Austria

In Fair Verona Where We Lay Our Scene… Or, in this case: AUSTRIA

No, you haven’t misread that. We have somehow landed the play on the continent, and await with trepidation the artistic judgment of our severer cousins on the mainland. We arrive, hats and summer-wear akimbo, at the much and deservedly maligned Terminal 5, with the vague suspicion that we’re embarking on an adventure beyond the wildest moments of Coventry.

Terminal 5 is fairly depressing, though not for the reasons you might think (and not for us discovering EU flights can’t purchase duty-free, either). There are just so many shops, most of them Ted Baker/Tiffany’s/Harrods/other derivatives that no destitute actor would find themselves handing over a credit card to. Nor your average holidaymaker, I suspect. I struggle in vain to find a pair of black socks for less than £15.

But trusty BA is ready to take us and our groaning luggage to fair Vienna, where we arrive in good time, although a choir and a hen party get a shout-out on the plane by the pilot. Nothing for the Shakespeareans? Pity. Pierro, the festival organizer, greets us with an infectious grin and his family in tow, and at once it is clear that this diminutive, gnome-like gentleman has more than a twinkle of the mad professor about him. Case in hand being that one of the first captivating Pierro monologues is a tale of how he and Tony Harrison put on a play in the space we are now performing in: an ancient Roman amphitheatre, once used as a gladiatorial arena. Their play employed 8 live lions, 2 live tigers and 2 live bears. Swilled with an audience of over 500, some people might call this a recipe for disaster. Not Pierro. He bubbles with delight as he informs us that the animals were kept beneath the audience, which the audience in turn thought was just an impressive Dolby Surround Sound system. Until one of the bears escaped, that is. What Peter Brook might refer to as ‘deadly theatre’. The whole production makes our little camper-van sound fairly tame. As a footnote, Pierro informs us that a certain film director, Ridley Scott, read an article about this play and it gave him the idea for a then little-known film…’Gladiator’, anyone?

The first night is awash with good Austrian beer, pork schnitzel and squid ink noodles, random Austrian strangers offering us bottles of fine red wine and a wander through an opulent and meticulously-tended graveyard. It’s a very peculiar feeling, to have brought our little play all the way to Europe. And even more of an accomplishment by the latest additions to the team, Paul and Angelina, who have driven the production’s truck and towed the camper-van all the way from the UK. It rolls up just as we’re ordering dinner. Easy enough for us actors.

The auditorium is guarded over by several stretching pines, and the ancient brickwork of the ring certainly makes us feel as if we’re under imperial scrutiny. It’s not difficult to believe that once upon a time the emperor Commodus slaughtered 100 ostriches before a possibly un-rapt audience (“It must have been a firework of blood”, as Pierro says with a giggle). Except that the rostrum for our audience is bang in the centre of the ring, and behind our stage is of one of the rocky dens where once upon a time lions were penned in and released to eat Roman slaves. It’s fairly warm but refreshingly green. Windmills now peep over the tumbling banks where once audiences enjoyed duels to the death.

This setting obviously influences the feel of the fights. To know that the fatalities of so many warriors hang in the air at this historical arena necessarily feeds into the duels: the brutality and fragility of the human condition. Elizabeth, our director, hits on an evocative idea asking us to make this performance about a battle between Love and Death. Who will win? This isn’t a poxy punch-up between Maximus Decimus and a tiger, but between the two greatest governing factors in our lives. She is rather brilliant, our director.

The stars are the clearest they’ve been and provide some riveting focus for the cosmological lines in the play. The audience tower above us in two separate rostra, so we divide them into Montagues and Capulets, which adds a sweet division to the play. We have to keep our voices and eyes up, much like gladiators. The air in the ring is very still, and Lady Capulet points out that the smells stick to the space: the wind has little effect down here. You can imagine the stench of fear and blood. We are warned off ticks in the long grass, and lather on the mosquito spray. A fist-sized moth flutters it’s way onto Juliet’s potion scene, and somehow gets trampled by the funeral march, poor thing, defluttered by some actor’s wayward gesture. At the point when Paris discovers Juliet’s not-really-dead body, he is slightly distracted by the silhouetted form of Balthazar practising his star jumps in between the audiences. An interesting distraction to deal with. But at least we’re all trying to stay in shape.

The show feels strong and invigorated – it’s very helpful to imagine Tybalt and Romeo as the two champions of separate houses, an Italian Hector and Achilles. For the first time the Capulet party commences in the dark of the night, lit by torch-light, which adds a sensuous layer of danger. Interestingly enough, we prepare for an audience that has come for the tragedy, but they are quick to laugh and focus with agility on every shade of the play. The European style of bowing sets off a good debate about the exact nature of the curtain call, but as Pierro says afterwards, it’s the ritual of communication with the audience, and the bow is the moment where they lead the company. We’re all a bit thrown by this leap into European performance. And the flowers! A first for me, anyway.

They’re an incredibly intelligent audience, and is a riddle as to whether, being European they know the jokes already from the text or if they’re following the physical story better and responding to that. Afterwards we are offered toast with pig fat and unbelievably good red wine from local vineyards. Pierro says that his daughter has delivered her verdict on the play: If only people waited a little more in life, than everyone would be happier. If the lovers waited to get married, if Romeo waited to duel Tybalt properly, if he waited before taking his life when he thinks Juliet is dead…I think it’s a fittingly childlike and touchingly honest response.

The next day we travel to Bratislava for steak tartare and upon our return swim in the Danube. At one point the current makes me think we may be down a Juliet, director and SM for Hungary’s show, but we all emerge un-Ophelia’d. We’re then treated to a restaurant who’s translated name must be the Kitchen of Kitsch. We drink peculiar cucumber-mint and shrimp soup and feel very spoiled. They have treated us so well. Shakespeare may often be picnic confection in the UK, but here it still holds it’s full weight. I chat to Pierro about my sub-Roman play in the vain hope he’ll consider putting it on in his wonderful arena. Perhaps we’ll leave the wild beasts off the cast-list this time.

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