Actor’s suicide scene ‘bloody’ realistic

AN actor’s suicide scene became a little too real for comfort when he accidentally stabbed himself in the neck during a performance at an Austrian theatre.

Daniel Hoevels — of the Thalia Theatre company from Hamburg, Germany — was supposed to be using a knife blunted for use onstage, but the knife had been replaced with one left sharp.

Thalia said yesterday that the original prop knife was damaged and that instructions to blunt the replacement had been carelessly disregarded.

It did not specify who it thought might be responsible.

Hoevels received stitches for his injury at a hospital and was back on stage at Vienna’s prestigious Burg-theater the following day.

Austrian police said they were investigating the incident.

Hoevels was playing the role of Mortimer in Friedrich Schiller’s Maria Stuart.

Instead of pretending to cut his own throat, the 30-year-old actor ended up slicing through his skin, just missing his carotid artery.

Hoevels, slumped over with blood pouring from his neck while the audience broke into applause at the “special effect”.

Police are investigating whether the knife was a mistake or a murder plot. They are questioning the rest of the cast and backstage hands with access to props, and will also carry out DNA tests.