PROPS: Prairie Oysters

[kallulah]

So we're doing Cabaret and the director wants to make the Prairie Oysters as non-disgusting as possible.

The drink calls for the use of an egg and Worcestershire Sauce.

Any ideas on how to accomplish this drink with the use of an egg and the sauce, w/o the actual egg or sauce?

[babens]

The sauce can be faked with water and food coloring (a bit of caramel coloring would be easiest, as opposed to trying to make a suitably dark brown with the standard food colorings in the red, yellow, blue, green veins).  The egg is going to be a lot harder to fake.  The easiest way to do it, if your actors are hesitant to swallow a raw egg, is to use ceramic mug that can't be seen through.  That way the actors can "drink" it without having to swallow it. 

[loebtmc]

Several of us have had this conversation -

http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php/topic,3172.msg19407.html#msg19407

in our prodn, we bought pasteurized eggs for the actor's sanity, but it was the real thing. Unless you are using a rigged (or mustache) cup, they gotta do the deed

here's a more detailed response from ruthny in a previous conversation on this topic:

I can confirm that we used real eggs and real Worcestershire Sauce.  Cliff just sipped at it, but Sally, after breaking an egg into a clear glass, adding the sauce, and stirring it, chugged it right down.  We first used the real items in Tech.  We  had offered the food props earlier in rehearsal and Sally said "Please, I know how to crack an egg.  Let's wait until Tech." So we did.  When we got to that moment in Tech. and Dress she just did the business, drank the mixture and we went on.  We never even stopped for it--not once.

Our house is large, but it is a thrust stage, and there were audience members no more than 3 feet from Sally every night.

Now, if she hadn't been such a pro, we would still have used real eggs, but used opaque, porcelain mugs instead of clear glasses.  The mugs would have been rigged in two compartments on the inside.   One for the mixing of the ingredients, and the other side empty to go up to the actors' mouths.  And you simply change the line to "tooth mug."

[kallulah]

kudos to your Sally Loeb!

Turns out we used Gerber Banana Baby food, and dyed it to look like the yolk, and water and food coloring for the worcestershire sauce.

We pinned holes in the eggs, drained it out, rinsed it out, and then syringed in the baby food.

Apparently it's delicious.  But I refuse to have anything to do with this particular prop.