Farce

Peter used to be very involved in theatrical circles. Indeed, his first experiences led to his first crush on an actor, whom he more or less stalked, when he was a young man, and the actor was a young man, and Peter saw to it that push came to shove one evening after a performance and stalking him at the stage door.  The rest was history of a very important level.  They were 'in-love'.  It was extraordinary.

The actor's name was Luis, and he was unbelievably handsome.  So was Peter.  (I've seen the pictchas...)  

It was extraordinary because it was against a whole number of laws on the books which weren't erased until the early 1980's.  So it was ))))dangerous(((.  Of course that made it all the more exciting, and feeling 'noble' in thwarting all conventions and rules and 'suffering' for a cause...  which it was, but only in some cases.

Luis had a grandma from Bohemia (which is a part of the czech republic, not the one of artists in one's mind), who loved seeing the two of them together, cooked for them in Vienna, and was a mother hen to them.

It seems that Luis was going places in the theater world, and I assume there were jealous fits, and things of that sort, but it ended tragically.  Luis became ill and died of a lung embolism in the height of the bloom of his youth.  

That was always hard to live with.  The dead are always perfect, and can't make mistakes.  To paraphrase Harvey Weinstein....   

Peter had made many connections in the theater world, and went on to be 'ahem' amanuensis, whatever THAT is... to many people who were famous in theatrical circles in our part of the world.  

Most of them are dead now, but were household names in days of television and when the theater was really alive and abuzz with extraordinary talent...  some of them, like Oscar Werner, even did the cross-over to Hollywood.  

For actors there are four steps to the holy grail of reaching the apex of fame.  Or there were, back then.  You could start with the prestigious Schauspielhaus in Zurich, go on to either the Thalia in Hamburg, or to Berlin, but the crowning achievement was the Burgtheater in Vienna.  And if you were on the ensemble there...  well, you were famous forever.  

Peter worked for one of the directors of the Thalia theater in Hamburg, a man who is synonymous with hilarity in german-speaking theater and films.  He was extraordinary.  

And had gathered a generation of the most exemplary people of the trade around him at that time, and was a most accomplished director, producing astonishingly good theater for more than a decade.

So Peter was a part of that, and used to be able to tell the most ribald, hilarious stories about that insular world you would ever wish for.  I used to laugh till my sides ached. Back stage pranks, rivaliries, all the things that still fill movies about movies or theater to this day.  And Peter could relate them till you would hold your sides laughing.  

He taught me a lot about theater.  And rules of what works and what doesn't and so on.  Turns out he didn't want me to have any success...  He only wanted me for himself.  And sabotaged me in one of the most cruel ways I could have imagined.  Volunteering to send my ms to what was to my mind the most promising producer in the country, but hiding the reply and destroying the answer letter which I only discovered when clearing out the appartment a decade and a half later.  I'd wanted to go to Vienna and try my luck, not be saddled with a grave of a house.  

So I can always wonder:  what did the letter SAY?  He'd never tell me....

Not that it matters much any more.  The play is on-line on the former site I have under the heading Thanksgiving, and no one has given as much as a twinge regarding it.  But at least I know I tried.

Whatever...  Peter taught me a lot about the mechanics of plays and so on and the most difficult form is farce.  It has to be 'real' to the characters engaging in it, there has to be lots of doors on set, and chaos, and general insanity onstage, and it has to look and feel genuine.  

Peter dragged me out to Vienna one evening to the Burg Theater, the epitome of greatness.  I'd been working, grumpy, and zooming off 250 km wasn't really what I'd been wanting.  But off we did go, and we saw a farce.  Feydeau's 'A Flea In Her Ear'.  Too complicated to describe.  But the main actor had to do a twin role, one of them drunk, the other sober, and by the end of it, he had me in tears...  of laughter.  

(The actor in question, Robert Meyer, played Frosch (Frog) in 'Die Fledermaus' later in the Volksoper in Vienna.  My cousins were in stitches, even tho they don't speak German.  He just received a national award from the government for being THAT good....)

The only other farce I've seen which riveted me was 'What The Butler Saw'.  Had nothing to do with butlers or mansions, it took place in an insane asylum.  I saw it in another theater in Vienna with a stellar cast and a british director, and it was brilliant.

The author, Joe Orton was more than irreverent for his time, the late sixties.  I saw it in the Eighties, and boy....  the seat bumpers were out in full force.  That is when people who are outraged decide to leave and you hear the seats bump up.  

Orton only left three plays, but the humour was vicious, anti-establishment, anti-authority, and excruciatingly funny.  And he questioned every pompous authority with a daringness that was courageous for its' time.  Nothing was sacred.

To demonstrate how face can be, have chosen a segment where everything goes off the rails in 'What the Butler Saw', and all the doors get used, and it's a madhouse.  Because it takes place in a madhouse.  I saw it the second time my Dad arrived to visit and he was jet-lagged, so saw him off to get some sleep in our suite...  yeah, a suite..  and went to the The-ay-ter, something I'd never have done otherwise, but had so wanted to see a good production of it.

When it opens, you can watch the entire thing...  if it takes your fancy. Or call it up on YouTube.  But I still think it's the best farce ever.  'Murkins would probably prefer Boing Boing...

If you listen closely...  for the late Sixties, there is so much anger in the subtext, and disrespect for the system, and how I wish there were voices like that today.  

Even the night I went...   'polite society' were walking out in the first ten minutes, and you heard the 'seats bumping up'.  So much for the Establishment.

This stuff is REALLY difficult to do, believe me.  And oh yes, Orton was murdered by his lover, who hammered his head in and then killed himself.  Sad world.