Laura Irish in Auckland's Viaduct Harbour on board the luxury superyacht Sea Breeze III, the venue for a new show she's co-created based on a 1920s Hollywood scandal. Photo / Michael Craig
Laura Irish in Auckland's Viaduct Harbour on board the luxury superyacht Sea Breeze III, the venue for a new show she's co-created based on a 1920s Hollywood scandal. Photo / Michael Craig
THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW
One of Hollywood’s greatest scandals is about to be re-enacted on a luxury superyacht in Auckland Harbour. A man died - but was it murder or misadventure? Co-creator Laura Irish, who plays a silent film starlet in the show, says that’s for the audience todecide.
It’s November 1924. American media baron Randolph Hearst, one of the wealthiest people in the world, has invited a few close friends out on his deluxe yacht, the Oneida. Exactly who is on board has been disputed. Charlie Chaplin is supposed to have been there, but that’s never been officially confirmed. So was Elinor Glyn, a steamy romance novelist who popularised the idea of the “It” factor. Louella Parsons, the famous gossip columnist, claimed she was in New York at the time. Except she wasn’t.
Hotshot film producer Thomas Ince, known as the “Father of the Western”, was negotiating a deal with Hearst, who invited him on a weekend cruise and threw a party for Ince’s birthday. The official story is that Ince left the boat severely ill and died a few days later. [Ince, who had peptic ulcers, is said to have suffered acute indigestion after consuming salted almonds and champagne; the cause of death was recorded as heart failure.]
The whispers about what really happened were scandalous! Apparently Hearst had caught Marion Davies, his long-term mistress, with Charlie Chaplin and shot at him — either accidentally hitting Ince in all the kerfuffle or mistaking him for Chaplin. It was the Prohibition era and one of the reasons there might have been a cover-up is that Hearst didn’t want people to know he had illegal booze on his boat. And Chaplin was already in the middle of a scandal of his own, because he’d got his 15-year-old co-star pregnant.
Newspaper reports on the death of Hollywood producer Thomas Ince (pictured bottom right) following a birthday cruise with mogul Randolph Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies (top) on board Hearst's luxury yacht, Oneida.
What’s so intriguing is that some aspects of what happened are verifiable, and then there are things that are so delicious if they’re true.
I love classic old Hollywood, it’s one of my favourite things. When [co-creator] Jim Fishwick told me the story, I just got really obsessed with all these characters, and the myth and legend surrounding them. In 2020, we started talking about turning it into a theatre project because we needed something to work on in lockdown. Then we had to find a yacht, because that’s where Butterfly Smokescreen takes place.
At the beginning of the show everyone will come on board for Ince’s birthday party and some of that roaring-20s magic. There’ll be lots of shenanigans and the bar will be open. Then Hearst shuts down the party and the audience become ghosts who go all over the boat and see things they’re not supposed to see. You’re immersed in the world of the show. It’s not a classic murder mystery, where a person dies at the start and you spend the rest of the time trying to figure out who did it. But a man did die. We’re presenting the events of the night and then you take away what you think happened. Was it the salted almonds and champagne?
Co-creators Laura Irish and Jim Fishwick at the bar on superyacht Seabreeze III, the setting for their new show, Butterfly Smokescreen. Photo / Michael Craig
Essentially it’s a story about power and who controls the narrative. We kind of view the show as different forms of triangles — the triangles between the characters on the boat, the hierarchies between them, and also that triangle between reputation, truth and power. Hearst controls Marion’s career. People are trying to keep control of their own reputations. As a gossip columnist, Louella Parsons is always on the side of the studios and the stars, and never leaks anything people don’t want leaked. So there’s lots of juicy stuff to play with.
Hearst quite famously gave Marion a blue jade butterfly brooch and he’s going to present her with it at the party. The way I view it, the brooch was a sign of asking for loyalty. I’m playing Marion [a silent film star] and I think there might be something in the rumours — that Marion really was in love with Chaplin and that was an issue for Hearst. He was very controlling and more than 30 years older than Marion, so he must have been paranoid about whether or not she would stay. But she did. I mean, she had a lot of affairs. A lot of affairs! But she was still with him in 1951 when he died.
Butterfly Smokescreen (R18) will be performed from June 2 to August 6 in the Auckland Viaduct, on board the five-level luxury superyacht Sea Breeze III, formerly owned by billionaire Graeme Hart. An immersive theatre experience, limited to 30 people per show, it was developed by The Barden Party’s Laura Irish and Jim Fishwick, founder of Sydney’s Jetpack Theatre. For details and bookings, see thebardenparty.com
