They may need an exorcist soon at the Point Theatre in Dublin if a jinx which seems to have stymied its production of The Phantom of the Opera fails to go away.
The Phantom of the Point struck twice during a matinee performance on Saturday, causing the sound system to fail and the stage mechanics to jam, bringing the show to a premature end.
The cancellation followed an incident last month when an actress in the lead role fell ill on stage at a time when the understudy was also unwell.
Management at the Point have been eager to dispel any rumours that a ghoulish force is at play. But many staff members are worried that there is "something out there".
"Since the show started there have been all sorts of weird things happening," said one employee. "The cleaning staff are convinced their Hoovers are starting all by themselves."
In a strange case of life imitating art, the show was interrupted on Saturday by a faceless voice announcing tales of woe. It wasn't the Phantom himself but an unfortunate Point employee who had to explain to the 2,500 capacity crowd that the show had to be at first delayed and finally cancelled.
The first interruption, lasting about 15 minutes, occurred shortly after the show began. Someone apparently unplugged the computer system which operated the orchestra keyboards. Who? The mystery remains.
The second incident occurred during the interval when the computers which operated the scenery for the show "crashed", leaving the audience, some of whom had travelled from as far away as Tyrone and Cork, trailing home early.
"Whatever caused it, it's ruined our day completely," said Ms Siobhan Mangan from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, who had gone to the show with her mother and grandmother to celebrate the latter's 73rd birthday.
A Point spokesman said all ticket-holders would be refunded but he could not guarantee travel expenses would be paid.
Future performances of the show should not be affected by the system failure, the cause of which, although not human, was not supernatural either, he said. "The fact is that when you have a show that lasts three months people are going to go sick and you are going to have incidents like this. There is nothing suspicious about it."
Others might disagree, however, as Saturday's performance was the second in almost as many weeks to be disrupted. And as we all know, these things tend to come in threes.
