A friend of mine was the acting director at the local theater for a while 20 years ago. His first production had an actress walk across the stage wearing only a foam dress, which presumably didn't please everyone, especially not our newspaper's feature writer. Perhaps half a year later, Georg Büchner's production of "Danton's Death" came along, and the official critic must have gone into the theater practically armed. His criticism was devastating. The city, that is, everyone who enjoys reading the culture section of the newspaper, was in a frenzy. People were talking about the latest production at the theater, and everyone diligently went there, having prepared, read the play, and wanted to know what the critique was all about. Do people here love scandals, or does everyone want to form their own opinion? I don't know. But when contemporary plays were performed at the opera shortly afterwards, many audiences came back a second time because they hadn't fully understood one or two of the pieces the first time around and wanted to give themselves a second chance.
