In the wake of Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech in which a student killed 32 people, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg has limited the use of stage weapons in theatrical productions.
Students involved in this weekend’s production of “Red Noses” said they first learned of the new rules on Thursday morning, the same day the show was slated to open. They were subsequently forced to alter many of the scenes by swapping more realistic-looking stage swords for wooden ones, a change that many students said was neither a necessary nor a useful response to the tragedy at Virginia Tech….
Brandon Berger ’10, who plays a swordsman in the show, said the switch to an obviously fake wooden sword has changed the nature of his part from an “evil, errant knight to a petulant child.” …
Do Yale students have a hard time telling theater from reality? Are they so emotionally fragile that they would be traumatized by seeing a realistic sword on stage?
Is the administration contemplating some weird scenario in which a cunning and patient mad killer-actor decides to kill people by substituting a real sword for the fake one (and would be stopped by this rule from bringing a real sword, or a real gun, in a bag)? Is it afraid that one of the actors will run off-stage waving a fake sword, and lead the police to shoot him for fear that it’s a real sword? Or am I missing some other, less far-fetched, justification?
Thanks to Instapundit and Power Line for the pointer.
UPDATE: Commenter Nikki points out: “I wonder if Dean Trachtenberg realizes that elsewhere, the university encourages sword-wielding psychos to practice their craft.” Let’s make them use wooden swords, too.