Keira, who welcomed her first child in May, stars as the title role "Therese Raquin" in Roundabout Theatre production. She plays a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage with an egoistic husband and dominating mother-in-law.
But her Broadway debut was almost ruined when she was proposed to by a fan just five minutes into the first act of the play staged at Studio 54 in New York on Thursday.
According to reports, an audience seated at the mezzanine stood up and proposed marriage to the Keira. An attendee said: "Audience members that were sitting in my area thought he was part of the cast, and trying to persuade the character to marry him instead of her cousin." They suspected that the man was part of the performance, but when he started to shout at Keira's direction, "Five seconds is too long to wait for a response!" The audience were left puzzled.
Keira kept her cool and managed to remain in character, but eventually her co-actors were forced to break character when security went to the man and asked him to leave.
A witness, who was also part of the audience said, "Two security people went over to him to physically remove him. He stood up, and then threw the flowers from the last row of the front mezzanine, and they ended up landing on the stage, towards the back."
The man then threw a bouquet of flowers at the stage while he was escorted out of the venue. Shortly after, a voice over was heard calling for a short break.
According to reports, the heckler was taken away from the Studio 54 in handcuffs and was brought to the police.
A spokesperson for the show told NBC 4 New York, "Roundabout takes the safety of their actors and audiences very seriously. Extra security will be added tonight. For obvious reasons, we cannot comment on the exact nature of the additional security measures."
