Blog Two
Looking back now, the title of this project sounds gross, if not self-indulgent! “The International Theatre Goodwill Project”, but at the time I was making a point to anyone who might listen. The Berlin Wall was constantly in the news and there were many stories of hostilities and people trying to escape from east to west. My simple thought was that the one thing that could cross that wall was theatre. I put together a small theatre group comprising Ben, Luke, Liz, Alison and myself, with a combination of mime, acting, performance, music and dance skills.
Each member gave a donation and the remainder of the funds came from friends and the proceeds from several music-halls we put on at the local village hall. We rehearsed our own programme, hired a large Vauxehall saloon, a neighbour graphic artist stuck our name and logo in Fablon on each side of the car, and off we went. First mistake – I was the only driver. The others were great and fed me snacks and took extra responsibilities. It was a long journey for the first day but we made it to the Berlin Wall and the first check-point. Passports examined minutely and questions, hampered by the fact none of us spoke German.
Second mistake! Make sure at least one person has the basic language and everyone has phrase books and dictionaries! They tweaked Ben’s beard because it differed from his passport photo, they grabbed a bundle fromhis luggage – his underwear was wrapped up in a copy of the Evening Standard, and shook his clothes out into the road and ceremoniously tore up the newspaper. They grabbed a tin of dried milk from the dashbnoard and shook it, ‘bullets?’ they queried without a smile!
We were to be guests of the Berliner Ensemble, lodged in a cheap hotel nearbye and then four nights of exquisite theatre: ‘Coriolan’, ‘The Rise and Fall of Arturo Ui’, ‘The Oppenheimer Trial’, and Sean O’Caseys ‘Purple Dust’. The excellence was breathtaking. Afte the final performance the actors invited us back stage, and the hugs made us breathless. They wanted to know what was happening in the west, not just in theatre but in the whole environment. They said they were starved of knowledge outside their country, (hence the newspaper tearing incident!). It was almost dawn when we returned to our hotel and everyone was tearful.
Later that day we noticed that there was a music hall theatre nearby and we thought, why not! Quite a contrast from, the classic performances we had been watching. Much of the show was very political. For example there was one dance-chorus routine in highly coloured costumes and kicking routines, on the theme of death to the US dollar. There was a duo who performed the dangerous act with bows and arrows and an apple. Their show was in nEnglish so we tended to lead the laughter or called out the responses. They asked for a volunteer and Ben suddenly whispered, ‘I know these people’ and he went up onstage. They were astounded at suddenly seeing an old friend in a foreign and restricted country. He was the victim sitting the chair with an apple on his head. He played it up with hands shaking and the audience loved it and they shouted for an encore.
We all met in the coffee shop and caught up on news. It was noticable they were constantly looking over their shoulders and kept their voices very quiet. They were there for a season, kept themselves to themselves, and were very aware of not disturbing the status quo. They felt their act was allowed into East Germany because it was not political We all wondered whether that had been a surface interpretation but actually it could be seen as a very political act – shooting arrows at apples on people’sheads?
The journey out of East Germany was far worse than our entry. I had to drive the car over a pit where a team of guards examined the car from the underside and pushed hooks up every pipe. Every item of luggage had to be emptied on to a bench and every item held up for inspection. Not just clothes but the content of our make-up bags and boxes of tampons and pads had to be emptied. They were very suspicious of any books. The blandness of expression was very disconcerting and their obvious discomfort when we spoke in English . After several hours we were through and after another roundabout drive, came to west Berlin where we were put up in a very nice hotel as guests of the government. The whole experience took some processing after the scary inspections yet the amazing theatre. Not to be missed for the world. We had crossed the Berlin Wall into East Germany, met some incredible people and survived! There had not been the opportunity to share our theatre pieces, just something that the political bureaucracy was unable to navigate.
Our next destination once we were back in West Berlin was an invitation to a large ‘Handicapped Hospital’. We had no briefing nor preparation. Just a request that the hospital had put out very enthusiastically, could we stay for a few days and show them what we did. So off we went to Westphalia, to Anstalt Wittekindshof in Bad Oeynhausen. A large institution with over one thousand beds , and an age range of nought to ninety. Although we did not know it at the time, it was to prove a landmark in the development of Dramatherapy.
