STORY 3: THE THEATER DIVA

Hello again, dear readers. This is your host, The Diwata, again telling you stories from beyond. And this time, we will be talking about a theater diva that seemed to never want to leave her beloved stage. As of this time, she is believed to have been haunting her theater for more than 70 years now.

Meet Marissa, the theater actress, through my student friends…

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HANGING INCIDENT #1

So it seems that Marissa (now known as Marita) has had a variation of stories through the years. And it would seem she has a flair for reruns as most of the stories seem to be repeated but with different people (and plays) involved. Please note that this story is dated around the late 2000s since I was a student in UP during that time. I submitted this as part of my report for a class project.

The worst one was what happened to *beep* in “Hinabing Pakpak”.

The story behind that was that there was a guy who was going to hang himself because of poverty and he was involved in a rape case. In that scene, a rope would come down from above and the kid would reach for it and then put the noose around his neck. Then lights off onstage.

On this particular show, the actor was now standing on the said ramp and has placed the rope around his neck. Then suddenly the actor’s mouth started to foam like he was having an epileptic attack and he jumped from the ramp!

Since he already had the rope around his neck the hanging has become real. One crew member went in to hold him while others helped remove the rope and lay him down on the stage. The actor, when he came around, didn’t remember what happened at all. He remembered blacking out but did not remember jumping from the ramp.

And no, he wasn’t an epileptic.

Many of us saw this and were so terrified. And then we remembered the story of Marissa, a theater diva who hanged herself in the same theater where we were holding the production.

Later on, I would find out that this incident has happened before from a friend's story…

HANGING INCIDENT #2

The conclusion of my Marita story is very similar, except that my story happened around the late 1980’s…

Remember that in the previous story, she has already tried to kill the actor who was portraying the rapist/antagonist in the play. In this story, my friend, who was portraying a rapist in the play, would hear someone calling him while in the upper dressing room beside the catwalk.

One time he did step onto the catwalk and he almost fell because he felt someone pushed him. But when he turned around, there was no one there. Good thing he was able to hold on to the railings or he would have had a serious accident.

But as I said, Marita/Marissa wasn’t done with him.

A bit of info about the play: It ends with the rapist being hanged. The contraption they used was an uber-large movable wooden wall with a painting of a large tree on one surface. The rope was solidly attached to the wall via the wooden braces behind it. That’s where the wheels were attached so they could roll the tree in during the very short lights out between scenes. 

They also had an assistant behind the wall who would push three small blocks of wood so the actor can hold and step on them once he was “hanged”. Of course, they were camouflaged with paint so they would merge with the backdrop.

Basically, when the actor falls from the small landing in front of the backdrop, before the rope snags his neck, the assistant will then push the three blocks forward so that the actor could use them to support himself from actually getting hanged. Blocks 1 and 2 supported his hands and Block 3 supported his legs.

He hardly used the ones for his hands because he was afraid that the audience will see through the illusion and lose the dramatic effect of the scene. And it made such a great impression.

Let’s go through technical rehearsals so you can envision how this contraption works…

Lights out. Ghost-like voice over.

Lights on. Lots of people looking at the actor who’s standing on a ledge in front of the “tree”.

Lights out. Loud noise.

Lights on. The people are gone.

And the actor is hanging from the tree with “nothing” supporting him underneath.

Music fade in. Light out.

End of scene.

Everything had to be timed just right or else the hanging will truly kill the actor.

So the final show began and everything went on as usual…

Except that, this time, the assistant COULDN’T PUSH BLOCK THREE IN!

The actor was already kicking the wall and was holding on to dear life using Blocks 1 & 2 to hold him up but the rope was just too tight around his neck and he was weakening due to the lack of oxygen.

The assistant was already panicking. He pushed and pushed with all his might but he couldn’t budge the block!

During those years, there were no portable mics or radios back then to ask for help with. Worse, he had to wait until the lights were off to help the actor. The poor worried assistant was already swearing, praying, and screaming in his head.

The same was true with the actor.

The minute lights off came, the assistant ran to the actor, hugged the now unconscious man’s legs, held them as high as he could then started yelling hysterically to the backstage people (uncaring if he was heard by the audience) KEEP THE  LIGHTS OFF! DON’T

TURN ON THE LIGHTS! HELP ME! *Bleep* JUST GOT HANGED! NO TO LIGHTS ON!

I don’t remember if the actor got sent to the hospital or he was revived backstage. But thank God the dramatic ending of the play (which was the death of the antagonist) didn’t happen, on stage… or in real life.

See how similar the stories are?

It looks like Marissa doesn’t care if she’s in the afterlife but still continues to do all these things. Not really surprised.

The show must go on, after all.

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So there you go, dear readers. And those aren’t the only stories that star this devious diva with a vendetta and many of them are quite terrifying. I promise you, there will be more stories about her, and spirits like her, in the future.

I truly hope that you enjoyed these stories. Meanwhile, I will have to say goodbye to you. My pets are waiting to be fed.

Thank you and goodnight.