Interview With the Vampire was my awakening -- at only 10 years old! I'd watch horror movies to prove myself not to be a sissy. There have been many horrifying deaths but none so horrible as the mortal woman on stage. The Theatre Des Vampires is described in the Vampire Chronicles where vampires perform mock plays.
According to the Vampire Chronicles Wiki - we can read this description of the theater but take it with a grain of salt:
Théâtre des Vampires is a theater in Temple du Boulevard in Paris. It was once owned by Renaud. As a mortal, Lestat de Lioncourt worked there, first as a cleaner and stagehand, and eventually as an actor. His most famous role was Lelio, the hero of the play The Romance of Lelio and Isabella. Lestat's friend and lover, Nicolas de Lenfent, also worked there as a violinist. Lestat's acting skills and beauty eventually caught the attention of Magnus, an old vampire looking for a worthy mortal to pass on his Dark Gift. Magnus abducted Lestat while he was sleeping, turned him into a vampire, and promptly committed suicide by throwing himself into a fire. He left Lestat everything he owned. After undergoing his transformation, Lestat bought the theater with the money Magnus left behind for him. Lestat went on stage and scared the audience with his supernatural abilities. He then decided to shut up the theater and made his old troupe go to England. The theater reopened again following Lestat's argument with Armand, leader of The Children of Darkness coven, a coven that worshipped Satan as their leader. Armand urged Lestat and Lestat's mother and fledgling Gabrielle de Lioncourt to join the coven, but Lestat refused. The Children of Darkness still followed the old ways in an age of "new evil". The members of the coven became disenchanted with Armand, who felt that the coven was ruined and began burning its members alive.
Only four vampires, Eugenie, Felix, Laurent, and Eleni, escaped death. They offered to become a new coven with Lestat as the leader in order to live among mortals in this age of "new evil". Lestat told them to become acrobats in the theater and left it in possession of Eleni, whom he felt respect for. Nicolas de Lenfent, now a vampire, also joined the theater as a playwright and violinist. Many of his plays involved supernatural creatures such as vampires and werewolves. Nicolas renamed the theater Theatre des Vampires after the performer's true nature. According to Eleni's letters to Lestat, Nicholas wrote brilliant plays and the theater became popular, but eventually Nicholas committed suicide by jumping into a fire. Armand also joined the Theater at Lestat and Gabrielle's advice because he felt loneliness since his own coven abandoned him. He eventually became leader of the coven and introduced killing victims onstage in front of the audience, who were hungry for bloody plays and thought the killing was just highly realistic.
Lestat's American fledglings, Louis de Pointe du Lac and Claudia, happened upon the theater in the late 1800s. Armand saw Louis as a new possibility of integrating into this period of time, and the two formed a relationship. However, Louis would not leave Claudia, so Armand had his coven kill her by exposing her to sunlight. Louis then burned down Théâtre des Vampires with Armand's followers still inside as revenge.
Take note that the Vampire Chronicles book series and the movie have differences. Armand was only a teenager in the books. The movie had Armand as an adult in contrast to the movie. Claudia was aged up because a child actress may be unable to carry out the part as intended. That's why certain changes happen between the original medium and the live adaptation. Speaking of which, I think Armand's personality may explain why the Theatre Des Vampires does its bloody plays:
Armand's personality is that of a typical teenage boy, though more refined. He seems, like many of the vampires, to have a preoccupation with existential issues such as the meaning of life and what being a vampire means within such ponderings. Armand, however, is unique in that he swings from periods of hedonistic denial of a higher power to bouts of zealotry, devoting himself to the dogma of the Parisian coven and later throwing himself into the sun after seeing Veronica's Veil.
Armand in many ways has never matured from the teenager he was when he was turned. He is still prone to impulsive and extreme acts, often described as seeming "lost" when his actions spiral into events beyond his control.
It's safe to believe that Armand's introduction of bloody plays might be because he's LITERALLY stuck in a teenager's body. He's practically a teenager who wants to flaunt his power to the world. Armand may be 400 years old but being stuck in the body of a teenager for some time might explain why he did what he did. I'd assume he takes pleasure in audience attention and tormenting his victims. Like a teenage bully - it's safe to assume that's why he has his minions gang up against a poor mortal victim before finishing off the job BEFORE an unsuspecting audience. In the novels, the audience actually applauded the prolonged version of the play. Apparently, the applause was filmed but later deleted by Neil Jordan during the final version.
The novelization also has this detail from the stage play. It may suggest that the woman Laure Marsac was asked to play might be a teenager. Maybe, Armand's bloody plays victimizing young people (such as the mortal woman on stage) may be a result of his frustration of living centuries in a teenager's body:
"'Your beauty is a gift to us.' Iris rich voice effortlessly filled the house, seemed to fix and subdue the mounting wave of excitement. And slightly, almost imperceptibly, his hand moved. The trickster was receding, becoming one of those patient, white faces, whose hunger and equanimity were strangely one. And slowly, gracefully, the other moved towards her. She was languid, her nakedness forgotten, those lids fluttering, a sigh escaping her moist lips. 'No pain,' she accented. I could hardly bear it, the sight of her yearning towards him, seeing her dying now, under this vampire's power. I wanted to cry out to her, to break her swoon. And I wanted her. Wanted her, as he was moving in on her, his hand out now for the drawstring of her skirt as she inclined towards him, her head back, the black cloth slipping over her hips, over the golden gleam of the hair between her legs-a child's down, that delicate curl-the skirt dropping to her feet. And this vampire opened his arms, his back to the flickering footlights, his auburn hair seeming to tremble as the gold of her hair fell around his black coat.'No pain... no pain... ' he was whispering to her, and she was giving herself over.
"And now, turning her slowly to the side so that they could all see her serene face, he was lifting her, her back arching as her naked breasts touched his buttons, her pale arms enfolded his neck. She stiffened, cried out as he sank his teeth, and her face was still as the dark theater reverberated with shared passion. Isis white hand shone on her florid buttocks, her hair dusting it, stroking it. He lifted her off the boards as he drank, her throat gleaming against his white cheek. I felt weak, dazed, hunger rising in me, knotting my heart, my veins. I felt my hand gripping the brass bar of the box, tighter, until I could feel the metal creaking in its joints. And that soft, wrenching sound which none of those mortals might hear seemed somehow to hook me to the solid place where I was.
"I bowed my head; I wanted to shut my eyes. The air seemed fragrant with her salted skin, and close and hot and sweet. Around her the other vampires drew in, the white hand that held her tight quivered, and the auburn-haired vampire let her go, turning her, displaying her, her head fallen back as he gave her over, one of those starkly beautiful vampire women rising behind her, cradling her, stroking her as she bent to drink. They were all about her now, as she was passed from one to another and to another, before the enthralled crowd, her head thrown forward over the shoulder of a vampire man, the nape of her neck as enticing as the small buttocks or the flawless skin of her long thighs, the tender creases behind her limply bent knees.
"I was sitting back in the chair, my mouth full of the taste of her, my veins in torment. And in the corner of my eyes was that auburn-haired vampire who had conquered her, standing apart as he had been before, his dark eyes seeming to pick me from the darkness, seeming to fix on me over the currents of warm air.
"One by one the vampires were withdrawing. The painted forest came back, sliding soundlessly into place. Until the mortal girl, frail and very white, lay naked in that mysterious wood, nestled in the silk of a black bier as if on the floor of the forest itself; and the music had begun again, eerie and alarming, growing louder as the lights grew dimmer. All the vampires were gone, except the trickster, who had gathered his scythe from the shadows and also his hand-held mask. And he crouched near the sleeping girl as the lights slowly faded, and the music alone had power and force in the enclosing dark. And then that died also.
"For a moment, the entire crowd was utterly still.
"Then applause began here and there and suddenly united everyone around us. The lights rose in the sconces on the walls and heads turned to one another, conversation erupting all round. A woman rising in the middle of a row to pull her fox fur sharply from the .chair, though no one had yet made way for her; someone else pushing out quickly to the carpeted aisle; and the whole body was on its feet as if driven to the exits.
Sure, it made me think that the audience must be RIDICULOUSLY STUPID not to notice anything. What might be ignored are the vampires' RETRACTABLE FANGS. The distance between the stage and the audience can be rather far. The novelization never tells us where the victims get captured. I don't think they would kill people every night or suffer suspicion. Authorities would probably be too afraid to act as they're dealing with vampires. Either way, the Theatre Des Vampires probably held a tight grip over Paris. Even worse, a man-child like Armand could easily play with Paris like it was his PLAYGROUND. Like a teenager desiring control - that may explain why the play with the mortal woman happened. The mortal woman was probably caught fresh. The audience doesn't notice anything creepy because the vampires might be more clever than one thinks. The bloody plays probably happen only during certain times or people would see someone gone too soon. I'd assume the remains are thrown away conveniently to avoid suspicion.
The movie did some serious condensing of the novel's theatrical scene. The book had the vampires drink from the mortal woman ONE BY ONE until she had no more blood left. I can imagine the number of attempts to film that scene. Many NGs may have happened with a fully naked Laure and the actors playing the vampires. I assume they probably intended to have her passed from one to another. However, they realized that it may not fit into the intended screen time of the movie. Instead, the scene had Armand knock the mortal woman unconscious and he drinks some of her blood. The next part was where the vampires gang up and drink the rest of her blood. I always assumed the other vampires ate her flesh. However, Armand only took a sip of blood which would probably not kill the mortal woman. The novelization of having her blood drained by one after the other can explain her death. I think the ganging up to drink the rest of the blood was a shortcut version.
The TV series (which I'm not watching due to its SJW stupidity) shows what happens to the bodies. The bodies are disposed off by being placed in some metal box. The rats are allowed to enter so the bodies of the drained victims are eaten off. It's presumably so they could conveniently get rid of the bodies and avoid suspicion.
The whole coven got its comeuppance avenging all the deaths in it. Santiago's decision to have Madeleine and Claudia executed by sunlight was the last straw. Armando frees Louis from the wall. Louis' rage causes him to pour gas and set the coffins on fire. Santiago gets a karmic death when Louis uses the former's own sickle. Seeing Santiago cut in half by his own sickle was satisfying. The theater burned down to the ground hence executing fiery justice against it.
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