Good morning,
The snowy blanket outside the French windows takes me back a long way to 1981 and the time I spent working with Triple Action Theatre in Wroclaw in Poland.
One of the joys of blogging is that you can go with whatever comes into your mind on any particular day. Unlike a proper biography or directing/acting manual it doesn't have to be in chronological sequence. Its more of a kaleidoscope.
So my thoughts are drawn to my journey across Europe in that frozen winter of '81. Triple Action was a typical theatre company in the eighties. Eight of us packed into a big blue Mercedes van, full of set, costumes and our rucksacks. The van was ten years old and the heating didn't work. So it was sweltering in the heat and unbearably cold at the other extreme.
I had just left Exeter University, where I had completed my degree in Drama. So this was to be an extraordinary adventure. I had auditioned and been accepted into the company, well known for its physical theatre and eastern european influences. So we took off enthusiastically on our quest to perform the current show we had made (an adaptation of Ulysses by James Joyce in which I played Molly Bloom) on the other side of the Berlin wall.
One of our actors was Polish and we were bound for his home town of Wroclaw where his elderly mother still lived.
To save money we drove through the nights, with people taking it in turns to drive the monster van. I didn't drive so managed to miss out on that dubious pleasure! But I did speak languages and naively thought that I could help out in any necessary translating, particularly in german.
Passing through the East German border at Helmstedt–Marienborn seemed to offer an opportunity to use my german to build a fast rapport with the scary East German border guards.
Well that was a serious mistake! Once the very young guard realised I could speak german it made him escalate his demands. With a rifle pointed at me he instructed me to tell my colleagues to empty the van of everything, to take off the wheels and to open the bonnet. We quietly and dutifully obeyed and piled up all our stuff on the snow covered ground next to the van.
The guard called another one of his number and they used their rifles to pick through our things. They couldn't understand who we were and what we were here for. I dug myself even deeper into the widening hole by attempting to explain that we were a theatre company on a 24 hour transit visa heading for Poland. They picked up some of our costumes and laughed boyishly. I did wonder if they would confiscate them and the set. But the only things they took were some boxes of cigarettes and some food. After about 20 minutes they seemed to get bored of the novelty we presented and looked behind us to new victims. It took us about half an hour to quickly repack the van and we were waved through.
We were all very shaky and the van was silent for about an hour as we slowly drove on and into East Germany. It was really only when we could no longer resist commenting on the huge change in the landscape that we relaxed a bit and were able to talk. Thankfully no one commented on my earlier eagerness to communicate with the guard, and I didn't mention it again.
We were all very shaky and the van was silent for about an hour as we slowly drove on and into East Germany. It was really only when we could no longer resist commenting on the huge change in the landscape that we relaxed a bit and were able to talk. Thankfully no one commented on my earlier eagerness to communicate with the guard, and I didn't mention it again.
We drove for another eight hours or so, not stopping other than for a pee on the side of the road and a share of the one large bottle of water that we had left.
Crossing into Poland raised spirits, especially as we had no problem at the border and I kept my mouth firmly closed this time! The drivers were getting tired and so we stopped to sleep for a couple of hours just outside Wroclaw. Maciej, our polish actor started to stir as he recognised the route and started pointing out landmarks to us.
The assumption of power on December 13 by General Jaruzelski and his Military Council of National Salvation brutally ended the process of democratic socialist renewal initiated by the workers’ struggles of August 1980 and approved by the Polish United Workers’ Party congress that summer.
For the first time since December 1970, the Polish army shed the blood of Polish workers. Trade union activities and democratic rights were suspended. Free movement and communications were restricted. Thousands of members of a legal trade union, Solidarity, were held prisoner without trial; others were threatened with dismissal from their jobs if they refused to sign a document renouncing the union. Tens of thousands were charged under martial law regulations, especially for exercising the right to strike; some were sentenced to years of imprisonment on this count.
So it was with trepidation that we drove into an early snowy dawn in Wroclaw on January 16th. As the density of buildings appeared so did the sight of hundreds of people queueing outside shops for bread. It was 4am and as we drove towards the area where Maciej's mother lived, he suddenly shouted very loudly to Mark, the driver to stop the van. Unbelievably he had spotted his mother in a queue. Everyone held their breath, unsure what he would do. The van pulled up for a moment and then he told Mark to drive on. Maciej's face was drained and he was shivering uncontrollably.
In silence we made our way to the Monopole Hotel in the centre of the town, where we had our rooms booked for the week. We unloaded the van in silence and walked into the opulent hotel, reserved for westerners. When I say opulent, I mean once opulent. Now the wear and tear really showed through the red velvet curtains and chairs, but there was a desperate look on the face of the concierge as he attempted the semblance of civility for our sake.
After we had each taken a welcome break in our rooms and I had attempted to take a shower which spewed out red rusty water, we gathered for breakfast in the virtually empty dining room.
There was plenty of food there, for a price of course. We eat hungrily as we hadn't had any food for 12 hours. It was like being in a parallel universe. From behind the large dirty windows of the dining room we could just see out into the street. And we could see lots of people walking quickly past, with no glance at us. Maciej said he guessed that they were all heading for the ration stations, which he thought closed at 7am.
The rest of that day was spent meeting our hosts secretly at the Actors club and planning for the performances we had agreed to do.
That evening as we sat still in the Actors club, someone asked about food and the owner of the club shrugged kindly and indicated an empty counter. All he had to offer us were pickled eggs and herrings and for a price paid in dollars, as much illegal Spiritus (95% alcohol - actually "ethanol based gasoline octane rectifier") type of vodka. He wanted to be the host and we appreciated that so everyone dug into the eggs and herrings and knocked back the Spiritus. I really couldn't keep up with the boys (I was the only girl!) and ended up watering a dying parlour palm, which I imagine finally did give up the ghost!
That night I slept fitfully wondering what on earth the next day could possibly hold, and whether we were really going to perform our show in this hell.........?
I will pick up the next part of this story shortly. Probably enough of a memory from snowy Essex for today!
Hope the snow is fun if you want it to be and doesn't get in the way if you need to do something important!
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