By Heidi Trautmann
What a sad evening on May 22.
We arrived early to have a choice of seating, to enjoy the view onto the evening sea and perhaps a colourful sunset but for 45 minutes we had to listen to a never ending Frank Sinatra CD at an unbearable sound level so you had to shout at the top of your voice to talk to your neighbour or to friends one met. We would have preferred music to give us a taster of the musicals to come, but no, it had to be Frankieboy with the same songs over and over again.
The stage was empty, no decoration whatsoever, in the background packing material left in a heap, and some metal rails across the stage which gave us the illusion of being in a jailhouse, and I asked myself if we were at the right venue. Why weren’t there some flowers to create a little festive atmosphere?
When the Show started 20 minutes late, Bobby Davro, an obviously well known entertainer in England tried to create what he thought would be a festive atmosphere, but it was an entertainment one would not expect in a Musical Show with professionals - cheap jokes, I won’t say anymore.
The programme said that we would hear the lovely voices of Nic Greenshields and Jo Gibb from Westend theatres in London who would be singing for our enjoyment. The voices were absolutely professional and very good but the poor performers had to sing against this unbelievable wall of unbalanced sound and it all destroyed the good impression. The lighting was practically always some moments behind the performers and hardly existent, so mostly they stood in the dark. I felt sorry for them, if I were in their position I would have left the stage.
There was a children dance group from the Girne American University with a dance from the musical Chicago, and there was one little girl, the lead figure who really danced and acted well.
This man Davro showed up again, made some more jokes, told us about his marriage and new girl friend and all of a sudden had the idea to take the journalist Marion Stuart onto stage to dance with her, it was more than embarrassing to say the least.
Our heads were splitting when the break of 20 minutes was announced and we decided to rather have a glass of wine somewhere nearby. We left. With us some other visitors and as I hear from friends who had stayed on, there was quite a number leaving.
What a shame, I am sorry for the two guest singers and I am sorry that theatre agencies try to damage the reputation of the young amphitheatre which is such a nice and welcome idea to have in Girne, and has already seen wonderful performances. Damage by unprofessional technical personnel, sound technician and lighting man; the organization was just as well unprofessional, since in the practice of theatre you have sound and lighting checks one evening before the event together with the performers. I was told by many visitors that they had heard about the event the same morning only by flyers on the windscreen of their cars. Tickets were sold only at the Savoy Hotel, people had to run around and find that out themselves, even the Girne Townhall did not have any tickets for sale.
This is not the way!