Actor Slits His Throat On Stage With Real Knife

When a props mistress made a mistake, the 30-year-old actor slit his throat in a suicide scene with a real knife instead of a prop.

During a scene from Friedrich Schiller`s play `Mary Stuart` by Hamburg-based Thalia Theatre company at Vienna National theatre, act five, the starring actor, 30-year-old Daniel Hoebels was supposed to have picked up a knife and committed suicide.

He slit his throat and blood started oozing, Austrian media report. Hoevels managed to drag himself backstage and was rushed to hospital. The audience never noticed a thing and the rest of the company continued with the play. Doctors determined Daniel had cut his skin and tissue. They stitched his wound and sent him back to his hotel.

- If the cut had been slightly deeper, Hoevels would not have made it – a doctor of the Vienna hospital said.

The switch was not intentional?

The police concluded that 37-year-old props mistress Anika S. placed a real knife on the stage, instead of a prop. The inquest is still under way, and it is assumed she will be charged with endangerment.

Still, she is not suspected with intentionally wanting to kill the actor, but it is believed that she had switched knives by accident. The inquest is examining if someone else placed the real kitchen knife in the props suitcase and whether someone had a motive to kill the actor.

The police determined that the knife was purchased in Vienna, because it still had a price tag on it. It is still not familiar if Anika, the unwary props mistress, would be fired.