Behind the Scenes - Part 2

Dramaturgic Woes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all artists are emotionally involved in their art and become one with it. Dramaturgs, theatre teachers, graphic designers and public relations guys not so much, or so I thought. Premiers are an overall stressing thing, as are press conferences and visits from the Big Boss who makes last minute corrections in recently (like 10 minutes ago) assembled press portfolio. The journalists are about to arrive. My first week interning in the script department was tense. The premiere of La Mancha was right around the corner and black cumulus cloud darkened the mood in the tiny office space for days. All my questions were diplomatically answered, people are nice enough, but the intern is not part of the team and in four weeks none will ever be. Why not get a proper intern? The theatre is ruled by the regulations of the city council, thus having an unpaid intern for longer than four weeks must be considered exploitation.
 They are a tight-knit group tied together by a shared cynicism, poetic disposition, ephemeral word games and sometimes ribald humour. However little known the feelings and views of interns may be on his or her first entering the theatre, I make it quite plain, as the second week was about to start I indeed considered sunbathing in the polar region. For warmth.

The Theatre and its Critics 

After the gloriously liberating premier of La Mancha  the first reviews arrived. Luckily the review in local newspaper (Fränkischer Tag) was not written by the dreaded know-it-all critic the paper usually sends, no it was a freelance journalist, unfortunately the good news ended with the title. I had hoped the winter of discontent had ended, but I am no son of York. Her verdict:  if you don't have to don't watch! Lots of little things disturbed her, not just the Nazi or the blatant aestheticising of gang rape. But for the upper floor of the theatre the review was too opinionated, badly argued, too personal, and too content-based. for all intents and purposes she was of course too inexperience to write a proper review.
The exuberant review on an Internet platform written by a college student two days later on the other hand sounded in their ears like the praise of an overexcited six year old and again badly written. Of course such a review could  be allowed to stand next to the semi-professional ones that are exhibited in a glass vitrine.  It was the one review with the least amount of bad criticism and the actors probably wondered why it got rejected from its seemingly rightful place among the real reviews. It was not the exuberance, it was simply the fact that the opinionated piece of journalism was not written by someone who had majored  in theatre studies. Like all the people working at this theatre the poor girl may have studied English, cultural studies  or even art. 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Half way through my third week I'd silently repeated Macbeth's last soliloquy every single day. Patience it was telling me, however,  my head hurt at the thought of having to maintain my facade for more than seven days and my soul suffered in silence. I had made it a habit of never overestimating people, makes them feel dumb. Underestimating them at the very least gives them the opportunity to exclaim in self-righteous indignation 'naturally' or even ' of course I know Emile Zola' shaming me into a less then courteous silence. Of course she knows canon literature, and still, she asks for an inclusive translation of condition humaine. A mot clef nobody ever translates, maybe deigns to explain. And so bound by the adversity of these hostile surroundings, I am mocked to silent uncritical compliance. While my esteemed colleague's laughter is still ringing in my bleeding ears, I continue with my task.
A translator is usually paid by line, I however receive their supercilious glares with morbid fascination.  
Of course had I known I'd spent my internship in the dramaturgy translating, I'd have stayed at school, gathering the credit points. In fact, those learned intellectuals made me feel cheap and what made it even less bearable, stupid. Of course I was different from all the other applicants, I  wasn't part of any theatre group because I simply hadn't completed my degree in Bamberg.
I wanted to take a peak behind the curtain and was demoted to silent observer. Oh, they would quite regularly ask about your opinion but argue at a moment's notice against it. "Was it your first Konzeptionsprobe?", one of the esteemed veterans of theatre asked. I denied it. "How did you find it", he continued his inquiry. " I listened to a bunch of people sitting around a table reading from their scripts. I didn't have much to do given that I wasn't involved". Of course I learned to late, that I had no business being involved: "Well, you are here to observe", he said.
While personally I had always been a great fan of Hunter Thompson, he didn't just orbit around it be got into the mud, was in the biker parties and in the bikers' heads, still, I could survive another 7 days observing from the sidelines. Unless of course I'll have to go on more coffee runs in the pouring rain, then I might quite simply leave it at that with pneumonia. 
The world behind this particular curtain seems despite protestations to the contrary stuffy, arrogant, domineering and suffocating. Unless there is some small truth in the explanation about artists suffering from insecurities. But then I am lowest on the totem pole, so I buy coffee and milk, copy and paste, print and order files, translate and type, get books to and from the library and distribute advertisement material all over the town

Guardian of the empty office

In hindsight seems I could have shortened this intimate account by 99 percent given my busy schedule.  And the days keep I their petty pace, while I remain behind in an empty office guarding the equally empty desks, waiting for someone to call to interrupt the resonating silence. Once the phone rings, twice I am interrupted by an actor, while the team is way to celebrate another birthday. Clearly the intern isn't part of any team.
Oddly enough in almost three weeks at the theatre I haven't once had the chance to take a lunch break. I start 30 min early, maybe because I suffer a bout of bad conscience, when I leave at 17.00 sharp while the others still remain glued to their desks. Maybe I too feel I insecure. And maybe I should be made of sterner stuff.  But then "it would be horrible for an artist without his insecurities, he wouldn't be able to change and develop his craft". So the only way out of my own misery is "cynicism. Artists are mean to hide their  insecurities, it's the easiest way to deal with them and we here have their temper". Am I too sensitive?














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