“Expect the unexpected” said Oscar Wilde (who else) – expect to assist the biggest name in French publishing and write about the humpback whale for little ones, expect to move to Lausanne after a hectic year in London, expect to be happy again when you thought that sadness had no end. There are a lot of things I didn’t expect. Yet, what I expected least was to meet the firecracker that is Victoria Baumgartner.
It had been a month since my arrival in Lausanne and I didn’t know a soul. Ok, one or two, through my sister who’s a medic and so are her friends – lovely people but not much in common and very different schedules. Right, where do I go from here … Ah yes, that’s when I remembered that I used to brag about having this passion with a big P for theatre with a T, especially Shakespeare in CAPITALS. In truth, I’ve only read a couple of the bard’s plays and acted in a handful of amateurishly performed contemporary pieces (Acykbourn, Pinter & co), but that’s about it. I hold a fascination though, that’s for sure. A rather unknowledgeable one, but none the truer.
I started by checking out what the Geneva & surroundings English-speaking theatre scenes had to offer. Turns out, not much. I dragged my timid and hopeful self to a play-reading taking place in some Anglican’s church basement one cold and grey Tuesday evening in mid-November. They were reading / performing a play about female Russian convicts in the 1960s… Dreary, just like the audience, most of them over 60 and a little dried out. There was no way I would find happiness there.
My BFF Loneliness and I were about to take a wrong turn direction DESPAIR, when I happened to stumble upon an article in MUSE – musing as I was online – a magazine written and published by undertaking English Lit students at Lausanne University (hereafter ‘UNIL’). Wait a second – I thought I saw, I thought read the words Shakespeare, Company and UNIL in one sentence! Are you for real??!!! Yes, they are and yes it is: the UNIL Shakespeare Company (hereafter ‘USC’) stands tall and proud, with 3 Shakespeare plays to its repertoire so far, including my favorite – As You Like It – performed at the FECULE festival last year. At the center of this dramatic loco-motion, a girl called Rosalind onstage and Victoria off. A “whirlwind” of a young lady the article says. Attached: a picture of her kissing a daisy in the wind – she looks like a fairy – and an email address. I emailed, she answered and that’s when it all began … Ros and Guil were born, but they didn’t know it yet.
At work I told my colleagues I had cross paths with la femme de ma life. We hadn’t actually met yet, but that was just a small technical detail. And then we did. Victoria says ‘no, of course not!’, but I’m sure she had pepper spray in her bag just in case I turned out to a complete nutcase. Turns out we’re both freaks, of the I-heart-Shakespeare-and-the-theatre-and-especially-the-acTORs breed. In our defense, our fanati– I mean fascination is entirely legitimate: I have a Masters in Eng Lit, and Miss V is just about to start writing her thesis on gender roles in guess who’s plays. FYI the girl is only 21, which makes my 27 ½ years look pre-menopausal. But who cares – age is overrated and friendship ageless. I might be a ‘real person’ now, with a proper job and 2 ½ years left before I hit the big 3, but my early twenties are still ever-present and smile back at me every time I look into Victoria’s mischievous eyes.
That evening we talked about it all: the have tos, the like and hate tos, the hope tos and the wish I hadn’ts. I hate to admit it, but the cliché sometimes says it best: it’s like we’d know each other for years. Our American TV-show brawl punctuated with French outbursts here and there had beer glasses quaking and “OMGs I love that play” were being unleashed at an escalating pace. Sparks and excitement it was! And then, although I never thought I'd dare to, I did and I asked:
“Victoria, would you want to stage a play, you and me?”
“Hmmm… (thump, thump, thump went my heart) Sure! I’d love to!”
“Really?!!”
“Yes, really! And I think I know just the one…”
Two weeks later, our project outline was off to the board of Feculian decision-makers and after a month of nail-biting and ‘I so hope we get ins’, we did, we got in. On May 9th 2011, Ros and Guil will die yet again, at the Grange of the UNIL, at approximately 8.15pm if my calculations are correct… Random, isn’t it? Then again, it’s Stoppard and it’s life and all it sometimes takes is a mid-December email for things to turn out as I like them, only better.
We’ll have rehearsed twice by the time you finish reading this. The first time didn’t go as planned, to say the least… Victoria will say more, I … less. I’ll have the decency of refraining from being indecent and leave her the honors of telling you about the dramatic heights we reached before even getting started on the drama. All I’ll say is that it turned out for the best, with jolie Elodie joining the team to play the player with the French accent he should have but has never had... until now. People, it’ll knock your socks off!!
Below a picture of the cast, crew & 3 chicks + 1 Dean (as tall as he is gentlemanly ladies)… The future is bright, the future is yellow. Demolish.
(left to right) Nadia/Ros, Elodie/Player, Victoria/Guil and Dean/Hamlet/Alfred
My next blog post: a little about our directorial approach!!
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