An Anniversary Outing

The end of July saw this correspondent and his wife celebrating a wedding anniversary on London's South Bank.  Having investigated West End theatrical offerings we opted for the wider spaces and promenading opportunities provided in and around the National Theatre.  One can sit and sample the delights of the passing parade - the comings and goings of late afternoon and early-evening Londoners together with the musical performances in the precints of the National Theatre make wonderful entertainment for theatre goers and promenaders alike.  For all the past talk of architectural 'carbuncles', by heirs with airs, the South Bank is a space in the heart of London to be cherished - it is a space on a human scale and facilitates a democratic meeting point for strollers, culture vultures, city workers and artists alike. In a way, the play we saw echoed the theme of people, life and art.  

The brilliant polymath playwright Michael Frayn's virtuoso portrait of the life of  German theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt, Afterlife,  was a joy.  Set in Austria in the years leading up to the rise of the Nazis, it follows the career of one of the century's most flamboyant and contradictory theatrical luminaries.  The play is a kind of literary dissertation on the themes of life, art, mortality and legacy as seen through the Miracle Plays which Rheinhardt staged at the Salzburg Festival.  The premise of these plays had at its centre the figure of Everyman - the universal character beloved of artists from time immemorial to denote humanity in its entirety and in its particularity.  Everyman has his time, as Shakespeare has it,  'to strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more' and then has to account for his deeds on earth to the Almighty.  Rheinhardt was much preoccupied with breaking down the barriers between what went on in everyday life and what went on on stage, and talked of the 'frontier' between art and life.  Frayn brings these themes to life through devices such as blank and rhyming verse - the characters on stage suddenly burst into passages of poetry.  The story of Rheinhardt's complicated artistic, personal and political life is told with wit, panache and verve but is also profound and serious in intent.  In amongst the stage antics, clever theatrical jokes and visual allusions, the deeply philosophical message of the play is never far from the surface - time waits for no man and death comes whispering 'Everyman' to every man.