(~10 minutes to read)

Apparently, plays are getting more realistic. A high school production of Sweeney Todd in New Zealand proved a little too real when two pupils (students) had their necks cut during a throat-slitting scene and ended up in hospital overnight. You can read about it here and here.

While this incident was not intended, the levels of gore and violence depicted on stage seem to be getting more and more realistic. I wish I’d bought shares in a fake blood company—I’d be rolling in money by now!

But this set me thinking. Just as pupil and student are different names for the same thing, so are operating room and operating theatre.

It’s Historical

Back in the early days of surgical procedures, an operation was a spectator sport. Students (pupils) came to watch; the public could also. Seating was tiered (see pictures here, here and here) to allow a good view for the many, and I’m sure a lady must have come round with a tray of choc ices at some of the more enterprising facilities. I didn’t dig into the question of whether smoking was allowed in these theatres, but the question is probably moot because there was little or no understanding about the need for a sterile environment. It was therefore natural to call the facility an operating theatre.

Brits still refer to an operating room as an operating theatre, even though the tiered seating and choc ice lady are long-gone.

But back to that thinking I mentioned. Healthcare systems around the world struggle for funding. Perhaps I’ve come up with a solution that harnesses the theatrical authenticity that audiences crave…

Live (We Hope) Theatre)

“Anyone got two tickets for theatre three they don’t want?” cried the eager young man to the queue of geeks, ghouls and slice-and-dice movie fans.

“’Ow much?” enquired a slightly stout millennial in an imported Liverpool soccer shirt.

“Face value plus ten percent” replied the eager young man, his date clinging to his arm with excitement.

“Face and fifteen and they’re yours” countered the Liverpool fan.

The transaction complete, the couple took the Liverpool fan’s place in the queue. With their tickets secure, they relaxed a little and their thoughts turned to refreshments. Kenny (for that was the eager young man’s name) asked Celeste (his date) what she’d like, and a few minutes later returned with a large tub of caramel corn and two extra-large generic colas. The corn was balanced on his head, it being impossible to carry two XL colas in one hand.

“These people are in theatre three as well, Kenny” Celeste informed him.

“We’ve been waiting for weeks for this one to come round” said Tyler, the taller of their fellow theatre three patrons. “There’s gonna be so much blood.”

Celeste was unable to contain a small squeal of nervous excitement mixed with trepidation.

“Did you donate at clubtogether.com?” Kenny asked.

“Sure did!” smiled Tyler. “It was up to sixty-three grand when I was on.”

“It was seventy-two when I checked on the way here,” said Celeste. “Only another three thousand and we’ll get to see the director’s cut.”

Just then, the doors to all the theatres opened, and the queue moved forward, thinning out as the line passed each theatre entrance. Tyler, his companion, Kenny and Celeste all entered theatre three and found their seats. All four hundred and fifty-seven seats had been sold and soon the theatre was a heaving mass of excited, nervous, chattering fans. The lights dimmed, the screen flickered into life and numerous public information announcements about healthcare played. The audience, realizing this wasn’t the main feature, resumed their chatter.

Finally, the announcements ended, and the audience were reminded to turn off their phones, as no recording devices were allowed. The area at the front of the theatre became brightly illuminated, and an expectant hush fell over the audience.

The show began. Within seconds, the first knife cut. How the audience cheered! Someone started a chant of “blood, blood, blood…”

On the screen, the clubtogether.com total started flashing as it hit seventy-five thousand. A great roar arose from the audience—fortunately, the glass wall between it and the performers was virtually soundproof and their concentration wasn’t compromised.

The head surgeon looked up at the screen, saw the total and paused. A nurse pressed a button and the screen displayed a list of options followed by an instruction for the audience to vote using the keypads in their seats. The options were (a) the anaesthetist brings the patient around, (b) the surgical team operates with nothing on except their gloves, mask and hats, (c) the head surgeon puts a blindfold on.

The audience voted.

“It’s always bloody option B they go for,” muttered the head surgeon, removing his gown. “Don’t they realize how unhygienic it is? Now I’m going to be shedding dead skin everywhere. Still, let’s see what they think of this.”

As the team disrobed, it became clear to the spectators that perhaps another option would have been more entertaining—but how were they to know that the entire team was wearing temporary tattoos with slogans such as, ”Stop the blood art”, “Pray you never need this operation” and “This isn’t Psycho”.

The impact of the messages was somewhat tempered by the sight of the anaesthetist’s red and yellow polka-dot knickerbocker underwear—had he anticipated the audience’s choice or was this his normal choice of underwear? Either way, the audience, by now a baying mob, loved it.

The surgery continued, and soon entered a less-than-dramatic phase. The screen, which up till then had been showing macro images of the surgeon’s worksite, switched to a CGI infomercial.

A computer-generated middle-aged doctor, programmed to look just sufficiently unlike Bob Kelso from Scrubs to avoid lawsuits looked up from his clipboard and gazed into the camera, the sincerity methods of his facial objects working overtime.

The financial numbers having been plugged into the file containing his script, he began.

“Hello. I’m Otto Méton, Chief of Medicine at Queen Boadicea Hospital’s O.R. Plex. Thank you for supporting OpView surgical procedures. I’m excited to report that we have a full house tonight; the only cloud in an otherwise blue sky is that several hundred people tried to purchase tickets after they had sold out and had to be disappointed; clearly it’s time for bigger facilities!

“Let me share with you just a few numbers about tonight. The budgeted cost of this operation is one hundred and thirty-seven thousand, five hundred and fifty dollars. The head surgeon is authorized to allow an overrun of up to ten percent.

“Thanks to your interest in pay-to-view surgery, OpView ticket sales for this event have raised $75,405.00. Please give yourselves a round of applause!

“Donations through clubtogether.com amount to $76,240.00 so far, exceeding the $75,000.00 required to offer you tonight’s “director’s cut” choices. (More applause.) Thanks to your compassion for the patient, you selected option “B”—a good choice, given the visual attributes of this particular team!”

Here the audience laughed at the irony of the computer-generated gag.

“Revenue from concession sales for this event is expected to amount to approximately $5,255.00; this may indicate that many of you are following healthy diets and avoiding the fattening junk we offer. We’d therefore like your opinion on alternatives. If you would like OpView to offer healthy snacks, press “1” on your keypad. If you’d like healthy, organic snacks, please press “2”. If you’d prefer a wider selection of junk, press “3”. Please vote now.“
An annoying synthesized jingle, just sufficiently unlike the Jeopardy! think time song to avoid lawsuits played, while images of audience members thoughtfully considering the question flashed on the screen.

As the music stopped, the Kelso-almost image once again gazed sincerely into the virtual camera.

“Well, that was an emphatic ‘yes’ vote for a wider selection of junk, you little porkers you!” he said, allowing a little laugh to escape. “That’s just as well, because the margin on that organic crap wouldn’t even pay for a Band-Aid on a scraped knee!” Here, the computers overlaid his eyes with spinning slot machine tumblers, stopped them on the dollar signs and played a cash payout sound effect.

On the table, something interesting was happening. A nurse tapped a code into a keypad, and the Kelso-almost image lost its overlays and adopted a serious expression.

“I’ve just been informed that,”—an almost-imperceptible pause occurred as the computer plugged the event description for the nurse-supplied code into the script—“a surgeon has nicked an artery, so let’s return to the live-for-the-moment action.”

The image crossfaded to the macro shot of the worksite where blood was pumping in spurts from a piece of plumbing in the patient’s chest. Gloved hands were appearing from everywhere, and a quick glance at the team members’ faces made it clear there was a crisis.

The head surgeon looked to the nurse with the keypad, his eyes those of an unhappy man. He made a finger-across-the-throat motion, and the nurse shook her head; the crowd sensed disharmony in the team! He removed his hands from the chest of the by-now flat-lining patient, and strode purposefully to the nurse, whereupon he tried to grab the keypad. He’d left himself exposed though, and the nurse’s slippered foot connected with his totally-exposed nether regions. He doubled up, but quickly recovered, and picked up a scalpel. The crowd was loving it—not since before fighting was banned in hockey had they had this much fun!

The head surgeon brandished the scalpel and attempted a couple of slashes. The nurse was too much of a pro to fall for that though, and hit his wrist smartly with the keypad. But he had expected this. As the scalpel skittered across the floor he placed his blood-covered gloved hands around the nurse’s neck. The spectators hadn’t expected that level of personal contact, and they roared their appreciation.

The nurse obligingly hung her tongue out of her mouth and made her eyes go all bulgy, and the surgeon grabbed the keypad. He tapped a code in, and curtains fell, preventing the audience from seeing what happened next. They booed, they threw their popcorn and drinks containers at the glass, and a few even tried to start a fight but were quickly ejected by the psychiatric ward orderlies standing by.

Behind the curtains, the team was removing the fake blood and its delivery tube from the patient’s chest, irrigating the site, and putting a couple of sutures in the real artery that the audience had thought had been cut. The nurse checked that all was good, spotted the flat-line readout on the vitals monitor, changed it to a more believable set of data, and raised the curtains.

The audience cheered, but were surprised and a little disappointed that the team had saved the situation so well. But then they almost always did in OpView theatres. The number of cases where they didn’t was miniscule, and none were ever as dramatic and exciting as the ones that they saved.

The operation continued. At another point, the Kelso-almost character launched a request for additional donations, citing the need for the hospital to balance its books. Some of the audience coughed up; most didn’t. The crisis had been the climax of the spectacle, and it didn’t seem likely that there would be any further excitement. People finished their popcorn and drinks and started drifting away. The surgical team noticed this and breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Why the hell we have to crack the guy’s chest open to give him a vasectomy beats me” muttered the surgeon.

“It’s what the public wants” opined his assistant. “Nobody would buy a ticket for a straight vasectomy. This way, the hospital made twenty grand profit, the public got what they wanted, and we got to practise our chest-opening procedures; it’s a win-win”.

“Tell that to this poor schmuck,” retorted the surgeon.
Over in the corner, keypad nurse had been thinking.

“Hey guys,” she said. “I think I’ve got a solution that will allow us to concentrate the action on the vasectomy site and keep the public interested.”

“I’m listening,” said the head surgeon uncertainly.

“What if we were to suggest to Admin that we move into vampire porn?”

“Nah. What medical professional in their right mind would want to replace their eye teeth with scalpels?”