Austro-British Society Tyrol

On a perfect summer Saturday a group of Austrobrits set out to investigate Ernest Hemingway’s Silvretta connection. Hazel Zeiner, who had organised the trip, offered prosecco and orange juice to start the day and Andrew Milne-Skinner threw his extensive collection of background material into the fray, distributing extracts from several works of Hemingway that relate to his stays in the Silvretta area and challenging us all to answer a 16-question quiz.

We approached the Silvretta through the Paznaun, stopping off for lunch at the Hotel Rössl in Galtür where Hemingway had downed many a glass of red wine. Galtür also features in his story An Alpine Idyll, a highly misleading title for a tale of the brutal pragmatism of a high mountain peasant, who even found a practical use for the frozen corpse of his wife.
As we rode up to the Silvretta reservoir in the comfortable coach we were at leisure to imagine Hemingway covering the same distance (and altitude differential) on his skis with seal skins attached to the underside. The Madlenerhaus, then of course just by a stream and not below the big dam, was his favourite base for exploring the mountains in the vicinity
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Most of the time Hemingway must have reached it from the Vorarlberg side, starting off in Schruns on a sleigh but covering most of the way on foot. He spent two whole winters in the mid-1920s in Schruns.

The Hotel Taube, where the Hemingway family stayed, still exists today and the son of Hemingway’s host proudly showed us the guest book with the original signature and some photographs. Today it sounds like a luxury holiday, but at the time, accommodation with full board in Schruns was so cheap that the Hemingways could afford it simply by subletting their Paris flat.

Ironically it was in Schruns that Hemingway reworked his novel Fiesta, not an obvious association with a Vorarlberg winter.
References to those winters can be found in several of his works. His autobiographical texts contain some boastful claims to high-speed descents from glaciers and extreme situations the author found himself in.
The Austrobrits may not have believed all tales of frozen limbs but agreed with Hemingway’s praise of the local food. We missed out on the Kirsch that Hemingway seems to have been rather partial to, but on the main square of Schruns a deserted market stall still advertised the concoction today.

On the way home several ideas were aired on possible themes for future excursions. We’ll keep you posted!

On Thursday 25 March we were treated to a fascinating and quite astonishing concept: a survey of British popular music over the ages, ranging from the 12th century melodies of Saint Godric of Finchale to modern classics by the Beatles and Jethro Tull. But this was not only a survey, as songs from different periods were juxtaposed for contrast, with 16th/17th century songs of John Dowland, for example, running directly into modern classics by rock band "Yes". This was a potpourri of music written in the English language (not only modern English, but Middle English as well!), by and large written in England by English musicians (Händel was English, of course!). Both this innovate mix and the talented and accomplished presentation by Kristina Cosumano (Vocals) and Hanno Winder (Guitar) were savoured by the audience.

The first half of the concert made it all the way from Medieval music of St. Godric and the traditional Middle English piece "Sumer is icumen in", via the music of Dowland, Yes, and Henry Purcell, to an overview of music by the Beatles. The last of these was wonderfully done. Rather than only playing a few well-known Lennon/McCartney songs, they really surveyed all 4 Beatles - playing George Harrison's "Beware of Darkness" and Ringo Starr's "Octopus' Garden". The second half then began with “Jerusalem” - the hymn now so deeply rooted in English popular culture (the previous time I had heard it played was at Twickenham) - and proceeded through the music of Peter Gabriel, John Duarte, Benjamin Britten, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The concert then finished with the music of Ian Scott Anderson (Jethro Tull), interspersed with Händel's Harmonious Blacksmith and more Dowland.

I left the concert admiring not just the impressive musical performance by Kristina Cosumano and Hanno Winder, as they worked through such a wide range of musical styles (and genres!), but perhaps even more so, the fascinating idea creating such an enjoyable potpourri. It was like watching a cultural history of Britain captured in popular music.

A good time seems to have been had by all... some 59 people!
Apart from a series of readings, also with music versions of several Burns' songs, the haggis was piped in and the 5 pipers then offered an intercultural medley!
Our thanks to Erica, Isabella and Herbert for their great efforts in organizing the event.
The next Burns Night will be in two years time....

How about having a fine chat with Oscar Wilde?
Or getting drunk side by side with Lord Byron?
What is impossible in normal life becomes reality in a convincingly enacted play by the talented author James Huntrods.

An excessive annual party is just about to take place at Westminster Abbey where all the famous writers are buried, when a young and obviously deranged female poet called Jane enters the scene. Stubbornly denying that she is dead, she tries to figure out what has really happened to her and why she has ended up over here. A range of flashbacks enables her to rebuild her own memory and, in further consequence, to remain commemorated in Poets’ Corner.

In collaboration with a group of promising young actors from the student company Tea for Ten, James Huntrods wrote “Poets’ Corner” – an enjoyable stage play, packed with irony and dark humour, as well as light-hearted jokes and disguised jokes.
It provides an extraordinary entertainment to the audience. But putting all amusement aside, director and writer incorporated one wonderful aspect;

With so many praiseworthy achievements, the overall synthesis of all the positive aspects is credited to the director Tom Birch who worked closely together with James Huntrods.
Not least it is their merit that the performance was very well-received.
The acting was outstanding excellent and a welcome spectacle.
Ingeniously created characters combined with future excellent actors – the perfect ingredients for a happy performance.
The cast includes Jimmy Walters in the role of educated and mannerly Oscar Wilde, Tom Holloway, playing the supercilious and wine-loving Lord Byron, Rachel Ashwanden representing the young and eager poet Jane Gathering, Rory James Greenfield in the role of the funny Middle-English speaking William Blake, Benji Huntrods, playing the vigorous Charles Dickens, Robert Weedall as “very tired of marriage” Geoffrey Chaucer and finally Janes’ slimy husband Will Marsh (Reuben) and Fenella Dawnay as his affair (Evelyn).
The Stage Manager, who is highly competent in designing flexible stage-scenery, is Emma Black and the Production Manager is Louise Buckton, who had previously worked for The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh.

Having said all this, the play is really worth seeing and extremely entertaining.
You would be a twat to miss it.

Excursion on Saturday 20th June
Following the “TRACKS” of D.H.Lawrence’s “ESCAPADES” in the Zillertal

Idea and Readings by Andrew Milne-Skinner Planning and Organization by Hazel Zeiner With the Union Jack to guide them, the group of Austro-Brits. made their way to Platform 4 on Innsbruck’s station for the start of the excursion: this year by trains and buses. The highlight being the reserved carriage on the nostalgic steam train of the Zillertalbahn, which slowly made its way to Mayrhofen through the “waving crowds” as it passed them by. Sadly low clouds spoilt the views, but not the spirit of the group, who by now were getting their first taste of postcards, photos and of some of what D. H. Lawrence had been writing in the Zillertal nearly 100 years ago. A very warm welcome, by the manager himself was waiting at the Gasthof zur Brücke. Here Lawrence had spent 3 weeks with Frieda Weekley, with whom he had eloped, in what was then a farmhouse. During lunch, which was ready for us on arrival, we heard about the bridge and stream around “Brücke” and of the many flowers around Mayrhofen, from a letter written from there by Lawrence. Towards the end of this excellent lunch it became a rush as the journey had to continue by bus which, as we were told, would not wait long. Had it been realized how long the ticket purchasing would have taken there would have been time to finish deserts and the last drop of wine. As no one did miss the bus, the Austro- Brits were able to continue their climb to the Schlegeisstausee—actually the 25km were done on foot by Lawrence and his Frieda—passing more Alpine meadows, flowers and wayside crosses as seen by that romantic pair. Up at this height of over 1,800m a few drops of rain and a bitterly cold wind did not deter the walk among Alpine orchids and roses to the Dominikushütte for coffee and a warm-up whilst eager to hear more. More we did because it was such a creative period of Lawrence’s life. From here the author continued over Pfitscherjoch and on to Sterzing with his writings with him. The Austro-Brits, however, retraced their steps and, with one last look at the nostalgic steam train at Mayrhofen Station, boarded the modern diesel for home.

May 13th 2009
Love, Sex and Marriage in Medieval Britain
A fascinating talk by Leona Cordery

I was so glad that nobody had been sitting on the chair in front of me that evening because I was leaning over it for more. Hearing the “things” that took place in medieval days and, with D.H. Lawrence joining us on our trip to the Zillertal, I did begin to wonder what the Society was coming to. Talk of Free Masons—the stone masons on those days were very free it seemed. Free to carve figures on our Gothic cathedrals of Men and Women exposing or even touching their genitals. People thought that these were the dark ages, but then 19th.century and much of 20th.century Britain seemed to have been much darker, or shall we say less enlightened? Sex seemed to have been just a “normal thing” for mankind as it was for the animal world until later the church / clergy started to wish to curb man’s desires, despite their own hypocritical behaviour. I myself am still disgusted when I think of how learned men thought---in a certain way many still do—of women as 2nd.class beings. The origin of all evil—going back to the serpent / devil and the apple. Much of this seems also to date from the fact that even the most learned of men could not understand a woman—how her body worked, her monthly cycle, bearing and giving birth to children. All very mysterious. People did marry. It seems not only once and that on a grand scale and with the blessing of the church. And Virgins ? What were they ? They were strong women who could stand on their own two feet. Not at all what present-day virginity has come to mean.

A moving talk by Hazel Zeiner and a novel way to show us Human Rights Violations or Man’s inhumanity to Man, which are often so close at hand. She started the talk by lighting the “Candle”. Hazel, who’s lived and worked in central and south America as well as in Europe, followed her own life for us alongside Amnesty International since its foundation by the London lawyer Peter Benenson. Growing up near the “greatest city on earth”—Liverpool, at the time of the Beatles, who cared that this city had also got rich on slavery? Or that British children still started school at the tender age of 5 because 6 year-olds used to work down the coalmines? Living and working in Switzerland in 1970, it was a shock for her to realize that some of her Swiss colleagues were only then getting the chance to vote for the first time. When in Austria in 1974 she needed her husband’s signature to put her son into her passport after him not needing hers, she felt that it was time to start doing something about such “things”. And here Hazel brought us some success stories of Amnesty International. Two poignant stories being of: an Egyptian family man working in Saudi Arabia. Her group “got him free”—he was no longer awaiting the death penalty, but was able to go home after some 500 lashes of the whip. This punishment, sadly almost crippled him. And a young Tibetan nun who also came “free” after spending so much of her life in prison for wanting “Freedom for Tibet”. Towards the end of the talk we were reminded again of the lack of religious freedom in many countries: the surprising example of the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who only became a member of the Roman Catholic faith when he was no longer Prime Minister. The law in Britain only permits a Roman Catholic to be a Member of Parliament but still not to be the British Prime Minister. Lighting a candle in St Martin-in-the Fields Church, in 1981, to mark the 20th anniversary of Amnesty, Peter Benenson said, "I have lit this candle, in the words of Shakespeare, 'against oblivion' - so that the forgotten prisoners should always be remembered. We work in Amnesty against oblivion."

Congratulations to Vienna’s English Theatre on their courageous choice of Virgins for this year’s senior school tour performances! This thought-provoking, compelling and outspoken play deals with real issues teenagers (and adults for that matter) have to face in day-to-day life. It challenges us, the audience, to really look closely at often underlying family conflicts and problems that arise while growing-up: hang-ups about sex, sexually transmitted infections and trust.
We experienced a highly competent cast turning the provocative text into a convincing, engaging and vibrant performance. Minimal stage props were used, but in a most effective way, above all a doll’s house that represented the family home. Little details like the mother lacing up the daughter’s neckline, only for the latter to immediately loosen it; Jack’s stripping off layers of clothes to the Arctic Monkey’s song “A Certain Romance” or the identity tag worn by the mother even at home, indicative of her role as a managing director both at work and at home, were immediately meaningful and added to the overall enthralling interpretation of John Retallack’s noteworthy drama. The production, fluid and free-wheeling, certainly captivated Thursday’s teenagers in Innsbruck.
In its directness and refreshing approach Virgins is a valuable educational play that deserves to be in Vienna’s English Theatre repertoire for years to come. In fact, we hope Vienna’s English Theatre will continue to offer such plays encouraging teachers and pupils to tackle such taboo topics!

What happens when a young and lively woman hairdresser with a strong tendency to swearing enrols in an Open University course to learn objective literary criticism? Will her "dead serious" determination be enough to carry her through? And what happens if her tutor, a literature professor in his early fifties, turns out to be a disillusioned alcoholic with no ideals left in his life? When will he lose his patience with his new and non-stop talking student?
This is the opening scene in the play "Educating Rita", written by Willy Russell in 1981 and performed in Innsbruck by the International Theatre of Vienna. The performance of Roxanne Carless as Rita is thoroughly convincing and especially entertaining. Jack Babb plays the role of Frank confidently, but does not exert such strong presence on stage. He clearly remains in the background, despite his ironic and funny remarks. In this way he succeeds in underlining the stark contrast between the two very different personalities of Frank and Rita.
The result is a highly enjoyable stage play including witty dialogue with deeper meaning. It gets us to remember our own experience with education, while it challenges rigid opinions and prejudices. Moreover, the topic couldn't be more relevant today as it deals with superficial consumerism, on the one hand, and the search for real happiness, on the other.

Nov 2008
Still crazy after all these years…. Educating Rita comes to Innsbruck

Crazy? No, but appealing certainly and pertinent any day. When the International Theatre of Vienna followed an invitation by the Austrobrits Tyrol to perform Willy Russel’s 1981 stage hit “Educating Rita” it quickly became clear that the play had lost none of its original attraction. To a large part this is due to the excellent timing and interplay of Roxanne Carless as Rita and Jack Babb as Frank. Roxanne Carless shoulders the bulk of the text with confidence and exactly the right amount of animation for each scene. Jack Babb retains a strong presence despite the jaded stance required of his character.

They are both greatly helped by the excellent script, which combines wit, sharp observation and literary insights with different social and intellectual registers as the play unfolds.

In this production Rita’s initial NW England accent is quite mild, which benefits an audience of mainly non-native speakers and which Roxanne Carless makes up for in body language. In 2008, the references to the trade unions sound a bit dated and what is left of the working class might not be as sanguine about money as Rita was in 1981. The search for a life beyond the quick fix of an evening in the pub or in front of the telly, however, is still on and the treacherous course between alienation and insight beautifully charted in Willy Russell’s play.

Saturday, June 26th 2010 Following in Ernest Hemingway's footsteps The young man and the mountains

Saturday, June 26th 2010
Following in Ernest Hemingway's footsteps
The young man and the mountains