Thursday, November 18, 2010

Gothenburg and home

Saturday night saw a great Swedish feast at Teater Eksem's Gothenburg HQ, which gave me the chance to thank everybody properly. It was quite emotional - the end of two years' work with a very inspiring and tightly knit group of people. Not that it will be an end really - the show may well come back, and even if it doesn't the potential legacy projects are legion.

Still, we went into the final show on Sunday with a combined sense of loss and determination to be brilliant - and as a result had an amazing night. Last shows are often faintly disappointing, because the cast strive for a definitive performance and there really is no such thing. But this show, which is in many ways about loss, benefited hugely from the circumstances, and was very moving and beautiful. At the reception afterwards, the Swedish managements, funders and artistic guests all kept using the same word: "poetic". I like that. The performance was in the space at Pustervik, where I saw Victoria perform in the Festival on my first Swedish trip in 2008. Exciting to end the project in this lovely space which I know from its beginnings.

Filip and I shared the driving of the van to Dusseldorf on Monday, and then I did the last slog through the fog of northern Europe on Tuesday. The air of melancholy was appropriate, I suppose. But I didn't linger in it for long - the emails and meetings have been constant since I got back, and of course we are recruiting staff!

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