An interesting week just gone by. We went to Souda for an exhibition of paintings by a local artist but were not much taken with the pictures on view. They were all scenes of Souda and, although highly colourful, gave the faint impression of being slightly amateurish and this artist is far from being an amateur. He has had any number of exhibitions including three in London and, in his catalogue there are illustrations of much more interesting paintings that I would like to have seen but they were not what the exhibition was all about, and these I feel would not appeal to the masses hence maybe this change in style to more choc-box, a notch or two above Woolworths mass produced originals! The pictures were not inexpensive, top price being 3500euro and funnily enough the picture all three of us liked above the others was the first to be sold. So to use the word amateur is most unfair but it was just a feeling these paintings gave me.
However, on to amateurism in the true sense of the word. Saturday evening in the local school hall we attended a performance of the play ‘Murdered To Death’ by Peter Gordon. The performance started at six o’clock which is neither a matinee or an evening performance and I can’t understand the reason for this. It threw our whole day out of joint as far as meals and feeding the animals were concerned. Fine for the Greeks who like to eat all hours of the night but the audience wasn’t Greek. It consisted entirely of ex-pat Brits, three full houses of 150 which goes to show how many Brits have settled in Crete over the last few years.
Many years ago, almost as soon as we arrived here, I tried to raise interest in theatre, alas with no success whatsoever but then there were far fewer ex-pats here at that time. Now this group has been formed and I am sure they will be producing more plays. I can only hope the standard improves. Some months ago I was in fact asked to be a part of it but declined, making poor health my excuse, well not an excuse really as I was in no fit state to lead a drama group anyway and the thought of directing a play with them was not exactly an alluring prospect, but more strength to their elbows says I. But to this production – the play is a spoof on Agatha Christie and is in fact very funny but there was an awful lot of acting going on in this rather messy production, messy because the director was also playing a major part and it is almost impossible to direct a clean production if you are on stage a great deal of the time. In consequence entrances were masked, there was a deal of upstaging and even more dithering and moving to no purpose and, instead of playing straight and letting the laughs come of their own accord they made the usual mistake amateurs make by playing for the laughs. Consequently a lot of them went for nothing. There was also the problem of inaudibility with a couple of the actors, despite the presence of at least six mikes. However the audience was benevolent and kindly disposed, laughed sympathetically whenever there was a dry, of which there were a number, and gave the cast a rapturous reception at the end. The leading lady then gave a speech of thanks to all involved and made that awful mistake of saying ‘Of course we’re only amateurs.’ Having paid for our seats we do not want to hear those fateful words. We already knew from curtain up that they were all amateurs.