Germany

In fair Verona where we lay our scene...

... or in this case, Germany. And mini-Globe it is. The town of Neuss is small, quaint and criss-crossed with disused tram-tracks. The slope down to the Neuss Globe takes you past a race-course (a little sniff of Walthamstow all the way in Deutschland) and under a gate inscribed with the words: ‘All’s Well That Begins Well.’ Then there she is, a structure more reminiscent of a turret of Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside, but a fine building nonetheless. Opposite this is the bar, which our AD astutely points out is three times as big as the mini-Globe itself. It is wittily inscribed with ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’, as one imagines it may well be after the play (and after a bottle or seven of Festival Bier). This happens to be the pinkest bar in the world.

There is a giant crucifix outside the theatre, quaintly etched with the names of those Shakespeareans who come to grisly ends: Hamlet, Othello, Tybalt (Oddly enough, here spelt Tybald). I don’t know how Cleopatra would feel about being given a Christian burial, but it’s the thought that counts, I’m sure.

Inside the theatre, there is something of the ghost of our Globe back in London. It doesn’t have an open roof in the way ours does, and there’s no pit for the groundlings (they sit in regular stalls seats) but a strange familiarity sweeps us into the first show. We are warned about remembering the upper gallery, and told they will make themselves heard if they feel they are being ignored. Romeo tells me the amusing story of when we were at the Globe, his friends commented on how clever it was that Romeo spoke to the groundlings whilst Paris spoke to the upper circles, reflecting their disparate classes. I don’t believe that this was a pre-consideration of ours, but if we get the brownie points, so be it.

As Tybalt’s fight with Mercutio begins, the clouds crack in two and unleash a watery hell on the roof, which begins to leak. We have to raise our voices, displacing the gentle tone we found in the first half. As I escape down the ramp into the courtyard outside, I manage —in the twenty seconds of exposure— to return to the theatre entirely saturated for the fight with Romeo. It might have looked like a carefully organized, almost cinematic effect.

At one point during the first half an ungodly stink sweeps through the auditorium, and vengeful fingers point towards the children in the upper circle. Schoolchildren, as we all know, are replete with stink-bombs. But then we decide it must be a local sewage plant — this is no ordinary, joke-shop stench.

The audiences tend to mutter a lot here. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. At first it breeds paranoia – that actor’s intuition and fear: ‘Dear god, they’re on to us!’. But hopefully they’re simply responding to the story.

After our exhausting matinee day, we come out for the curtain call and Andreas, the festival organizer, has sent his ushers to the edge of the circles in order to blow down bubbles upon the stage. It’s a magic moment, if you’ll excuse the sentiment. This isn’t where his genius ends. On our second matinee day he suggests we distract our wearisome bodies with a game of ‘secret friend’. This involves the entire backstage company drawing names and said person being their ‘secret friend’ for the day — for whom they must perform lovely, anonymous acts of kindness. It’s an inspiration, and two shows whiz by as costume supervisors are serenaded from the balcony, surprise parties kick off in the interval, and our stage manager has her name thoughtfully inscribed onto every piece of toilet paper in the dressing rooms.

The festival treats us wonderfully well, and organizes Chinese food to tame the frenzied beasts that are our post-show stomachs. The audience, I fear, worry that the show is too much designed for outside performance but our AD’s inventive direction helps to remedy that, I think. The warm wash a full theatre of appreciators nicely takes us back to our first preview on the South Bank. And the crowds seem to like Paris’ song, so I retire my ukulele with contentment back to the UK.

Perri Snowdon

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