TABLEAUX VIVANT
"CAT HOUSE KILLER"
HORRIBLE BLOOD AND GORE ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT
INTERSECTION THEATER, SAN FRANCISCO,1976
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This tableau developed out of a story I was working on with my great actress, Priscilla Alden, as Bertha, the "big Madam" of Bertha's Place, the most glorious Whorehouse in Nevada. I did some storyboards...
Bertha: "The world's oldest profession is alive and well!"
Cynthia's head goes rolling across the stage before a live audience.
Bertha: "What a waste. Such a pretty girl."
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As result of the pornos, our costume and prop and set collection was rapidly growing, well we kept everything bought for each movie, the producers never minding, hell, they never wanted to see that junk again. And we happened to have done a particularly striking bedroom for one, a hot pink taffeta bedroom set, bedspread, dressing table, and big heart-shaped headboard in tufted quilting. And all this pink taffeta was brand new.
Well, Halloween was coming and we were looking around for another living tableau to put into the Intersection Theater and came up with an adaptation of our previous storyboard and called it “Cat House Killer.”
The scene was a cardboard bedroom in a whore house, all set up behind the curtain, during the other various acts, with bed, dressing table and, on the headboard, we had written “Hi! I’m Nelly” in blood red paint on the pink taffeta. Priscilla lay dead on the bed, stabbed and bloody (we had some great blood for the occasion!), Vince was the serial killer with smoking gun drawn, in a sort of capped butcher’s outfit. On the floor we creatively placed the bloody head of one of the Nickelettes, the rest of her behind the drapes, and hanging on the wall, the trussed up body of Ellen Stein, her head uncomfortably stuck through the wall; the two giving the impression of a single, decapitated body! Jim Nettleton and another guy were two cops charging through the door guns blasting and Nicole up against the wall with very realistic make-up of her face blown off, pieces of flesh freshly stuck to the door behind her.
Since "Cat House Killers" was to be performed in front of a live audience, and a very elaborate tableau, it was decided to hold a complete dress rehearsal, blood and all, before the show.
Below: Berrtha proudly points to her licence.
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At the announcement of the “tableau vivant” the lights lowered and the audience was invited to step forward for better viewing. Slowly the lights revealed the frozen scene of blood and horror. The audience gasped and silently approached the stage to stare at the grizzly details. Well, they loved it and we became somewhat known for our ridiculous but very realistic “pictures.”
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