As a Cynic Sees It: The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain

Not so in Scotland. Here, it seems to rain country-wide. It’s rained every day I spent in Glasgow and yesterday it poured in Edinburgh. While getting ready to head there I opted not to carry my backpack, which means I left without an umbrella. So for the, what, hundredth time, I bought another umbrella when caught unprepared.

But it sure is green in Scotland!

Rain or no, it was a great day at the Edinburgh International Festival. I’ve wanted to come for years and yesterday convinced me that I need to come back, stay a week in Edinburgh itself and pack in the culture.

Today’s adventures actually started Saturday night. Let me begin with a story: I was the House Manager at the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts in 1984-85. It was the best job ever for, without it, I never would have met Ransom, who played there as a guest of the Richmond Symphony.

The ushers knew to call me over whenever there was a problem with a customer’s ticket. One evening our most experienced usher walked over, handed me two tickets and returned to his post. I looked at them and called the man away from his wife, so as not to embarrass him. “Sir,” said I, “these tickets are not for our theatre -- and I’m afraid they were for last night’s performance.” I offered to let him into our show for free, but he was too irritated and stormed away, his confused date struggling after him.

Though I was very kind to him, I thought to myself, “the wrong place and a day late; how dumb do you have to be?”

Well Saturday night I was looking at my email confirmation of Sunday’s two performances: Ballet Preljocaj at 7:30pm and Gulliver’s Travels at 8pm.

What? That can’t be right. The Swift is at 2:30pm, not 8. It says so right here in my calendar!

Well, yes, it does say that, but that be wrong! Somehow I had ticked the wrong box when I ordered these tickets online weeks ago and I had not noticed the error until Saturday night. To quote the Firesign Theatre: How Can You Be in Two Places at Once?

I decided to go to the matinee performance and see if I could exchange the ticket. I didn’t hold out much hope. Like all arts organizations, the festival makes it clear that all sales are final, no exchanges or cancelations. I figured, at worst, I’d buy another ticket, if they were not sold out. But I had forgotten something. I’m not in the USA; I’m in Scotland. The kind woman at the King’s Theatre box office was more than happy to help. Within two minutes she had exchanged my double-booked evening ticket for a ticket to the matinee performance. She even apologized to me that it wasn’t quite as good a seat as my original. Can you imagine? At a US box office I’m sure it would have been “Sorry, Charlie. Next!”

Was it all worth it? Definitely. This 90-minute take on Swift’s satire is weird and strange, mostly compelling and occasionally daffy. I don’t see enough experimental theatre – wait, was this experimental or am I just too traditional? – so I was very glad to see this. If you’d like another opinion, read the Guardian’s review here.

I then walked down into the town centre, skirting the base of the castle, through Princes Street Gardens, where I happened upon a free concert: six women singing a capella to a tiny crowd huddled under a small tent while hundreds of seats remained empty in the rain. (See picture below). Poor them; their dream of making a splash at the Edinburgh International Festival was met, but not in the way they hoped.

I headed to buy that umbrella. I took the few pictures below, but I was mainly stumbling around, not really knowing what I was looking at. I was reading Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter, a book I HIGHLY recommend, and came across this:

I have loved making my way, imperfectly, around a foreign city on my own. I have loved walking endlessly and getting lost and arriving at the museum or restaurant or store I wanted to go to just as it was closing. Missing the point of my excursion has forced me, on so many occasions, to find the secondary smaller points: the old woman sweeping out her front yard and putting water out for her cats, the baker cleaning out his ovens for the afternoon, the two kids refilling their shoe shine box with polish and clean rags – all of these small moments found only by wandering down a side street behind whichever museum I have failed to get to during its operating hours, or on the one day of the year it is closed for some local holiday I’ve never heard of. I have loved being pummeled by the intricacies of a city. And also loved the feeling of conquering, in small ways, a city by myself…

I hear you sister. Yesterday I emerged from Edinburgh Waverly station into a city that was far larger than I had imagined and had no idea whatsoever which way to go. Google Maps had told me it was under a two-mile walk to the King’s Theatre but had not pointed out that it was ALL UPHILL. So I chickened out, and for the first time here, hired a cab. The £6 was well worth it and helped me orient myself; all the rest of the day I walked, and if I return tomorrow I will know exactly where I am when I get off the train.

So that leaves Ballet Preljocaj’s performance of And then one thousand years of peace. How was it? In a word, breathtaking! In another: brilliant! You want one more: thrilling! It was an interval-free 100 minutes of high-powered, very acrobatic dance, often amazingly synchronized, always wondrously staged to a score that ranged from the loudest imaginable drum-driven techno to a Beethoven sonata. It was an evening that vaulted instantly into the top five dance experiences of my life. Fabulous. For another, not quite so ravishing, opinion, read this.

A 21:40 train (9:40pm to you Yanks) back to Glasgow and in the hotel by 11:10, er, 23:10. And today, I’m planning nothing but a late afternoon visit to the modern art gallery. Skipped breakfast and probably won’t leave the room til lunchtime. This holiday-making is tough!