The Tempest & the black chicken

Two weeks into my "local tourist in Warsaw" project, things are going quite well although I still seem to grab with both hands any opportunity to get out of the city. Well, maybe not any opportunity, just those that sound really, really good, like a weekend spent partly at the beach, partly at the theater, seeing Shakespeare get the Polski treatment in three cities and more than 20 venues down by the sea. My friend M. was coordinating a project for the Romanian Cultural Institute, as part of the Shakespeare International Festival, and since it wasn't the first time I made some volunteer work promoting Ro culture, I thought my efforts would be compensated with lazy mornings at the beach, performances, Margaritas and late night parties. This was my first error of judgement: having met, along the years, some amazing artists from Romania, I almost forgot not everyone back home is cool and entertaining. There's one thing I can't come to terms with: people who are arrogant and full of themselves without having the goods to back this up with. I also dislike boring people, but that's something I learned to tolerate at least to an extent. But when boring meets arrogant meets stupid, I find it rather difficult to be nice and smile and pretend I'm amazed at the simulation of talent and creativity. And the saddest part is that one such encounter can shade off all the other great experiences, reminding me of the things that really annoyed me back in Ro. So my weekend was not as relaxing as I dreamed it would be, and the icing on my cupcake were a very smug director and a perpetual malcontent douchebag scenographer, a black chicken that made an appearance at the beginning of the play (I still don't get the connection between Shakespeare's Tempest and the chicken, but I'm sure they were on to something), a performance that relied on the talent of 3 actors out of a dozen and way too many hours spent backstage.

In the end, the wheel turned on the last day, after a splendid interview with the director of the Shakespeare Festival, a man so amazing and charming and wise who in the end made me understand something that's commonsensical, but appeared to have slipped my mind for a short while: I'm not at all absurd when expecting some people (and by some I mean those in culture & the arts) to be smart, well-educated and to have a spark. It is entirely possible, and it can even justify arrogance and self sufficiency.