Talking Swiss

Nice view but where are we playing ?! (the gymnasium at Sarganz)

I notice I have not mentioned our shows in Switzerland: This is mainly because the Swiss did not impress me much: We arrived late in Zurich after a long drive, and had to do a get in at he Opera house, sound posh I know but we were playing the downstairs CABARET venue and poor Fillipo was only given one technician to help him out and had to do most of the lights himself. The venue itself (pics on Flikcr)
Is mainly used as a cabaret venue and although it has a stage and some lights, the fact that the audience are sat at individual small round tables and are served drinks by a flood of waiters makes for quite a different occasion than what we had to offer.
Theatre requires engagement from the audience…..language theatre even more so but when the audience is sat a tables that encourages disengagement from what is going on stage (and this does work well for lighter cabaret shows) it becomes very hard work.. The clatter of crockery and glasses does not go well with our somewhat more emotional scenes.
Therefore, I think audiences were among the least responsive so far, hard when you have a show that is actually full of laughs. The following day we drove to Sarganz Gymnasium and played a school hall (they had promised us a theatre) this left everyone with a bad taste in the mouth and we did a quick show...although some of the audience seemed to enjoy it. Then we left Switzerland..all in all , you will agree not the best experience…and we did not even get to try a Swiss fondue..