Photo: Ioana Burtea

Dubrovka Vrgoc, president of the ETC

On the way to Zurich, on the same day, we spoke with Dubravka Vrgoc, the president of ETC. She explained that the idea of the European Tour was born out of a desire to celebrate the 25 years in which the organisation she leads has been promoting an exchange of ideas and collaboration between public theatres in over 40 countries. Mrs Vrgoc believes the timing could not have been better – in a time of crisis across the continent, the ETC wants to address more than just budget cuts and financial plans. The purpose of the tour is to get people discussing about the moral crisis during these turbulent years, as well as a crisis of audiences which have been moving away from theatre and into film.

On that note, we arrived in Zurich in the evening and went straight to Schauspiel theatre where we saw a performance of Cat on a hot tin roof written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Stefan Pucher. The play combined acting with live music and clips, which honestly made our heads spin. All would have been much more bearable without the overly-passionate performances of the actors on stage. The play was of the type that is designed to scream originality and postmodernism, but all too often this is a facade underneath which nothing is truly reinvented.

That's all from Day 3 and the snowy Alps. We visited sunny Italy today and will report much more interesting things in the days to come. Be sure to keep an eye on Sixth Sense. Ciao!