“Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi.”
We usually only hear the first half of the first half of this with a dot dot dot. “If you’re in Rome, live like the Romans. If you’re elsewhere, live like they do.”
“When in Rome…”
That’s St Ambrose. He didn’t like Jews or Pagans so, like many theologians there are personal boundaries to his advice, assumptions and internalised prejudices. But it ain’t bad advice for the traveller. “Get stuck in, wherever you are. Oh and remember, the Romans hate outsiders.”
We need to do more of it, that getting stuck in thing. Too often we hear people giving all the “We was in that Turkey and they didn’t even have proper fish and chips, it still had the head on it and all.” “I ordered a Coors Light and they didn’t even know what I was talking about.”
So I’m taking St Ambrose’s advice. Here at the home of the “fighting Irish” we are once again watching sport. There’s the band. There’s the pageantry. The stadium is full. It is men’s ice hockey this time so they won’t be exploding things on the court between quarters. Shouty tannoys, bangy music. Fun fun fun.
We are rehearsing tomorrow morning. We hoped to get away without. Peter Holland came to a run through. He writes the introductions to many of the Arden editions of Shakespeare plays. When I’m watching Shakespeare I usually know every fucking word of it and I’m looking at the choices people make. When he watches Shakespeare he’s seen all the choices already too and is likely just interested in how smoothly they are executed. “You’ll be coming in on Saturday to rehearse, I assume,” he said to us mildly after giving each of us at least one excellent difficult note. “We weren’t planning on it.” “Hmmm”.
We are coming in on Saturday. Everything is in place for this to be lovely. But it ain’t tight yet. So we are trying to tighten it now.
There’s weight in this work. It is gonna be the first Shakespeare of a lot of the audience. If it’s shit we burn jobs for people like us down the line. If it’s living, we keep the fire burning. Fifty years they’ve mostly sent out great shows. As You Like It is complicated and bitty but damn it is charming too. And so are we.
But tonight we are gonna be here with the sirens and the band, with the children waving rattles and the dancers. Last night they won the basketball. The hockey are 0-2 to Ohio State right now. The brass band is playing “Take on me”. The atmosphere is muted. I’d like a win in as much as I care, because I’m in Rome. I’m in a Catholic sporty enthusiastic academic institution in the US of A. Doesn’t matter how much of an international joke the president might be, the Romans had Caligula.
“Let’s go Irish.”
The chanting is more polite than the chanting we get in the UK…
AlBarclay 