Every city must have one, a theatre and preferably one that’s as avant-garde. I have a feeling that cities like Kolkata would have one just like the Gorki Theatre in Berlin.
This theatre is in a block opposite the Museumplein. I just happened to see it because I was walking from one of the metro stations towards the museum, when I saw this outdoor hoarding. There was a play announced for later in the evening (or was it the next evening. I’ve already forgotten). Already 2019 seems so long ago. In May it will be two years since my entire Euro-trip.
This poster really caught my eye, a woman with blood smeared all over her as though she had participated in a ritualistic blood-fest. The play that was scheduled was ‘skelett eines Elefanten in der Wuste“. However, what play was on didn’t make a difference, I was more interested in what Berlin plays were like, and how did they have subtitles in english for a play?
So later in the evening of the same day, or the next, I trekked back to the theatre. The entrance was unassuming, as most entrances in Europe seemed to be. Just a small door in an alley. Very very matter of fact. This was also just after the general elections in India, so really I was in the mood for a much less dramatic existence than the Indian experience can be.
Inside, the lobby, was full of young Germans who looked like students and activists. Aren’t they lucky to be able to express themselves, unlike our stifled youth? There was beer instead of Coca-Cola, cigarette smoke and German words and German laughter in the air. When you are a foreigner, and a small brown-yellow one at that, and alone, it can be a bit intimidating. So I wandered and made my way into my favourite space in any new setting…la loo.
By the time I came back out we were ushered into a darkened theatre space, a narrow performance space with the audience seated in three layers all around. The mystery of the subtitle was solved, they had discreet monitors overhead. I can’t say I understood much of what was going on, between trying to read the subs and catching the performance in the dark. All I remember are dark colours, flashes of white theatre light, unexpected and off-stage entrances (!) and yes, that tantric/oriental/arabesque dance which always gets to me in a primordial way [see trailer below]. I still remember a bar-dancer in Bangkok who danced to electronic music with traditional moves. Something about dance and music transports me from every grey european city into the jungles of our mind.
Afterwards, I carried the flyer and the ticket and saved them. Because these are all reminders of a youth I could have had if I had been braver perhaps?
My Little Travel Diary 