Only Murders In The Building Season 3: Is The White Room A Real Thing?
Contains Spoilers for "Only Murders in the Building" Season 3, Episode 4 — "The White Room"
"Only Murders in the Building" thespian Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin) has become a total pro thanks to decades of work onstage and in film. Unfortunately, there seems to be one acting trick he's never managed to master — the patter song. And the strong, delightful third Season of the show has decided to throw one at him. When "Death Rattle" is transformed from a detective drama to a musical about the murderous Pickwick triplets, he's forced to perform a tongue-twister-laden song. During a dress rehearsal in front of Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), and several others, Charles loses control of his mastery of the music, going into an expletive-laden song-filled rant. Suddenly, he mentally escapes to a white-colored room. Wearing a white outfit, he spins in glorious relief, mentally released from his torture. Then he hears a monkey's call and finds himself back in reality — where he's wrecked his props and lost his pants.
Multiple members of the crew explain the phenomena; Charles has experienced the titular white room. This is an actual phenomenon that several theatrical actors have experienced in real life. As Johnathan (Jason Veasey) explains it, "In theatre there's no net. You blank out, that's it. You're a polar bear in a global warming documentary, hanging on to a tiny piece of ice in the middle of the sea, waiting to die."
Several actors have said the White Room is a real thing
Several stage actors have admitted that they've experienced the white room effect in real life. For example, Seth Rudetsky told Playbill in 2013 that while performing in a play, he lost control of his lines and couldn't forge a way forward. "[W]e started the first scene and when I got to my seventh line I completely went blank. That's what's called entering the white room; meaning there is nothing but whiteness around you. Nothing to grab onto," he explained. He ultimately ended up repeating the subtext of his line over and over until finally the actor he was working with managed to rescue him by triggering his memory. Charles, working all by himself, definitely doesn't have that luxury for this number.
While Charles finally manages to figure out a way to get out of the white room by pretending he's making an omelet while singing the song, he's thrown another curveball when he can't stop his hands from following along the motions of stirring up his favorite dish. One calamity leads to another — and to Charles ending up on bended knee before his girlfriend, Joy (Andrea Martin). It remains to be seen if Charles will be able to conquer his performing demons — or if he's done suffering for his craft yet — but hopefully, he won't find himself in the white room when real danger is afoot.