That's entertainment

Over the last few weeks we've been in theatres a little more regularly than usual. We saw Carmina Burana in Alcoy, Totally Tina in the Gran Teatre in Elche, Miguel Poveda down at the ADDA in Alicante and then a classical orchestra at The Chapí in Villena. The last thing I went to here in Pinoso was quite a while ago now though, the Akram Trio, at the tail end of November. While we go to theatres for bands, opera, dance, music, zarzuelas and even magic we usually shy away from plays. Too tricky for our dodgy Spanish. 

As I hope you know Culebrón is a part of Pinoso and Pinoso has a population of about 8,500. In the English countryside Pinoso would be no more than a village but here it's definitely a town - probably because it provides town like services. One of those services is a theatre, the frequently used Auditorio Emilio Martínez Sáez. Settlements even smaller than Pinoso boast a theatre. Nearby Algueña (1300 people) and Salinas (1600) both have theatres and so (obviously) does Abanilla with over 6,000 people. It's something that seems to be almost taken for granted in Spain.

The theatres are all different but I'm optimistically going to see similarities and categories. Pinoso's theatre is a style much like the Teatro Cervantes in Petrer. Reasonably modern with quite a lot of wood panelling and fairly comfy seating. These venues often look as though refurb time is fast approaching. Then there are the theatres that have a bit grander design - stalls, dress circle, boxes and sometimes even gods. Examples here would be the Castelar over in Elda, the Principal in Monóvar or the Wagner down in Aspe. My favourites though are the plush velvet and gold leaf theatres lit with a sumptuous golden light; the ones with ceiling murals, with chandeliers and with the full panoply of stalls, boxes, upper and dress circles. The Chapí in Villena, the Vico in Jumilla, the Concha Segura in Yecla, the Principal in Alicante, the Gran Teatro in Elche and the Romea in Murcia all fall into this class. Strangely the last couple of places we've been to have been new to us and both have been modern. The Calderón in Alcoy was very swish, very modern, very comfy and the ADDA (Auditorio de la Diputación de Alicante) in Alicante was a bit of an eye opener to a country bumpkin like me. Much grander than most of our habitual haunts but all white, all synthetic materials, all wide open spaces. Built in 2011 it reminded me of the Palau de les Arts in the City of Art and Science up in Valencia but, as it wasn't designed by Santiago Calatrava, bits weren't falling off as we sat there!

It's surprisingly easy to book up events in these theatres nowadays. In the past it was often a pain - phone calls, box office pickups and approved agents with tickets. It's still sometimes the case. In the summer I had to go to a book shop in Novelda to buy tickets for a musical in the Cultural Centre in the town and, back in September, we chose to go to Yecla and stand in a queue to get first dibs on the seats for the Jazz Festival. If we'd waited for the Internet sale to open the next day we wouldn't have got the seats we wanted. Generally though the ticket platforms now make it cakelike. For the great majority of the theatres (and other venues around here) Instanticket is the most common platform, though some places use different ticket agencies. Prices vary. In the paraninfo of the University of Alicante (which isn't really a theatre) or in municipal theatres (like Pinoso) the performances are often free or a few Euros. In commercial theatres the  prices reflect the cost of staging the event - opera tickets are more expensive than ones for a string quartet for instance. I expect to pay somewhere in the teens, sometimes in the mid twenties and I baulk at anything over 30 unless I'm dead keen. 

Should you decide to give it a go, and you haven't before, I can't really help with the nomenclature of the bits of a theatre. I thought it was pretty simple, Patio de Butacas for the stalls, the seats lined up on the ground floor facing the stage. Anfiteatro was the first floor circle, again facing the stage but one floor up and with tiered seating. Another floor up, with your head against the ceiling, el Paraiso, the Gods usually called the chicken coop, el gallinero, by we hoi polloi. Along the side walls, so you have to look obliquely to see the stage, are the Palcos, the boxes. There's usually no problem with buying just a couple of seats in a box. I was also told, at the Concha Segura in Yecla, that the boxes that are at the same level as the stage, a little above the stalls, are called plateas but I've just been looking at the Instanticket diagrams of the theatres and every one seems to use variations of the name. It's all very graphic though, on all of the ticketing sites, so it's easy to work out. Knowing that Escenario is the stage  you just decide whether you want to look up to the stage, down to the stage, straight on to the stage or obliquely to the stage then check the availability and the prices. 

When I did the tour of the Wagner in Aspe we were told that they had never sold all the seats for any performance, that there were always unsold seats dotted here and there even for the most popular events. The ticket selling sites may say the theatre is sold out but it's not, apparently, quite true. This is because there is both national and regional legislation about how tickets should be sold. Here in Valencia 5% of tickets have to be held back to be sold at performance time from the box office. 

And if you don't fancy a performance most of the theatres do guided tours from time to time. The Teatro Chapí, named for a Villena born composer of the very traditionally Spanish opera form called zarzuela, for example does a visit one Sunday each month. As with nearly anything that involves a guided tour, from castles and museums to old air raid shelters the tourist offices are the place to ask.

Keep on truckin'

I don't remember the film title but I do remember the little gasp of horror from the audience as Michael Douglas padded across the room in half light heading for the bathroom. The reason for the concern was that he had a sunken, old man, bottom and, though I haven't dared to look recently, I suppose mine is too.

So far as I know I have no chronic illnesses though I know from people around me that your luck can change in seconds. I do often feel old though. Old as I feel the pain in my knees. Old as I realise that I'm gasping for breath after climbing a few stairs. Old as my arms ache after a bit of sawing. My feet hurt all the time, and the tinnitus is really loud. And so on and so forth. I'm getting old. No, let's be right about it, I am old. I know that people around me refer to 45 year olds as middle aged but all I can suppose is that they failed their "O" level sums.

Covid, and the responses to it, have kept us all quite hemmed in for a while now. Of course it has done much more. It has killed people, destroyed businesses, overpowered health services, left people penniless, challenged basic democratic rights and much more but, in our case, it has mainly hemmed us in. Lots of normal activity has stopped. Spain, a country where the smallest centre of population has a fiesta to celebrate its patron saint has cancelled them all. Covid is going to do to Christmas what the Grinch failed to do. 

On the cultural side the few concerts and sports events that have found a way to continue have been severely limited or have no spectators. In like manner the big museums may still be putting on new exhibitions but the the visitor numbers are scandalously low. Book fairs have been cancelled left right and centre. It's true that he cinemas are open but there are almost no big budget Hollywood films to see and even the domestic releases have been scant. Who wants to waste all that effort in releasing their film for paltry attendances? Of the five cinemas we most usually go to one has closed, probably for good, and one is running on a five day week. Current travel restrictions mean we can't use three of them; they are out of bounds. I went to a 4.15pm film screening last Wednesday and I was the only person, in the whole of the 11 screen cinema, apart from staff. Last night we went to a theatre in Elche and there were six of us in the dress circle. Down in the stalls half of the seats were taped over but occupancy of the remaining half couldn't have been more than a third. It was all a bit lifeless and depressing. You're living it too. You can add hundreds of similar examples and we're not even particularly confined at the moment.

Despite the fact that I keep doing it, wandering around yet another cathedral or a town centre hasn't really interested me for a while. But for the captions on my photos I often can't tell one from the other. Much better, in my opinion, to go to somewhere when something's happening. So I remember the community opera performance in Peterborough Cathedral much better than I remember Peterborough Cathedral. It's fine popping out to a local town, going to the coast or eating out but for me it's better when there is a twist to that. When the town has a food fair or there's a tapas trail, when something out of the ordinary is happening in the streets, when you've gone because you want to see the latest blockbuster exhibition or maybe something less obvious. Sports events, film festivals and the rest are, to me, great reasons for going somewhere.

It's not that my heart and nerve and sinew won't hold on for a while longer yet but it is all a bit wearying.