Virtual Reality French Experimental Theater Is The Trippiest Thing

Benoit Marini has spent years working with virtual-reality technology for the French company Dassault Systemes. As the director for the company’s Experiental Lab and Passion for Innovation program, he’s overseen several projects using illusory or reconstructed worlds, like an explorable version of the Khufu Pyramid. (It’s in his blood. His parents were both engineers and his mother used to crack open the TV and use a welder on it; he assumed this was normal.)

In 2012, he started touring his latest show: the experimental, virtual-reality dance production Mr. and Mrs. Dream. It’s bizarre, and I mean that in the best way. Based on the works of absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco, projectors, lights, and sensors (the dancers forbid the use of virtual reality goggles) combine to make the–uh–production something different, to say the least. Example scene: an apartment that crumbles away to reveal the universe hiding behind the exterior. (The French!)

I caught up with Marini at South By Southwest to talk about the project, coming soon to the U.S.

Popular Science: What is this project? How would you describe it?

Benoit Marini: The project is a mix between dance and 3-D technologies. It’s the marriage of art and science. It cannot be described as a ballet, as a traditional dance show. It’s not a play. It’s not a dance show. It’s a new kind of show. 

As it makes the universe of Ionesco, which is really surreal, we decided to call that “virtual unreality,” because it brings life to fantasy, to something weird and strange, instead of giving life to something real.

The show involves two dancers, and they’re from the mind of the author, Eugène Ionesco, and we travel with them through his plays, through the interpretation of the dancers. I think the experience the people have when they come out of the show, they describe it as really unique. 

PS: What’s the technical setup like? 

BM: We designed a big box, called the Magic Box, because it creates an illusion, like a magician. This box is using screens on the side and on the back. On the floor there is a regular dance floor. Everything has the same color–it’s a light gray. We are using five or six projectors to project everything–everything is like one big universe, one big picture.

All of the projectors are located directly on top of the dancer. We use, for particular scenes, sensors located on the top to know their position in the space of the Magic Box. In other scenes, we’re using sensors directly on the bodies of the dancers so they can interact.

PS: Which part came first? The choreography or the technical side?

BM: When we started the project, they set up the music–it would not be the final music of the show, it would just be music that would be replaced by another original creation, from Laurent Garnier, who is a famous french DJ. They selected the music and searched for choreography, and during this time we were designing the box and creating the software. Then, during the rehearsals, they tried the test we’d prepared, they adapted and changed the choreography. 

PS: Can you tell me about some of the specific scenes? There are surreal moments: You mentioned an apartment falls apart and you can see the universe outside of that. What are some other scenes you accomplished with this technology?

BM: I really like the first scene, because at the beginning, when you’re a spectator, you think it’s real. Time accelerates, a painting falls, there is a clock turning really quick, you see a storm, and everything starts to get old in the room and to vanish. The question it brings is: Is reality real, or only an illusion? This opening scene takes everyone into the fantasy world. You know you’re no longer in the real world. 

All the scenes have their own meaning. You see a big character called The No Face–the character symbolizes God–and cells come from him, and that’s the rebirth of the character into the show. There’s one cell at the beginning–the dancers dance very close together–and then they split, like mitosis, and they have their own individuality. 

PS: Tell me more about what you do in general. This was kind of a departure from the kinds of projects that you usually do? 

BM: I’ve been working for Dassault for 14 years, and I’ve been working for the Passion for Innovation program [where the idea for the production was born] for 10 years. So we started small, with only a few people. But we started with a big project: it was about the Khufu Pyramid. We met a guy, and he had a theory, it was about the construction of the Khufu Pyramid. The Egyptians would know what would happen 10 years later, and they had a plan for that. It was related to the core of what we know. So we said, let’s use this theory and simulate it. 

We changed the experience into experimental theater–it was like an immersive room, and people could learn in real time what was happening in ancient Egypt, and how this could be built. 

I’ve also been working on realistic avatars–how you can quickly create your own avatar just by uploading one or two photos.

PS: Do you see this technology as something that could be used in more traditional theater? Will there be a virtual Death of a Salesman?

BM: There is no limitation when you create 3-D worlds–you can create whatever you want. And this kind of immersive display can be used to examine life, so I hope there will be new kinds of shows using this immersive technology. This is the beginning, I think. In the future, we can use it on the stage, or make it bigger, with more sensors or people inside. But what we already have is still bringing people the illusion that you have something alive in front of you. 

Technology | Popular Science

Virtual Reality French Experimental Theater Is The Trippiest Thing

‘Orthodox activists’ hijack controversial theater play for ‘blasphemy’

‘Orthodox activists’ hijack controversial theater play for ‘blasphemy’
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Published time: November 29, 2013 19:24

Actor Alexei Kravchenko as Minister Robert Ternov in a scene from “An Ideal Husband. A Comedy” at the Moscow Chekhov Art Theater.(RIA Novosti / Sergey Pyatakov)

A vortex of corrupt politicians, prostitutes and a gay clergy-arch-devil in an iconic Moscow theater came to a halt as self-proclaimed Christian activists climbed the stage to denounce the “sodomy”. Some, however, took the stunt as part of the show.

The second act of the provocative play An Ideal Husband staged at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater by controversial Russian director, Konstantin Bogomolov, ends with a scene of a scantily clad woman rising above the stage with her arms spread, as “Dorian Gray” passionately dances with an apparently homosexual “priest-turned-Mephistopheles.” The priest then kneels and prays at the soaring woman.

Then, seemingly in line with this cacophony of images, several people calling themselves Orthodox Christian “activists” took to the stage and shouted out their condemnation of the play. They said the episode, as well as other provocative scenes, blatantly mocks the crucifix and Jesus Christ himself.

A message posted on the official Facebook page of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater soon after the incident made it clear the action was an “attempt to disrupt the play.”

“At the end of the second act, the infamous provocateur Enteo came on stage with a support team. They shouted: “How can you tolerate the mockery of our faith? Why do you hate Christ so much, while he was crucified for us,” the message quoted the “activists” as saying, identifying the group’s leader as Dmitriy ‘Enteo’ Tsorionov.

Scuffles ensued at the front of the stage as the theatre’s staff, scene-shifters and theatre-goers attempted to pull of the “provocateurs” off the stage, the theater said, adding that the third act of the play started after ten minutes and went smoothly.

Dmitriy Enteo earned his public fame on the back of several stunts directed at the Pussy Riot punk band and their supporters, and has said that he consciously uses the same “art performance aesthetic”, but for opposite aims.

Enteo had a different account of the incident, blasting the play as “hideous blasphemy,” “sodomy” and “infernal raving” on his Vkontakte page. He said that their action was peaceful, and they did not resist the “security guards,” who started “beating” them. They simply kept appealing to the audience and saying that mocking God is “unacceptable.” Some of the people supported their “cause” with applause, other sympathizers got up and left the play, Enteo claimed.

But some of the theater-goers present at the time of the stunt said in comments on the theater’s Facebook page that the people who got on stage behaved like blatant hooligans, with a female activist shouting hysterically and then throwing and damaging stage microphones.

Ironically, many in the audience took the antics happening on stage for part of the already unorthodox comedy, a witness told RIA Novosti. The “activists” seemed to fit the bizarre mix of characters from several works of Oscar Wilde, Anton Chekhov, Goethe and the postmodern Russian dramatist, Vladimir Sorokin, who all appeared in a contemporary setting.

Only several minutes after the initial applause given as they thought to cunning improvisation, did the audience realize it was indeed an attempt to disrupt the play. While some chose to leave, most others were hooked by the farcical antics of the stunt, and stayed until the end of the play.

This theater action is the latest in a series of attempts by self-proclaimed Orthodox Christian activists to forcefully protest against ideas they consider offensive to their beliefs. Previous incidents included a “missionary flashmob” in Moscow’s Darwin museum, “an action of the Orthodox inquisition” at an office of a Russian opposition party, and assaults on LGBT activists and Pussy Riot supporters.

Recently, one such activist was handed a one-year suspended sentence for firing eye irritant at a gay rights campaigner during a rally in May, but most others, including Enteo, have never been held accountable.
Director Bogomolov later reacted to the incident during the play on his Facebook page only by saying that it was not worth doing a favor of “advertising for this poor fool.”

Known for his controversial plays, loosely based on the works of renowned authors, but showing the problems of modern society in a grotesque and provocative manner, Bogomolov earlier described An Ideal Husband as a “trash comedy” depicting the “trash” realities of present-day Russia. 

Russian theatre lovers are divided over Bogomolov’s plays, and particularly over his staging of several avant-garde pieces in the iconic Chekhov Moscow Art Theater. Controversy over his latest play based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, prompted Bogomolov to announce he is leaving the theater after disagreeing to make unspecified changes to the play.

RT – News

Read more about ‘Orthodox activists’ hijack controversial theater play for ‘blasphemy’ and other interesting subjects concerning NSA at TheDailyNewsReport.com

Theater Review: Histrionic Back Story of a Wedding Party

The cause of Annabell Armstrong’s latest panic attack seems petty: Annabell (a frenetic Polly Lee) is at Neiman Marcus in Dallas, and she cannot find the perfect dress for a cousin’s wedding. But as Helen Sneed’s 95-minute play explains again and again, her histrionics are but a manifestation of a lifetime of accumulated anxieties and emotional traumas, as evidenced by the memories that wander, unwanted, into the store’s dressing room.

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A scene from “Fix Me, Jesus” with, from left, Lori Gardner, Kate Froemmling and Polly Lee.

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Flashbacks bring Annabell’s bigoted, Communism-obsessed grandmother (Lisa McMillan), who longs for an antebellum social order and corrects her family on dictional propriety. (A “kid” is a goat; 10-year-old Annabell is a “child.”) Then there’s Annabell’s narcissistic mother (Lori Gardner), who forced diet pills on her daughter in elementary school and discouraged her precocious reading habits. We learn of, but never meet, Annabell’s doting but philandering father, who trained her in the family business — Democratic politics, adrift in deep-red Dallas — but then discourages her from pursuing the ambitions he himself has sown.

And there is the creepy, paternal psychiatrist (Mitch Tebo) to whom Annabell increasingly transfers her unhealthy filial dependence; he is a foil of the one decent person (and other parental substitute) in her life, the Neiman saleslady (Lee Roy Rogers) who has waited upon Annabell for decades.

Ms. Sneed’s script has its rough edges, including pop-psychology tropes and frequent verbal footnotes to explain the many historical and literary allusions. (We may be 21st-century New Yorkers, but I hope we don’t need a refresher course on who Davy Crockett was, or why Texas Republicans loved Ronald Reagan so much in the 1980s.)

But the direction by Sam Pinkleton — best known as a choreographer on such sparkling projects as “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play” and “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812” — keeps the staging lively. He uses the tiny performance space resourcefully to keep us visually interested, even when the dialogue drags at times.

NYT > Arts

Theater Review: Histrionic Back Story of a Wedding Party

Americans Are Being Treated to Political Theater: Forget the Government Shutdown – It’s About Shutting YOU Down

The government is red, the middle class is dead & they want us all dead

Americans are being treated to political theater at its finest. It’s not a theater of entertainment, however, but a coliseum of enslavement where in the world of deception, perception becomes reality. This theater requires audience participation, where we, the theater-goers, become part of the play. We are a truly captive audience, entranced into mindlessly choosing sides at the frenzied urging of the corporate media and partisan cheerleaders firmly seated behind the microphones and television cameras of the nationally syndicated media.

As the play progresses, we, the American people, become part of each act, believing that we actually have a voice in this pre-scripted performance. We are bombarded with lie after lie, each worse than the previous in an attempt to convince us that we can making a difference by choosing and cheering seemingly opposing sides on the stage before us. The biggest lie of them all is that there are not two sides, but just one. It’s “them versus us” in a fight to the death playing out before us in this 21st century Shakespearean tragedy. It’s not just death, but the premeditated murder of the middle class and anyone without a reservation at the globalists’ table. And the space at that table is limited.

The actors of this play are ostensibly at odds over funding the Affordable Care Act while a peek behind the curtain tells a different story altogether. Like any play, the ending of this has already been determined.  The ending, however, is not the same as written in the commemorative program you were given upon your arrival at this theater.

The house lights have been dimmed not just for the performance, but to induce us into a hypnotic trance further enabled by the media mouthpieces of malice. As you gradually become accustomed to the theater lighting, you’ll see that it’s not just a play, but you’re being played. You’re being manipulated into believing that the government shutdown is the actual plot of the play, while it is merely the method to continue the lie of a fictitious political paradigm.

Audience members who remain seated and captivated by the stellar performances of the actors, while maintaining a mental death-grip on the media cheering “their side,” are sadly in the majority. They are yelling at just above a throaty whisper at us and others who see beyond and behind the curtain, telling us to sit down and shut up, as we are reaching a critical moment in the performance.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking toward the October 17th deadline when we the U.S. will officially run out of money in this scripted, manufactured crisis. As the play builds up to its epilogue of evil, it serves its critical purpose of entertaining the masses and diverting our attention from the real issue, which is the killing of the U.S. dollar. The premeditated murder of the United States Petro-dollar is the real act taking place behind the velvet curtain. The play merely buys the actors, the murderers of the working class and the world as we will have once known it, time to arrange their own exodus from this coliseum turned theater.

The actors. aided by the media of malice, continue to perform brilliantly and are effectively distracting the majority of us through the final curtain call. Then, as the actors take their bows amid thunderous applause by the uninitiated, the majority of the audience will never see “it” coming.

They will not see the stagehands open the cages of the lions while simultaneously closing the doors and blocking the exits. The  thunderous applause at the curtain call will hide the sound of the engines on the Lear jets and the rotor noise on the helicopters that will whisk the actors to safety, away from the unspeakable carnage that was planned from the beginning.

By the time the screams from those who remained dutifully seated become unbearable, the globalist bankers, the money changers, the power brokers pulling the strings of the political puppets, will be far from earshot. When the house lights are turned on, the remaining theatergoers who survived will suddenly awaken to a different life. For it was never about what was seen, but always about what was hidden. It was never about the government shutdown, but the shutdown of the majority. The same majority that continues to cheer for their side, unable or unwilling to comprehend that there is only one side. Their side.

Global Research

Americans Are Being Treated to Political Theater: Forget the Government Shutdown – It’s About Shutting YOU Down

Shutdown Theater: Life imitates satire

Editor Lifson wrote a blog post yesterday reporting that Snopes.com – the internet rumor debunker site – took a satirical photoshop of a sheet being used to block the view of Mount Rushmore during the shutdown as an actual story being circulated by the right.

The satire from the website IOwnTheWorld.com was just that – a way to poke fun at the shutdown. But today, the Feds have placed a virtual sheet in front of Mount Rushmore by placing cones along highway viewing areas outside Mount Rushmore barring visitors from pulling over and taking pictures of the monument – and then lying about the reason.

That’s right. The National Park Service is trying to prevent people from even seeing Mount Rushmore.

The cones first went up Oct. 1, said Dusty Johnson, Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s chief of staff. The state asked that they be taken down, and federal officials did so with some of them. The state was told the cones were a safety precaution to help channel cars into viewing areas rather than to bar their entrance.

“I think reasonable people can disagree about that,” Johnson said.

The cones were down again Friday as a blizzard hit the Black Hills and plows needed access to the roads, Johnson said. He said the state would be monitoring to see whether the cones are put back along viewing areas.

“Once the snow’s off the ground, we’re going to be keeping an eye on how the cones go up,” Johnson said.

The Buffalo News reported that a tour group of dozens of people from western New York was unable to take pictures of the monument because highway viewing areas were coned off.

“It’s all closed up,” the newspaper quoted North Collins, N.Y., resident Hilde Werneth as saying. “They won’t even let you stop and take a picture. You can only drive by.”

Jim Hagen, secretary of the South Dakota Department of Tourism, said the situation is hurting people from out-of-state and international visitors who are in South Dakota to visit the monument.

“They won’t even let you pull off on the side of the road,” Hagen said. “I just don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish.”

A spokeswoman for the National Park Service in Omaha confirmed that the monument is closed, but she said she didn’t have details about cones. A message left at Mount Rushmore was not returned.

Another outrage: People living in private homes on Lake Mead are being forced out – including a very elderly couple:

The government shutdown is being felt close to home for some locals. They say they’re being forced out of private homes on Lake Mead because they sit on federal land. 

Joyce Spencer is 77-years-old and her husband Ralph is 80. They’ve been spending most of their time in the family ice cream store since going home isn’t an option.

The Spencers never expected to be forced out of their Lake Mead home, which they’ve owned since the 70s, but on Thursday, a park ranger said they had 24 hours to get out.

“I had to go to town today and buy Ralph undershirts and jeans because I forgot his pants,” Joyce Spencer told Action News.

The Stewart’s Point home sits on federal land, so even though the Spencers own their cabin outright, they’re not allowed in until the government reopens.

Park officials said property owners can visit only to retrieve belongings; they sent Action News a statement which reads in part, “Unfortunately overnight stays are not permitted until a budget is passed and the park can reopen.”

Joyce Spencer said she’s alright in the meantime, staying with nearby family, but the move was a lot to handle as a senior citizen.

 

“I had to be sure and get his walker and his scooter that he has to go in,” Spencer said. “We’re not hurt in any way except it might cost me if I have to go buy more pants.”

 

The Lake Mead properties are considered vacation homes; one of the lease requirements to own a plot is people must have an alternative residence.

 

Regardless, the Spencers said it’s their property and they should be allowed in, shutdown or not.

Twist the knife in and let ‘em howl, are the bywords of the administration.

One would hope that at some point in the future, all of this karma would come back and bite the Democrats in the butt. But as long as they can get the media to almost universally blame Republicans for the shutdown, that’s not going to happen.

American Thinker Blog

Shutdown Theater: Life imitates satire

Fox News Reporter Due in Colorado Court over Sources in Theater Shootings

A Fox News journalist was due back in a Colorado court on Monday to fight efforts by defense lawyers to compel her to divulge confidential sources she cited in a story about accused movie theater gunman James Holmes’ plans to commit mass murder.

The hearing is largely procedural in nature, with Arapahoe County District Court Judge Carlos Samour Jr. expected to continue a subpoena for New York-based reporter Jana Winter until September.

Public defenders have accused the government of leaking information to Winter in violation of a court-imposed gag order in place at the time and are demanding that prosecutors be sanctioned, arguing that her article, published online on FoxNews.com, undermined their client’s right to a fair trial.

Holmes’ defense obtained the subpoena in a bid to force Winter to reveal her sources. Winter is fighting the subpoena, saying she is protected by Colorado and New York state reporter shield laws.

Holmes, 25, is charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder for the July 2012 shooting spree at a suburban Denver cinema that left 12 moviegoers dead and dozens others wounded or injured during a midnight screening of the Batman film “A Dark Knight Rises.”

Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if the former University of Colorado neuroscience graduate student is convicted.

Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers have said in court filings that the California native was “in the throes of a psychotic episode” when he went on the shooting spree.

Citing unnamed law enforcement officials in a story published five days after the massacre, Winter reported that Holmes had mailed a package to his psychiatrist in advance that contained a notebook with diagrams and other entries detailing plans for the shooting rampage.

Holmes is undergoing a psychiatric examination at the state’s mental hospital, and his lawyers waived his right to appear at Monday’s proceeding.

At an earlier court hearing, several law enforcement officers who saw the package in question denied under oath that they were Winter’s sources.

Samour did rule that if Winter were to affirm under oath – without revealing her sources – that none of the officers who testified were the source, that could influence his decision on whether to quash the subpoena.

Prosecutors have been largely been silent on the issue.

© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

Newsmax – America

Fox News Reporter Due in Colorado Court over Sources in Theater Shootings

Report Offers New Details On Death Of Man At Maryland Theater

FREDERICK, Md. — Police tried to forcibly remove a man with Down syndrome from a Maryland theater with tragic results, despite warnings from his caretaker that her client would “freak out” if they touched or spoke to him, according to her statement contained in an investigative file released Monday.

Robert Ethan Saylor, 26, died of asphyxia minutes later, after three Frederick County Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed the flailing, 294-pound man as he screamed, cursed and cried for his mother, witnesses say. Saylor’s offense, according to the file documents: He had not purchased a ticket for a repeat viewing of the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”

The 98-page incident report and handwritten statements from 22 witnesses add new details to a case that remains in the spotlight six months after Saylor’s death on Jan. 12. Critics continue to call for an independent investigation of the deputies’ actions after a grand jury’s decision in March not to indict them for what the state medical examiner’s office has ruled a homicide.

The 18-year-old caretaker, whose name is redacted from the documents, wrote that she had been Saylor’s caretaker for three months before he died.

She said Saylor, known to his family as Ethan, had a history of angry outbursts, including one earlier that night. They had already seen the movie once and were outside the Frederick theater when she asked Saylor if he was ready to go home. Saylor began cursing and punched a storefront window, she told police.

Somewhat frightened, the caretaker called Saylor’s mother, Patti Saylor, of New Market.

“Patti told her to just wait him out and his attitude will change,” an investigator wrote in a follow-up interview report.

The caretaker then spoke by phone with another of Saylor’s caretakers. He advised her to leave Saylor in front of the theater while she got the car, giving him a few minutes alone to calm himself. But by the time she returned, Saylor had gone back into the theater and seated himself. As she walked in, a manager was telling Saylor he had to leave the auditorium.

“I explained, `Yes, we are having a little issue, I’ll handle it. We just have to be patient,” the caretaker wrote.

The manager then summoned one of the three deputies, Sgt. Rich Rochford. All of the deputies were moonlighting as mall security officers.

“Then a sheriff came and said, `Another show is starting. I have to go get him out,’” the caretaker wrote. “I explained Ethan is Down syndrome.”

She said she told the officer that if he spoke to Saylor, “he will curse.” She advised him to “wait it out.”

“Then the sheriff went in and started talking to Ethan and Ethan was cursing at him,” the woman wrote.

She said the officer threatened to arrest Saylor, a statement corroborated by other witnesses.

“I then said, `Please don’t touch him, he will freak out,’” the caretaker wrote. “Next thing I know, there are I think three or four cops holding Ethan, trying to put him in handcuffs.”

As the officers pulled the struggling Saylor from his seat and down an exit ramp, they went down out of view of most witnesses. One customer told police an officer had his knee on Saylor’s lower back while the other deputies held Saylor’s shoulders. At least two witnesses said the kneeling officer’s knee was on the floor. Nobody reported seeing the officers touch Saylor’s neck.

Saylor became unconscious, so the deputies rolled him over, by all accounts. The deputies couldn’t find a pulse, so they removed the handcuffs and started chest compressions until he started breathing again, snoring but unconscious, according to all accounts. They asked the caretaker if she could wake him.

“I tapped him and said, `Wake up, Ethan,’” she wrote.

Saylor never regained consciousness, despite the efforts of ambulance workers who arrived soon afterward.

The state medical examiner’s office found signs of “positional” asphyxia, or having been in a position in which he couldn’t breathe. There was also unexplained damage to Saylor’s larynx. The autopsy concluded Saylor would not have died had the officers not intervened. The autopsy also found that Saylor’s developmental disability, obesity, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and a heart abnormality contributed to the death.

A family lawyer, Joseph Espo, said had not yet read the report and could not comment.

Attorneys for the deputies and the sheriff’s office didn’t immediately return calls from The Associated Press.

Earlier on HuffPost:

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Crime on HuffingtonPost.com

Report Offers New Details On Death Of Man At Maryland Theater

Report Offers New Details On Death Of Man At Maryland Theater

FREDERICK, Md. — Police tried to forcibly remove a man with Down syndrome from a Maryland theater with tragic results, despite warnings from his caretaker that her client would “freak out” if they touched or spoke to him, according to her statement contained in an investigative file released Monday.

Robert Ethan Saylor, 26, died of asphyxia minutes later, after three Frederick County Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed the flailing, 294-pound man as he screamed, cursed and cried for his mother, witnesses say. Saylor’s offense, according to the file documents: He had not purchased a ticket for a repeat viewing of the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”

The 98-page incident report and handwritten statements from 22 witnesses add new details to a case that remains in the spotlight six months after Saylor’s death on Jan. 12. Critics continue to call for an independent investigation of the deputies’ actions after a grand jury’s decision in March not to indict them for what the state medical examiner’s office has ruled a homicide.

The 18-year-old caretaker, whose name is redacted from the documents, wrote that she had been Saylor’s caretaker for three months before he died.

She said Saylor, known to his family as Ethan, had a history of angry outbursts, including one earlier that night. They had already seen the movie once and were outside the Frederick theater when she asked Saylor if he was ready to go home. Saylor began cursing and punched a storefront window, she told police.

Somewhat frightened, the caretaker called Saylor’s mother, Patti Saylor, of New Market.

“Patti told her to just wait him out and his attitude will change,” an investigator wrote in a follow-up interview report.

The caretaker then spoke by phone with another of Saylor’s caretakers. He advised her to leave Saylor in front of the theater while she got the car, giving him a few minutes alone to calm himself. But by the time she returned, Saylor had gone back into the theater and seated himself. As she walked in, a manager was telling Saylor he had to leave the auditorium.

“I explained, `Yes, we are having a little issue, I’ll handle it. We just have to be patient,” the caretaker wrote.

The manager then summoned one of the three deputies, Sgt. Rich Rochford. All of the deputies were moonlighting as mall security officers.

“Then a sheriff came and said, `Another show is starting. I have to go get him out,’” the caretaker wrote. “I explained Ethan is Down syndrome.”

She said she told the officer that if he spoke to Saylor, “he will curse.” She advised him to “wait it out.”

“Then the sheriff went in and started talking to Ethan and Ethan was cursing at him,” the woman wrote.

She said the officer threatened to arrest Saylor, a statement corroborated by other witnesses.

“I then said, `Please don’t touch him, he will freak out,’” the caretaker wrote. “Next thing I know, there are I think three or four cops holding Ethan, trying to put him in handcuffs.”

As the officers pulled the struggling Saylor from his seat and down an exit ramp, they went down out of view of most witnesses. One customer told police an officer had his knee on Saylor’s lower back while the other deputies held Saylor’s shoulders. At least two witnesses said the kneeling officer’s knee was on the floor. Nobody reported seeing the officers touch Saylor’s neck.

Saylor became unconscious, so the deputies rolled him over, by all accounts. The deputies couldn’t find a pulse, so they removed the handcuffs and started chest compressions until he started breathing again, snoring but unconscious, according to all accounts. They asked the caretaker if she could wake him.

“I tapped him and said, `Wake up, Ethan,’” she wrote.

Saylor never regained consciousness, despite the efforts of ambulance workers who arrived soon afterward.

The state medical examiner’s office found signs of “positional” asphyxia, or having been in a position in which he couldn’t breathe. There was also unexplained damage to Saylor’s larynx. The autopsy concluded Saylor would not have died had the officers not intervened. The autopsy also found that Saylor’s developmental disability, obesity, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and a heart abnormality contributed to the death.

A family lawyer, Joseph Espo, said had not yet read the report and could not comment.

Attorneys for the deputies and the sheriff’s office didn’t immediately return calls from The Associated Press.

Earlier on HuffPost:

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Crime on HuffingtonPost.com

Report Offers New Details On Death Of Man At Maryland Theater