An actor has sliced his neck open on an Austrian stage after a mix-up with a prop knife.
Actor Daniel Hoevels collapsed on the stage of Vienna's Burgtheater with blood pouring from his neck after cutting his throat with what was supposed to be a blunt prop.
Hoevels, whose character was to commit suicide, had been given a real blade instead of a harmless prop, Austrian newspaper Osterreich reports.
As he collapsed with blood spurting from his neck, the audience started to applaud not realising Hoevels was not acting.
It was only when Hoevels, 30, failed to get up to take a bow at Vienna's Burgtheater in Austria that they realised something was wrong, the paper said.
"Police are now investigating their own murder mystery drama after refusing to rule out the possibility that the stunt may have been an attempt to bump off the actor by a jealous rival," the paper reported.
Police have been told that the knife had been bought at a local store and are asking if props staff forgot to blunt the blade for the performance of Friedrich Schiller's play "Mary Stuart", about Mary Queen of Scots.
"The knife even still had the price tag on it," the paper quoted one shocked police investigator as saying.
The theatre's props manager is understood to have been quizzed by police about the knife, Osterreich reports.
The actor recovered after emergency treatment at a local hospital and appeared on stage the next night with a bandage around his neck.
"If Hoevels had hit an artery or cut only slightly deeper, he would have died on stage," the Osterreich quoted a doctor as saying.