"Andorra" (Berlin)

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This past Friday I attended the last performance of Andorra at the Berliner-Ensemble Theater. The theatre is one of those nice old things one can easily imagine dressed up people in the 1920's went to with coats and hats and gloves. As a point of fact, the coat-check girls this time were very un-busy: no coats were bothered to be checked and hardly any man wore a hat he couldn't stuff in his pocket or book bag. But back to the building: the gilded frescoes of muses...the wonderfully, gargantuan tacky chandelier...roomy, plush seating...wall mirrors...wall-to-wall carpet and wood banisters all lent themselves to experiencing a quiet evening at the theatre. I got the impression "What book are you reading?" was just as if not more likely to be asked than "Are you on Facebook?" 




As for the play I liked it -- despite only catching on to three words in the whole two hour performance. Does not high art transcend language barrier? (Low art certainly does.) When my aunt learned I was going to Berlin she implored I see this one if nothing else. So I did. I wore my tuxedo (yes I tend to travel with one), caught the metro to S-/U-Bahn Friedrichstrasse and made it to my seat on the fourth floor - whew!- just in the nick of time. At eight o'clock sharp, or as they say here, 20:00uhr, the house lights dropped and the dialogue began. No C.P.T. here! At the drawing of the swastika there was an audible gasp, like seeing two men hold hands, yet at the end of the performance I found the German audience amazingly...restrained in their applause. Almost stingy with it, really. When the star actors took their bows the applause was no louder than it was for the bit role of the co-worker. Egalitarians....