ALONG THE WALK
Cultural Exchange and a Bowler Hat
-orHow I Spent My Summer Vacation BY JosHUA STEPHEN EPSTEIN
6
'97
hen Professor Arthur Feinsod asked me if I was interested in playing Estragon in Samuel Beckett's Waitingfor Godot, I never would have guessed that I would be writing about my experiences almost a year later, after having just performed the same production in Germany. What started as a Above, l.to r.: Heather Dunbar, simple show in January 1997 stage designer;Walker Zavareei, the Boy; Maritza Ubides, store mangrew into an international ager; Joshua Epstein, Estragon excursion by August 1997, as (Gogo); Therelza Watson, Lucky; well as one of the richest thePeter Nigra, Vladimir (Didi);Joshua Weinstein, Pozo; and Arthur atrical experiences of my life. Feinsod, director. Inset: Eptein and In January, our company Nigra. Below: Watson in rehearsal. played a short run of Godot at the Austin Arts Center, but was gratifying to know that fate supplied us with one parwe were able to give someticular audience member. ' thing to the community, nurRenate Seitz, of the Badenture students' interest in theW i.irttemberg Exchange, coater, and make a little money ordinates an international exat the same time. change of German and In order to raise additional American students and artists. funds, the play ran for a very She decided our production limited engagement at the was a candidate for this proMiranda Theater in New gram and our trip was soon in York City. This short, sucplace. In April, Trinity hosted cessful run provided us with the T heaterTrennt of the remaining funds we Mannheim, Germany, which brought one of its touring productions, a collection of Eric Bogosian monologues, to Garmany Hall. We were able to meet our hosts for the first time and discuss how impossible it is to find a good bagel in Germany. Trinity was more than gene erous in funding half of our g trip. We decided to raise the c balance by performing Godot E0 iJj at several local venues,, in.}; eluding at Plainville, Weaver, _g.Q and Conard high schools. It "-
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needed for the trip. The manager of the theater was quite generous as well. Not only did he waive his normal commission, but he invited Professor Feinsod to bring other Trinity productions to the Miranda in the future. This brings us to Germany. For the first three d~ys of the trip, the company lived in Heidelberg, the very image of what romantic, prewar Germany should be. After our cultural acclimation (lots of sausage) , we relocated to Mannheim to rehearse and perform the play. Our hosts could not have been more generous or prepared. They acted as tour guides, translators, bartenders, anything and everything to make us feel at home, which we all did. Ad~ertisements appeared in all of the major papers, and we welcomed three critics on opening night. The reviews were
more than positive, the audiences were wonderful and on our final night, they began to applaud in unison, which as I understand is the German equivalent of a standing ovation. Everything came together on that final performance; we knew we had created a solid, lasting production of which everyone could be proud . Hundreds of students travel abroad each year to study and work in many exotic locales, but how often . do we get to flaunt how talented and creative this school can be? How often is there international "art for art's sake" ? As President Dobelle plans to broaden Trinity's scope in the international community even further, I hope there will be room for these simple exchanges in which artists from around the globe have the opportunity to collaborate and grow. I would like to think of this one trip not as an aberration, but as an experiment destined to repeat itself, allowing Trinity's artistic community to share its gifts with the world.