Newborn steals show at Vienna's Burgtheater
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A performance of Jean Racine's 1677 play "Phaedra" at Vienna's prestigious Burgtheater was upstaged by real-life drama late Friday, when a theatre-goer gave birth in the foyer, a newspaper reported.
The daily Kurier said in its Saturday edition that a 40-year-old pregnant woman identified only as Miryam S. went into labour shortly after the end of the performance.
But before the ambulance could arrive, she gave birth to a baby boy with the assistance of the theatre's doctor.
Mother and child were then taken to a hospital and both were doing well, the newspaper said.
Vienna's Burgtheater is one of the most prestigious theatres in the German-speaking world. The current run of Racine's "Phaedra" -- in a new staging by German director and Burgtheater chief Matthias Hartmann and starring German actress Sunnyi Melles in the title role -- is completely sold out.
Hartmann described the dramatic turn of events on Friday evening as "an historic occasion".
"Maybe he should be called Hippolytus or Theseus after the two leading male characters," Hartmann told the newspaper, adding that the boy would be honoured with lifelong free entrance to the theatre.