The myth of Europe, you need a Greek for that anyway (and a better theatre) #hf21

'...this (final) image, in which really I saw what I never saw before. That was so insane where I started to doubt my own perception. Interesting sensation that for me is separate from interpretation.'

I quote here a visitor I know from the performance Transverse Orientation, one of the toppers of this year's Holland Festival. She sat three metres up, on the first ring of Theatre Carré, and had the night of her life, at least, as far as the final image of the performance was concerned. I sat three metres lower, smack in the front row of that theatre, and saw nothing of that ending. I was looking up against a one-metre stage, with another stage on top, making everything that was happening on - and under - the floor invisible to me and many with me.

Sightlines

'Are you going there? Then make sure you don't sit "in the auditorium" but in the lodges or on the first or second ring, and ideally not too far to the right or left. Sightlines matter here.'

So can I write about it? Yep, because, as the lady in the chair behind me said, 'we may have missed the end, but we were able to experience many other things very closely.' So every disadvantage has its advantage. Because up close it was also beautiful, this dryly comic visual spectacle by Dimitris Papaioannu.

Falling penny

Back in 2017, I was completely blown off my pedestal by his 'The Great Tamer', and even though I didn't understand any of it, it was delicious theatre. Once again, the Greek comic director shows you every corner of the room in a game of illusion and beauty. This time it's about a bull, a lot of male impotence and an extremely beautiful lady. For some, a penny then drops, because this is about Europe.

For that, we have to go back to school for a moment. In Greek mythology, creation usually goes from "AU!". An important role in this is played by chief god Zeus, who has it rather loose in the trousers. The CEO of Olympus cheats quite often, and, where female victims are concerned, this is not always by mutual consent.

Europe

A Phoenician princess named Europa is seduced by Zeus after he disguises himself as a very sweet bull. She climbs on his back, swims into the Aegean sea with him and is raped near Crete, after which she becomes pregnant by Minos, who, as king, would later build a maze for a scary bull, the Minotaur, which in turn would play a role in Theseus' founding of Athens.

Connoisseurs of that myth see much in the performance, which follows the story almost literally, albeit very associatively and with a lot of understated humour and slow slapstick. You can have very deep thoughts about it, or, as I did, let it wash over you nicely. And then dream of that time when you are really higher and further away in the audience. Because this is a diorama performance where magic wins out over distance and overview.

Final image

Remains that it is a pity that this performance apparently had to be in Carré to sell enough tickets. Otherwise it would have become unaffordable for the Holland Festival, even in these days of Coronasteun. Now the first 10 rows in the otherwise excellent theatre missed the essence of the performance. Because that final image, with the girl Europe slowly setting like a sun, the earth bursting open, the sea with islands behind it, the rock that looks like Crete on the horizon....

How I would have loved to have seen that.