Tango Techie Tales: Messing Around In The Fliegende Bauten

The Tent! The Tent!

I got to admit, it’s actually nice to finally be on German soil – I have before but only the airports of Munich & Frankfurt many, many times over on my first ever overseas travel! We’re staying in St Pauli, which is a suburb of Hamburg and we’re performing in the Fliegende Bauten (the Flying Tent) and it’s very similar to the Spiegeltent (for those in the know!). The theatricality of the show has had to be sacrificed as the grid (height of the lights) is about 4m above the stage – usually it’s around 9m! Also, the stage is quite small, well, really, it’s tiny! But I gotta say, this is one of those gigs where you basically hand it over to the guys & girls who run the joint. It’s not a theatre, it’s a ‘dinner & show’ kinda venue, it’s unique and you have to think outside the norm – even for theatre!!

The main patron entrance.

The crew are great – Citro, the Head LX, is this crazy, old but hilariously funny, tiny German woman who loves to speak French. Silke is one of the office staff but spends a bundle of time making sure we’re all ok, Ollie, Michael & Cassie as our general techs & spot ops plus a couple of others round out the team. I can’t speak highly enough of Citro – she had worked on the show the last time they’d performed in Germany (also in the Tent) and was pretty quick in getting a 4 colour wash and pretty much most of the required specials up and running. The show looks nothing like what it should and we’ve lit things a different way but that’s ok because the venue more than makes up for it in atmosphere & character. It’s when we’re in a ‘real’ theatre and the right look isn’t achievable that I get shirty!

Dan found a silly hat...!!

Hamburg is also going to be quite a social old time. We actually get to ‘live’ if that makes sense and truly explore Hamburg as we’re here for two weeks. Taking advantage of this are Dan’s friends Jacquiline & Wishy (real name Chris – whom I first met in London) who are both backpacking around the world. Jules and Prem from Holland – myself & Jules made a pact before she left Aus that we’d have to catch up every six months and so far so good! A friend of mine, Liz who used to work at the Arts Centre but now lives in Paris and last but not least, we have Floris & Paul, our two Dutch touring crew who are driving across for a couple of nights! Tis going to be a busy two weeks me thinks!

This is no way relevant to Hamburg but the guy in the middle is the Ricardo "Yeeessssssss" Idiot who was our main Portuguese production contact! Twit!

St Pauli is kinda like a cross between Fitzroy (before the money moved in) & St Kilda...! It’s pretty cool and is peppered with little bars to suit all tastes as well as an abundance of cafes and eateries. The advantage for us is that we’re here for two weeks so we get to call it home and truly ‘live’ in St Pauli...! It’s quite a cool little town and I never knew it but Hamburg is a harbour town! There’s also a main drag that is far more geared and aimed at the tourists – Reeperbahn is where it’s at. It even has it’s own ‘Red Street’, like in Amsterdam, but it’s much smaller. It’s a weird deal as the ladies literally sit in windows, you negotiate a price for what ever it is you want and then the window opens as a door, through you go and...?!?! There’s also a number of ladies roaming the streets offering you all sorts of ‘pleasures’ for all sorts of crazy prices! It’s just a shame we get such a bad conversion rate for the Aussie $..!!

See... they're real streets!

Intersecting with the Reeperbahn is the Hamburger Berg (yes, that’s it’s name!) and that’s the street where we’ve laid claim to a bar called “Rosies” and made it our local. It’s a great little bar that also has Foosball – it seems Europeans are as crazy for it as some Americans (remember the story of Ric & I...?). Prem is really good at it and Wish isn’t too bad either – I however, continue to flex my sporting prowess by sucking! Although I will admit, I did get pretty good at defence there for a bit...! Not great but not sheer fluke either – there did appear to be some kind of coordination to my movements...!!

Another great thing that’s happening here in Hamburg is that I will get to watch the AFL Grand Final as my beloved Hawks are in it against Geelong. It’s the first time we’ve been in the Grand Final since 1991 and unfortunately I’m here in Germany! I’ve organised with my mum to tape the game onto a DVD and then FedEx me the disc ASAP, regardless of the result, so I can watch it as ‘live’ as I can. Having done some research at home, if it’s collected 1st thing on Mon morn, it should be in my hot little hands by Wed night, German time....! It’s costing me about $120 but I figure I would have paid that much for a ticket or spent as much on booze if I’d gone to a pub to watch the game! I will be going into a complete communication black out from the moment the first bounce occurs in Melb and will not be turning on my phone, computer, TV or even thinking about surfing the Net in case the result leaks through. For 4 days I’m going to have to entertain myself via analogue means! I have also packed my Hawks beanie and scarf in anticipation...!