Pirates & Theater

... apparently don't mix well!

I recently visited the "Real Pirates" exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural History. It follows the early-1700s shipwrecked Whydah and its crew. It's very impressive - I highly recommend checking it out if you're in the area!

One of the Whydah stories I read was particularly ridiculous, so I decided to share it with you. It was listed as a side note on a "Life on Board a Pirate Ship" banner.

One-Act Plays -- Pirate Style

Pirates even performed plays on ships. The Whydah crew staged a play about a mock pirate trial called The Royal Pirate. A group of crewmembers, the worse for drink, missed the first act. They stumbled in -- clueless that a play was being performed -- just as one of the actors was being sentenced to death for piracy.

Outraged, they leapt to his defense, throwing hand grenades and drawing their cutlasses, breaking the actor's leg, taking the arm off the playwright, and killing a member of the audience.

!!! It really made me appreciate all of the performances that I've been to that haven't involved any unplanned violence!

But I guess what else should we expect from drunken pirates?