. I considered walking out. I did not want to give into an irrational fear because the hall did not resemble the Metropolitan, though.
The rows of seats looked plush and comfortable, even if they were old and discolored. I got comfortable in one when I heard something slam shut behind me. I turned around to look at what the noise was. A sliding metal door had blanketed the entranceway.
They could not have locked me in, I thought with consternation. Then I told myself to not be so silly.
I looked around to see who else was in attendance. The blonde woman sat a few rows down. A young man in a jean jacket sat in the very back. To know there were only three of us made me feel strange.
The light in the hall diminished. Maple-hued curtains drew back from the stage and revealed the set. Hung from the rafters were words in bold lettering - TRUE CRIME.
The backdrop had a painted depiction of a typical American suburb. An actress lay on stage in a black dress. Blood had splattered everywhere around her.
The same actor met who invited me to this event walked out and took center stage.
He broke the fourth wall and stared out at the audience before he went into his monologue.
“Elizabeth Short’s body was at Leimert Park on January 15th of 1947. One hundred and fifty different men were suspects. Short’s murder remains unsolved.”
A man came around the corner with a very large knife in hand. He crouched down over her body. He created a bisection on her lower half, and blood spray covered the entire front row.
The special effects were realistic to my eyes. It had a visceral feeling of something spontaneous, unrehearsed.
Other members of the cast walked out on stage in a slow way. They all wore the same thing - black robes. Hoods concealed their faces. They circled around and completely blanketed the woman who portrayed the Black Dahlia.
The actress who played Elizabeth Short stood up. She had changed her outfit into a cream-colored dress. She also had a hatchet in her hand.
“On August 3 of 1892,” the same speaker said, “Lizzie Borden murdered her stepmother and father. Because of her family’s wealth and police negligence, she was later acquitted of all charges.”
One of the actors threw off his ropes. He was a heavyset older man. He begged Lizzie to stop as she approached him with the blade raised in the air. She brought it down on his torso. Stream of red gushed everywhere. He screamed as she continued to strike him over and over again.
While I have always loved drama, I also had a penchant for avoiding exploitation and gore. I knew it was nothing more than smoke and mirrors, but I still lost interest at that moment. My aversion to the tale overpowered me.
I stood and went to the doorway. I looked for a latch and did not find one. I pressed my palms against the barrier and tried to slide it in a different direction to see if it would open. It did not.
I looked to my left and saw the small man who had brought me in.
“Can you open the door for me?” I asked. “I need to go.”
We made eye contact. Dark bags underneath his stare were indicative of chronic insomnia. He shook his head with a slight expression of despair and walked away. He climbed onto a platform that appeared to lead to a back kitchen. I tried to follow him, but he had already locked the chamber door behind him.
I turned around and stared at the stage again. They transitioned into a reenactment of the Elizabeth Bathory killings.
The next segment involved the Fatty Arbuckle murder. Then they jumped into the lake Berryessa killings of the Zodiac killer. I did not understand the structure or the nonlinear time jumps.
I reclaimed my seat. Foolish as this may sound, I had hoped that once it was over they would reopen everything and we would be able to exit.
It was another hour of watching the simulated slaughter. The violence shown seemed very clinical. There was no tragic voice-over showing empathy for the victims. It was only the bird’s eye perspective of the deaths. Somehow I managed to absorb the entire narrative without feeling queasy. Nonetheless, I promised myself I would never come back here once I was gone.
The last scene occurred. There was no monologue indicating its place in true crime history. A man of large stature murdered three individuals at the same time. The trio appeared tied down.
Once it was over it was time for the curtain call. The actors departed the stage before they returned for their applause.
I looked at the other two audience members. They were pale and nauseous, They seemed as though they were going to throw up.
I got to my feet and almost sprinted for the same threshold. It still had not opened and remained secured. I started screaming for them to let me out. I turned around. The other two audience members headed for the same blockaded exit.
As they did, the cast on stage grabbed one of the curtains and ripped it off of its hooks. They walked in perfect unison with one another, as though they had trained to march.
The man in the jean jacket ran up next to me. As he did so, they draped the curtain over the blonde-haired woman. I heard her yell for help, but they muffled her voice. She disappeared underneath the thick fabric.
When they unveiled her she donned the same robes as them.
They neared us then. The blonde followed, as though she had not been in distress a minute before. When I looked into her eyes she had a certain hunger not present before.
They chanted something in unison. The words were not in English. They sounded archaic and guttural.
The actor who invited me to this travesty of a play stared at me with a smile.
“I know you want to become part of us,“ he said. “Who doesn’t fantasize about being an actor? Moreover, doesn’t revel in the suffering of others? Every person looks at the victim of a violent crime with equal parts pity and gratitude. Pity for their suffering and gratitude how it was someone else and not them. Don’t you want to give that same visceral combination of emotions to every viewer who walks in?”
I turned to the guy in the jean jacket and shouted at him to kick the door in with me. We bent our legs and pummeled the bottom of our shoes against the barrier. It took six or seven tries. We managed to crack it open. I looked behind me as I slid through. They tossed the curtain over the last remaining audience member besides me.
“Don’t write or tell anyone about this,” I heard one of the voices shout from the other side.
Once I was in the hallway, I ran out onto the street. My heart raced at a far more rapid pace than I had ever experienced.
-
When I got home, I thought about the entirety of the evening and how it could’ve been an elaborate hoax.
Who could I have made so angry to pull off something so intricate and mean-spirited? It did not make any sense.
I thought it possible I had lost a bit of my sanity somehow. As I lay in bed that night, I considered calling the police. The possibility of taking everything at face value was overwhelming. If they were to come out and interview the people there, it would only lead to an accusation of me filing a false report. After all, everyone there wanted to be there.
It could have been a very strange art show. Yet nothing about it seemed to be that. Could I have been in the middle of some kind of terrifying prank show?
In the years since then, I have tried to make peace with that day. I have since read more books on cults and their belief systems than is healthy.
There are chemical cocktails and refined forms of hypnosis. This can lead to a faster type of brainwashing than even the most horrific dictatorships dream of.
Do not think for a second that the experience soured my love of the theater. I still went at every opportunity.
I never went near the street where the Verona was again. Nor will I ever again.
I continue to have nightmares about the curtains falling on me. The relief of waking up has greeted me every time.
Still, I will never forget that troupe. I often wonder what they may have done to expand in a continuous or even eternal way.