"Theater Is, Of Course, A Reflection Of Life"

In the two-and-a-half years since I met Andrew, he and I have attended a remarkable number of theater performances, on a wide range of themes, by a wide range of authors, in a wide range of venues.

I am almost startled at the number of theater performances Andrew and I have attended: 48 different theater events, if my tally is correct, in the thirty months since February 2006. This is more than I realized.

In order, we have attended performances of:

The Adam Guettel-Craig Lucas musical, “The Light In The Piazza”, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center, New York

William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Brian Friel’s “Faith Healer”, at the Booth Theatre, New York

John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt”, at the Walter Kerr Theatre, New York

The Marc Shaiman-Scott Wittman-Mark O’Donnell-Thomas Meehan musical, “Hairspray”, at the Neil Simon Theatre, New York

Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys”, at the Broadhurst Theatre, New York

Tennessee Williams’s “Die Katze Auf Dem Heissen Blechdach” [“Cat On A Hot Tin Roof”], in German, at the Thalia Theater, Hamburg

Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off”, at The English Theatre Of Hamburg, Hamburg

Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Herb Gardner’s “A Thousand Clowns”, at Minneapolis Theatre Garage, Minneapolis

Jean Giraudoux’s “The Madwoman Of Chaillot”, at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

The Jule Styne-Bob Merrill-Isobel Lennart musical, “Funny Girl”, at Bloomington Civic Theater, Bloomington

George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

The Sherman Edwards-Peter Stone musical, “1776”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Noel Coward’s “Private Lives”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Stephen Mallatratt’s “The Woman In Black”, at the Fortune Theatre, London

Clifford Odets’s “Awake And Sing!”, at the Almeida Theatre, London

Roger Crane’s “The Last Confession”, at Theatre Royal Haymarket, London

David Storey’s “In Celebration”, at The Duke Of York’s Theatre, London

Ronald Harwood’s “The Dresser”, at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

David Mamet’s “Speed The Plow”, at Jungle Theater, Minneapolis

William Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, performed by The Royal Shakespeare Company, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull”, performed by The Royal Shakespeare Company, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Alan Stanford’s stage adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte novel, “Jane Eyre”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

John Pielmeier’s “Agnes Of God”, at Park Square Theater, Saint Paul

Brian Friel’s “The Home Place”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

The Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical, “Sweeney Todd”, The National Touring Company version of the 2005 Broadway production, at the State Theater, Minneapolis

Tracy Letts’s “August: Osage County”, at the Imperial Theatre, New York

The Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical, “The Fantasticks”, at Bloomington Civic Theater, Bloomington

William Shakespeare’s “Henry V”, at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

The Frederick Loewe-Alan Jay Lerner musical, “My Fair Lady”, The National Touring Company version of the 2001 National Theatre Of Britain production, at the Orpheum Theater, Minneapolis

Wendy Wasserstein’s “Third”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

The Lisa Lambert-Greg Morrison-Bob Martin-Don McKellar musical, “The Drowsy Chaperone”, The National Touring Company version of the 2006 Broadway production, at The Ordway Center, Saint Paul

Samuel Taylor’s “Sabrina Fair”, at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Rabbit Hole”, at Jungle Theater, Minneapolis

The Richard Adler-Jerry Ross-George Abbott musical, “The Pajama Game”, at Bloomington Civic Theater, Bloomington

Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

Mary Chase’s “Harvey”, at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

William Gillette’s “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure”, at Park Square Theater, Saint Paul

Thomas Kilroy’s “The Secret Fall Of Constance Wilde”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Nikolai Gogol’s “The Government Inspector”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Michael Frayn’s “Afterlife”, at The National Theatre, London

Enid Bagnold’s “The Chalk Garden”, at Donmar Warehouse, London

Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle”, at Chichester Festival Theatre, Chichester

Ronald Harwood’s “Taking Sides”, at Chichester Festival Theatre, Chichester

Simon McBurney’s “A Disappearing Number”, at Theatre Royal, Plymouth

Alan Bennett’s “Enjoy”, performed by The Peter Hall Company, at Theatre Royal, Bath

William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant Of Venice”, performed by The Royal Shakespeare Company, at The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

This is a pretty diverse list. I wish it included a play or two by Henrik Ibsen and Tom Stoppard, two of my favorite playwrights, but Andrew and I have not had an opportunity to attend any Ibsen or Stoppard plays in the last thirty months.

The most impressive production, of all the 48 productions we have seen, was The Royal Shakespeare Company production of Chekhov’s “The Seagull”, performed in Minneapolis as part of the RSC guest stint in the Twin Cities. The RSC production of “The Seagull” was so brilliant that it made me re-think the play.

Also memorable were Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys” on Broadway, Brian Friel’s “The Home Place” at The Guthrie Theater, and Enid Bagnold’s “The Chalk Garden” at Donmar Warehouse in London. These three were memorable, not because of the plays themselves, which were not particularly strong, but because of the exceptional productions they received.

In the 48 productions we have attended, I have seen eleven stage actors who were indisputably “stars”, even if they were not well-matched to the roles they performed. I had never seen a “star” onstage in my life until I saw Ralph Fiennes in “Faith Healer”—but, from that night forward, I knew what a star was.

The other ten “stars” I have seen, in order, were Eileen Atkins, Harriet Harris, Stockard Channing, David Suchet, Michael Jayston, Ian McKellan, Simon Jones, Margaret Tyzack, Penelope Wilton and Susan Hampshire.

I have seen a few other “big names” on stage, but those other “big names” were not “stars”, at least not on the afternoons or evenings I caught their performances.

However, I believe I should at least mention Georgia Engel, who was enchanting in a small part in “The Drowsy Chaperone”.

Boston is not a theater town, so Andrew and I will not have the opportunity to continue our theater-going at the same pace over the next three years.

We won’t mind.

"You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chances"

We attended seven plays while we were in Britain.

The first was the new Michael Frayn play,“Afterlife”, receiving its world premiere at London’s National Theatre. “Afterlife” is a biographical play whose subject is Max Reinhardt, the theater impresario who was one of the founders of The Salzburg Festival.

This was my first performance at The National Theatre. We had taken a guided tour of the entire National Theatre complex last year, but we did not attend any National Theatre performances last year—instead, the four plays we attended in London last year were all in the West End.

I was genuinely looking forward to my first performance at The National Theatre, because Alex and Andrew have always talked so highly about the quality of the performances they have attended at The National, the greatest theater in the English-speaking world.

I was in for a rude awakening.

I hated “Afterlife”. Sitting through “Afterlife” was one of the most tedious afternoons of my life.

It was the play itself that stunk, not the production or the performance. The text was in verse, which surprised us greatly, and it simply did not work. The text was too long, too repetitive, and too clumsy. It also lacked poetry—fatally so. The play was little more than an academic experiment that did not succeed.

The audience was noticeably stultified. I would estimate that more than twenty per cent of the audience departed the theater at the intermission, a good indication of how bad this play truly was.

I know nothing about Max Reinhardt, but apparently being learned about the life and career and philosophy of Reinhardt does not add to one’s enjoyment of the play—Andrew and Andrew’s father, both knowledgeable about Reinhardt, hated the play as much as I did. Andrew’s mother, Andrew’ brother and my sister hated the play, too. At the final curtain, all of us agreed that we should have departed the performance at the interval, which we had very seriously contemplated.

“You pay your money and you take your chances”, as the saying goes—and “Afterlife” was a waste of our time, and a sour way to get our theater-going under way.

It was with great trepidation that we attended Enid Bagnold’s “The Chalk Garden” later the same day. “The Chalk Garden” does not enjoy a high reputation, and we were genuinely fearful that we would be required to sit through yet another gruesome few hours in the theater for the second time in one day.

The play itself is unremarkable—an odd mixture of drawing-room comedy, melodrama, mystery and satire that do not, ultimately, add up to very much—but at least Bagnold knew how to write dialogue for the stage, and the play flew by in a flash.

The production was flawless—a marvel, actually—and it was the production that was responsible for carrying the evening. There were two great actresses in the cast—Margaret Tyzack and Penelope Wilton—and we could not take our eyes off either one of these two great artists for the entire evening.

Both were absolutely riveting. With the slightest turn of the head, or the subtlest coloration of a line, Tyzack and Wilton had the audience spellbound if not in rapture. I have never experienced anything quite like it in my life. I was transfixed, and so was my sister. It was the sort of thing one experiences only a few times in one’s life. I will never forget the performances of these two grand ladies.

“The Chalk Garden” went a long way in making up for our disappointment in “Afterlife”.

My sister and I were the only ones in our party who had never before seen the great Margaret Tyzack on stage.

However, only Alex and Andrew had previously seen Penelope Wilton on stage, and Alex and Andrew remarked that Wilton was practically unrecognizable to them in her “Chalk Garden” role. Alex and Andrew had seen Wilton play the lead in “The House Of Bernarda Alba” at The National Theatre in 2005, and Wilton’s 2005 appearance as the haughty if not vicious widowed Spanish matriarch in the Lorca play bore no relationship to her 2008 appearance as a prim British governess dealing with a troubled child on an isolated country estate. The actress was the same in both roles, but the character was a totally different person, and the look and mannerisms and carriage of Wilton made her virtually unrecognizable to Alex and Andrew from one play to the next. That is a great, great tribute to her art.

In addition to Margaret Tyzack and Penelope Wilton, the other “star” we witnessed in action while we were in Britain was Susan Hampshire, who appeared in Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle” at Chichester Festival Theatre. Andrew’s parents had seen Hampshire once before, almost thirty years ago in a Tom Stoppard play, but for the rest of us this was our first exposure in person to this fixture of the British stage.

Hampshire was very charming—she could charm Putin out of Georgia, no doubt, if she were put to the task—but she was not quite as impressive as Tyzack or Wilton, probably because the production of “The Circle” was not as fine as the production of “The Chalk Garden”.

The level of ensemble in “The Chalk Garden” was much higher than the level of ensemble in “The Circle”, credit and blame for which must go to the respective directors. The production of “The Chalk Garden” was very tight. The production of “The Circle”, in contrast, was more or less aimless, and it was probably hard for Hampshire to develop a rhythm and to create her special magic amid such lackluster surroundings.

“The Circle” is a very old-fashioned play, slow-moving and very slow to take wing, and it struck me as watered-down George Bernard Shaw, lacking Shaw’s sparkle and tension and argument. “The Circle” is generally considered to be Maugham’s only enduring play, but it nevertheless remains arch and artificial, very much a remnant of its time (1921). We enjoyed the evening, but we were not especially impressed by the play or the production or the performance.

I would like to see Susan Hampshire again, in a better production in a better play. A very beautiful woman, she looked smashing.

We also attended a performance of Ronald Harwood’s “Taking Sides” at Chichester Festival Theatre. “Taking Sides” is Harwood’s play about Wilhelm Furtwangler. Andrew will write about “Taking Sides”, because he has much more to say about the play than I do.

At Theatre Royal, Plymouth, we attended a performance of “A Disappearing Number”.

“A Disappearing Number” is a “theater piece” more than it is a conventional play. It uses dialogue, music, film, choreographed movement (“dance” is too strong a word) and projections to tell two parallel stories about mathematics, the clash of cultures, and the onset of death. Simon McBurney was credited as author and director, but other persons had a hand in the work’s creation as well.

The themes were neither original nor profound—the fleeting nature of time, the inability ever to know fully another person, the difficult nature of exchanges between the Orient and the Occident—but the work was slightly intriguing. We had no trouble sitting through the performance.

“A Disappearing Number” is not a lengthy work—the performance lasted one hour and forty-five minutes, without intermission—but it is too long by twenty or twenty-five minutes and would benefit from some judicious pruning.

There was something undeniably second-rate about every aspect of the work and the performance. It had the look and feel of a drama department project at a tiny and undistinguished college in remotest upstate New York.

It was presented by an experimental theater troupe, Complicite, and my guess is that all of the company’s work uses more or less the same formula on display in “A Disappearing Number”: a little text, a little music, a little film, a little choreographed movement before the whole tired bag of tricks, predictably, winds itself up and starts all over again.

Nothing was genuinely avant-garde, nothing was particularly striking, nothing was particularly original. Indeed, nothing about the show was fresh in the least. It was all very, very 1970’s.

Andrew’s mother said that much of Complicite’s work in “A Disappearing Number” was reminiscent of Paul Taylor’s “The Rite Of Spring (The Rehearsal)”, a seldom-performed modern-dance work from 1980. She said it was clear that Simon McBurney had studied that particular Paul Taylor work in some detail and had borrowed from it freely (if not outrageously). There was no mention of, or even a tribute to, Paul Taylor in the Complicite program booklet.

At Theatre Royal, Bath, we attended a performance of Alan Bennett’s “Enjoy”, a production of The Peter Hall Company.

“Enjoy” was first produced in 1980, and it is a play very much of its time: the early Thatcher years, a time of great changes in Britain both in the public sector and in the private sector. The play is about the effect of these changes on a middle-aged couple from the North Midlands, a man and woman approaching retirement only to discover that their retirement plans are to be impacted by the Local Council. The play is a comedy, of course, but it is not especially funny and not particularly amusing.

I do not think that Bennett had learned to write a play at the time he created “Enjoy”. (Of course, many people insist that Bennett, twenty-eight years later, still has not learned to write a play.)

The fault may lie with the production, and not with the play—but I suspect not, since Peter Hall was the director. If Peter Hall cannot locate a viable play within such weak material, no one can.

There was a strong whiff of provinciality about every aspect of our theater evening in Bath: the play was provincial, the performance was provincial, and the Bath audience was provincial.

To our amazement if not bewilderment, the Bath audience members carried on all evening like they were in the presence of Laurence Oliver and Peggy Ashcroft, cooing and burbling over the actor and actress playing the middle-aged couple (both of whom have starred in popular sit-coms in Britain) as if great performances were being unveiled before their very eyes. Myself, I thought both players were entirely lame.

Andrew said that he was shocked that Peter Hall had allowed so much hamming from the cast members. Andrew wondered whether the play had toured the provinces too long a time or whether Peter Hall had been away from the production too long a time and needed to be called back in order to whip the play and cast back into shape.

Andrew’s parents said that the performance reminded them of a long-ago performance of a very weak play, whose title they cannot even remember, featuring the way-over-the-hill duo of Mary Martin and Anthony Quayle, who shamelessly mined a very bad text for any possible piece of shtick they could use to generate laughs to give the illusion that something amusing was going on.

All in all, “Enjoy” was rather awful.

The final performance we attended was in Stratford-Upon-Avon, permanent home of The Royal Shakespeare Company. We attended a performance of “The Merchant Of Venice” in the RSC’s home theater.

Andrew and I had seen The Royal Shakespeare Company perform ”King Lear” and “The Seagull” in Minneapolis last October, when The Royal Shakespeare Company enjoyed a two-week residence at The Guthrie Theater. This “Merchant Of Venice” was nowhere near the high standard we had witnessed from the company in “Lear” and “Seagull”.

Despite the fact that this production of “The Merchant Of Venice” had been running in repertory since April, the production was very much of preview quality. The play was clearly both miscast and misdirected—none of the performances worked and nothing about the production worked. The actor and actress playing Shylock and Portia were playing roles far out of their leagues. There was no evidence whatsoever that the director had a clue what he was doing.

It was an utter loss of an evening, an utterly deplorable production of a very great play.

I am, nevertheless, very happy that I had an opportunity to attend an RSC performance in the company’s home venue. This was something I had long wanted to experience, and I am pleased I have done so.

However, I now have no wish to return anytime soon.

Despite the fact that most of the productions we attended in Britain were disappointing in one way or another, my sister was delighted to have had the opportunity to attend seven plays in Britain. It was a completely new experience for her, and she found something to enjoy in every production—except for “Afterlife”, which was so bad that it practically frightened her.

It was all for the best, I believe, that we got “Afterlife” out of the way at the very beginning of our trip.

We all had agreed, long in advance, which plays to attend while we were in Britain. Nevertheless, there is a running joke between Andrew and his father about Andrew “dragging” his mother and father to bad plays.

Prior to each performance, Andrew’s father would always look at Andrew very affectionately, and then he would smile, and say, “Well, let’s see what you’ve got us signed up for THIS time!”

Then, at the conclusion of each performance, Andrew’s father would always look at Andrew again, and smile, and say, “I can’t believe your mother and I let you talk us into coming and seeing THIS!”

Andrew and his father played out this little vaudeville routine before and after each performance, even for the Max Reinhardt and Wilhelm Furtwangler plays, which Andrew’s father would not have missed for all the world, and even for The Royal Shakespeare Company performance in Stratford-Upon-Avon, which Andrew’s father had also very keenly anticipated.

There was one performance, however, after which Andrew’s father had a completely different reaction. At the conclusion of “The Chalk Garden”, Andrew’s father looked at Andrew, and smiled, and said: “I can’t believe it! You actually picked a GOOD one!”

A Good Trip

Our trip was wonderful. I don’t think we could possibly have enjoyed our trip more than we did.

This year’s trip was different from last year’s trip. Last year’s trip, devoted exclusively to London, was overwhelming, and this was so simply because London itself is so overwhelming. Last year we restricted ourselves roughly to one particular quadrant of London, exploring that quadrant in as much detail as possible, and yet everywhere we turned there was something fascinating to examine. Last year’s trip was filled almost with too much stimulation.

This year’s trip was more relaxing and much slower-paced than last year’s trip. There was some driving most days, which allowed for relaxation, and our evenings were not as jam-packed with activity as last year, which allowed both for more relaxation and more reflection.

A few places we visited were disappointing to me. The moors of Dartmoor were, I thought, completely unremarkable. The village of Widecombe-In-The-Moor was not worth visiting. Land’s End was a tourist trap, pure and simple. The Cotswold villages of Stow On The Wold and Broadway, especially, were no more interesting than Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Stratford-Upon-Avon, for me, was the biggest disappointment. The historic Shakespeare attractions, truly, were not particularly interesting, and the town itself possessed a modicum of charm, but perhaps not enough to go out of one’s way to experience.

Salisbury Cathedral, however, was a miracle. Bristol, a marvelous city, was unexpectedly interesting. Oxford, a city of magnificent architecture and stately lawns, was an ideal place in which to spend the final day of the trip. Of all the places we visited, these three were my personal favorites.

The trip was beautifully-arranged, beautifully-paced and beautifully-organized. I cannot imagine a more artful examination of the attractions of Southern England. Alex and Andrew had done a superb job in planning the detailed itinerary.

My sister loved everything we visited. Everything was new to her, and the trip was the experience of a lifetime for her.

There was one place in which my sister was uncomfortable, and this surprised me, because I thought it might be the highlight of her trip.

My sister found London to be an unpleasant and forbidding place, filled with wonders but also filled with peculiar people. Perhaps it was just as well that we devoted only two days to London. For her, London was a contemporary city of grime and grunge and poverty, not an historic capital reflecting centuries of a glorious imperial past. She was dismayed at the attire and manners of Londoners, especially among the young. She was also dismayed at the poverty to be seen everywhere. I don’t think she was prepared for such widespread indicia of poverty and social breakdown.

The youth of London constitute a lost generation, uneducated, unwashed, uncouth and uncivilized. The youth in Bristol and Plymouth, the other two large cities we visited, were much the same. We actually witnessed young persons vomiting on the streets of Plymouth. It was not a pretty sight. The future of Britain is bleak.

Once we departed London, however, my sister was no longer uncomfortable. By the time we were halfway to Canterbury, she had already forgotten about London’s grime and seediness.

Andrew’s parents loved everything about the trip. They had a marvelous time.

They were especially captivated by their return to Rye, which they had last visited on their honeymoon. Andrew’s parents said that absolutely nothing had changed in Rye in the intervening three-and-a-half decades since their last visit—except for the prices.

Andrew’s parents enjoyed the opportunity to see art, architecture, museums, castles, stately homes, and churches, abbeys and cathedrals. They enjoyed the evenings in the theater. They enjoyed the drives through the countryside. They enjoyed the fact that Alex and Andrew had planned everything beautifully, which allowed them to sit back and relax and enjoy everything worry-free, with the additional benefit that they were able to enjoy the company of their sons.

Our vehicle for the sixteen days we toured the English countryside was a brand-new Peugeot station wagon. The vehicle featured 2-3-2 seating, and Andrew’s parents sat in the middle seat, where they had the most room and where they enjoyed the greatest degree of comfort. It worked out beautifully.

Andrew’s parents had a couple of surprises on the trip.

They were keenly disappointed in Saint Michael’s Mount, an inevitable disappointment, no doubt, for anyone who has visited Mont Saint Michel off the coast of Normandy.

Andrew’s parents were also disappointed in Lynmouth, as were my sister and I. Alex and Andrew had told us so much about Lynmouth that we all had assumed that it must be a very special place indeed. It was not. Alex and Andrew had visited Lynmouth in 2004, during horrific rainstorms, which must somehow have lent the place a dramatic aura. In good weather, Lynmouth did not have quite so much appeal.

On the other hand, Andrew’s parents were delighted to find Bristol so interesting, and they were amazed at the magnificent churches in Launceston, Holsworthy and Cirencester, churches virtually unknown on this side of the Atlantic.

Alex and Andrew enjoyed everything, without discrimination. When something was not particularly interesting, they would create their own fun.

In Land’s End, one of the world’s dreariest capitals of kitsch, they enjoyed themselves enormously, making fun of the cheap souvenir trinkets for sale in the shops, ranging from the most mundane items to the most bizarre curiosities. Alex and Andrew had the rest of us in stitches as they seriously debated the relative merits of buying a Land’s End hand-operated can-opener as a memento of their visit or holding to their initial instincts and picking up a pair of Western leather chaps, just the thing, they said, for their next rodeo. Andrew’s mother told them that, if they bought either item, the rest of us would proceed on to Saint Ives without them, and that she wished them all the best as they embarked upon new lives in Land’s End, peddling trinkets in one of the most God-forsaken spots on the face of the earth.

Andrew still talks wistfully about the can-opener he wished he had bought at Land’s End—he says it would have been a precious and timeless reminder of his visit, something tangible to hold on to forever and ever. (It was exactly like any $1.19 can-opener that may be purchased at any K Mart in the U.S.)

We did buy a few gifts on our trip, but none of our gifts were purchased at Land’s End.

My sister and I purchased a gift for our mother in London. She and I purchased a gift for our father in Stratford-Upon-Avon. She and I purchased a gift for our brother in Rye. She and I purchased gifts for our aunts and uncles in Saint Ives and Bath.

My sister did not have any problem with the food in Britain. She even enjoyed the traditional English breakfast—she ate a full breakfast every morning, even though she is generally not a breakfast person.

Since this was her first trip to Britain, my sister was surprised to discover that British newspapers are so deplorable, written by and for idiots, and that British television is even worse than American television. Americans who have never visited Britain often assume that British newspapers and British television must somehow be better than ours. Americans are always disavailed of this notion on their very first day in Britain.

Except for The Financial Times, written for an international audience, British newspapers are tabloids, literally and figuratively, and little more than screed sheets. Even the worst of American newspapers, in comparison to British newspapers, appears to be edited by Jacques Barzun.

British television is simply indescribable. It is entirely unwatchable. There has been growing resentment among the British public about mandatory BBC license fees, and this resentment has two sources: the vast sums of money thrown at the BBC without a high-quality end result; and the lack of trustworthiness of the BBC News Service, a situation simply unthinkable thirty years ago. The BBC is held in such low regard at present that its budget was frozen this year, the first such freeze in the institution’s history.

Happily, we did not spend much time reading newspapers or watching television. We were out and about all day, exploring towns and cities and exploring the countryside, seeing interesting things and having interesting times.

Andrew’s father always has insightful and original observations to make, and it is always a pleasure to learn what he has to say about anything. About halfway through our trip, he pointed out that everything in Britain worth seeing, and everything that makes Britain unique, pre-dates World War I.

World War I was the great turning point in Britain’s fortunes. The country has never recovered from the disaster of The Great War, from which Britain emerged as a titular victor but from which Britain also emerged as a spent force. Nothing created in Britain after World War I—whether buildings or institutions—is of anything other than parochial quality or interest.

Other than summoning one last burst of energy to get through World War II, Britain is a nation that has been in long-term decline since The Great War. After 1918, the nation turned inward, and shifted its focus to bitter domestic infighting over apportioning pieces of a dwindling national wealth. That decline will soon be one century old, and there is no sign of abatement in its depressing progress. Its insignia are everywhere.

The most obvious evidence may be witnessed in its citizens. Britain’s people are provincial and narrow-minded, poor and poorly-educated, unable to accept and adapt to the fact that Britain is now a Third-World country, more or less irrelevant on the world stage.

The standard of living in Britain is remarkably low, and the gap in living standards between Britain and the most advanced societies such as the United States, Japan and Singapore is great and ever-widening. The quality of goods is poor, the quality of food is poor, the quality of health care is poor, and the quality of education is poor. This has very troubling implications for the future of the Atlantic Alliance, an alliance many Americans assume will die (and rightfully so) over the course of the next two, three or four decades.

Thirty years ago, Britain enjoyed a standard of living that was the envy of Spain. Today Spain enjoys a standard of living that is the envy of Britain. The standard of living is today higher in traditionally-impoverished Ireland than in Britain, a situation genuinely unthinkable as recently as one generation ago. Soon enough, Poland will enjoy a standard of living higher than Britain’s.

Personal productivity is today higher in France, of all places, than in Britain. Personal productivity is also higher in Brazil, still an under-developed country by any reasonable measure.

For the cause of its decline, Britain need only examine its tax policies, which inhibit the creation of capital.

None of this will change unless and until Britain abandons its present course, and this is very unlikely to happen. Only a shocking external event could reverse the course of decline Britain has embraced, and even a shocking external event may no longer do the trick.

Ironically, Britain’s decline was set in stone, not in the first half of the 1940’s, while war raged, but in the second half of that decade. Having secured a victory over Germany for the second time in as many generations, Britain voted Churchill out of office even before victory in the Pacific theater had been secured. The new government instituted policies that guaranteed that Germany, the loser of the war, would be the ultimate victor. To what ends had the great sacrifices of the war years been perverted?

Churchill did not return to power until 1951, at which point he was too old to take a firm hand in shaping his country’s future, lacking the strength and the willpower necessary to dismantle the social welfare programs and revoke the draconian tax laws enacted by Clement Atlee and Ernest Bevin. Churchill led what amounted to a caretaker government until 1955, at which point he was gently eased into retirement by the senior leadership of the Conservative Party and succeeded by Anthony Eden, who was to fall from power only one year later, a victim of the Suez misadventure.

At least Churchill, upon his death in 1965, ten years after retiring from office, was awarded the honor of a grand State Funeral. His was the last State Funeral to be accorded to one not a member of The Royal Family. (It was recently determined that Baroness Thatcher, upon her death, will also be honored with a State Funeral).

We visited Churchill’s grave at Bladon very early on Monday morning, our last full day in Britain. We were the only visitors present at such an early hour.

Churchill’s grave is a simple stone slab in a small rural churchyard, only a short distance from Blenheim Palace, where Churchill spent his unhappy childhood years. His grave is surrounded by trees as well as the graves of his loved ones: his British father and his American mother, his devoted Clementine, and three of their children, including Randolph, Churchill’s favorite. (The grave of another Churchill relative, Consuelo Vanderbilt, wife of the Ninth Duke Of Marlborough, is also nearby. The Churchill men clearly liked to marry American brides.)

Churchill’s gravestone is white. This shocked us greatly. Alex and Andrew had visited Churchill’s grave in 2004, and they had told us that the gravestone was dark gray in color, almost black.

As things turned out, we learned that Churchill’s gravestone had been cleaned in 2006 and restored to its original color. The current gravestone, however, is not the original. It is the second gravestone installed over Churchill’s grave. The first gravestone had been replaced in 1998, decayed by the tens of thousands of visitors who had worn away the gravestone by touching its surface in tribute to the great man. The current gravestone, too, shows great signs of wear, and will probably have to be replaced in another decade or so.

It is very telling that such a great man, who could have elected to be buried at Saint Paul’s Cathedral and who could have commanded a great monument to rival the magnificent stone edifices erected for Wellington and Nelson, chose for his final resting place a simple grave in an isolated country churchyard near his native soil.

We spent twenty minutes or so standing and quietly paying our respects. We all touched the gravestone, which was somehow important to us. Churchill, half-American, one of the greatest Anglo men who ever lived, was THE great figure of the Twentieth Century, just as Abraham Lincoln was THE great figure of the 19th Century and just as George Washington was THE great figure of the 18th Century. Churchill, however, somehow seems closer to us than Lincoln or Washington, perhaps because he was not such a distant figure. There are millions of people alive today who lived through the Churchill years, although their number grows smaller with each passing year.

Visiting Churchill’s grave was a deeply moving experience. It was also, oddly, a very sad experience. Our sadness was almost inexplicable in view of the fact that Churchill had enjoyed such a long and fulfilling life, a life of vast achievement and vast accomplishment in many fields, a life of long and deep friendships, a life that produced a devoted circle of family members and admirers. At age ninety-one, Churchill had earned well his final rest, and at his death no one lamented the fact that the old lion, who had performed his services to his nation so admirably, had been called home at last. (His beloved Clementine survived him by a dozen years, but Clementine retired permanently from public life at Winston’s death. She spent the final twelve years of her life in seclusion.)

It must have been the passing not of the man himself, but of what Churchill represented, that filled us with a great sense of sadness.

His like will not come again.

I wonder what Winston Churchill would make of the Britain of today.

"Stiff Upper Lip, Stout Fella, Keep Muddling Through"

Early tomorrow afternoon we will depart for the airport, and we will not return until late in the afternoon on August 19.

Yesterday’s visit to the Weisman Art Museum and the Walker Art Center were unremarkable. We did not spend a lot of time in either museum—we did little more than make a quick walk-through of each institution—and my sister was not particularly impressed with the art we viewed.

I have never especially cared for either museum, but Tuesday’s visit was only my second occasion to examine these collections. I have not made repeated and lengthy visits to these museums. A more intensive examination of their holdings must await the future.

Andrew and I took my sister to the museums by ourselves. Andrew’s mother and Andrew’s brother have been to the Weisman and the Walker so many times that they did not want to devote an entire day to seeing the collections for the umpteenth time. I can understand that.

The Weisman occupies a Frank Gehry structure. It looks like all Frank Gehry structures. I wonder what future generations will make of his monstrosities.

The Walker was voted the finest art museum in the United States last year by a nationwide panel of museum administrators. Such an assessment is ridiculous—the Walker is not even the finest art museum in Minneapolis, let alone the finest art museum in the U.S. The administrators at the Walker, however, are noted for their skill in currying favor with The New York Times.

In the two years I have lived in the Twin Cities, neither the Weisman nor the Walker has mounted an important temporary exhibition. This has been disappointing for me.

Andrew’s mother tells me not to take it personally—she says that the Walker used to mount superb exhibitions twenty and thirty years ago, but that the museum has lost its way over the last twenty years. It now devotes too much energy promoting its ancillary programs at the expense of fulfilling its core mission of collecting and displaying art. The Weisman mounts small, focused exhibitions, but none of these exhibitions has been remarkable since I moved to town. Perhaps things will improve by the time Andrew and I move back to Minneapolis.

Between museums, Andrew and I treated my sister to lunch downtown. We took her to a French Bistro because she had never visited a French Bistro before. We all three ordered French Onion Soup, but we ordered three different entrees: Salade Nicoise, Quiche Lorraine and Bouchee A La Reine. We passed the entrees around the table, each of us eating one-third of each entree. It was a good way for my sister to sample three different French foods. Each of us got a sampling of the seafood salad, the ham quiche and the chicken-in-pastry, and my sister enjoyed the lunch very much. It was a lot of fun.

This afternoon, Andrew’s parents, my sister, Andrew’s brother, and Andrew and I went downtown to attend today’s matinee performance of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Government Inspector” at the Guthrie Theater. This afternoon was the first time in her life that my sister had ever attended a professional theater performance of anything other than road-company productions of hit Broadway musicals, which she has seen in Oklahoma City and Dallas.

She was captivated—utterly captivated—by what she saw on the Guthrie stage.

The Guthrie staging of “The Government Inspector” was assigned to the theater with the thrust stage, which places the audience close to the actors onstage. My sister was amazed at what close proximity the actors were to members of the audience. She was also amazed at the quality of the stage design and the costume design, always extraordinary at the Guthrie. She could not take her eyes off the stage for the entire performance.

The proscenium theater at the Guthrie is currently presenting previews of a new musical, “Little House On The Prairie”, based upon Laura Ingalls Wilder. The studio theater at the Guthrie is currently presenting “Caviar On Credit”, an experimental “multi-discipline” work using young actors who have spent their summer months working in the Guthrie’s training program for young actors.

A month ago, Andrew’s mother had instructed me to ask my sister whether my sister wanted to see one or both of the other offerings at the Guthrie while she was in town. Andrew’s mother thought that perhaps my sister would want to attend a performance of the musical based upon the Wilder book or that perhaps my sister would want to observe young actors performing in an experimental work.

My sister elected to pass on the other two theatrical presentations. She thought that one play in Minneapolis would be sufficient for her, especially given the short duration of her stay here. She also knew that she would be attending six theater performances in Britain, so she would hardly be theater-deprived during her summer vacation.

I hope that Andrew and I have shown my sister a good time while she has been with us. A baseball game, a couple of museums and the Guthrie are the only attractions we have shown to her. Otherwise we have stayed home, eating, playing with the dog, and getting our things ready.

My sister seems to be happy and content with what we have shown her, and she has been very comfortable here. In any case, her brief stay in Minneapolis has been a mere staging ground for the main event of her summer, her first trip to Europe.

She is excited beyond belief. She has researched extensively every place and every site we will visit. She is eagerly looking forward to her first trans-Atlantic flight. She can’t wait for her first footstep on foreign soil. Everything about our trip seems to fascinate her.

I do not think she will be disappointed.

I have warned my sister that the food in Britain will not be good. I especially have warned her about the low quality of the fish, meat and vegetables she will encounter. My sister is not a big breakfast person, but I have passed on to her that breakfast is often the best meal of the day in Britain and that, as a general rule, it is a bad idea to skip breakfast when traveling in Britain. My sister says she will not care about the food as long as it is minimally adequate, which it will be. Further, she understands that this trip is not about epicurean delights.

She has enjoyed some epicurean delights the last couple of days. Yesterday and again today, she was treated to the full Andrew breakfast, and she is prepared to confirm to the world that Andrew is indeed the best breakfast cook on the planet. No one can match his scrambled eggs, no one can match any of his many ways of preparing breakfast potatoes, and no one can match his bacon (everyone else undercooks or overcooks it, and cooks it too quickly).

Late Monday afternoon, before we headed out to the Twins game, Andrew’s mother gave us tuna salad sandwiches (and her tuna salad is the best tuna salad in the world, made from broiled tuna steaks) and pepper salad for an early dinner. When we got home from the game, Andrew’s mother had a late supper of chicken-vegetable lasagna waiting for us, followed by homemade boysenberry ice cream for dessert.

Tuesday night, we had pot roast for dinner, served with mashed potatoes, lima beans, sweet corn, glazed carrots and a fresh pineapple-nut salad. For dessert we had homemade black raspberry cobbler and homemade ice cream.

Our early lunch today before heading to the Guthrie was pasta with crab and peas, served with an Alfredo sauce.

Tonight’s dinner was roast chicken and stuffing, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, beets, butternut squash and apple salad. For dessert we were served peaches and cream.

Tonight’s dinner HAD to be roast chicken, because it was our last night with the dog (who is accustomed to eating roast chicken on most Wednesday nights anyway).

The dog knows we are leaving soon. He knows what luggage signifies. He knows what packing signifies. He knows what a lot of household activity signifies.

I also think he understands that tomorrow is the day we will depart. We have told him this, and I think he understands this. We gave him a bath tonight so that he will be nice and clean when we drop him off tomorrow. I think he pretty much understands exactly what’s going on.

He has been a little restless the last few days, reluctant to leave the side of either Andrew or Andrew’s mother. He views Andrew as his primary pal, and he views Andrew’s mother as his primary protector (and he views himself as her primary protector). He goes to everyone for play and affection and comfort, but he always goes to Andrew and Andrew’s mother first, especially when he is in distress.

The dog is in some distress now, but Andrew’s father says that he will be perfectly fine, and that the dog and Mrs. Anderson will be perfectly happy entertaining each other for the next three weeks. Certainly Mrs. Anderson need not fear intruders while he is with her!

We selected our travel books tonight. Books will be much more important on this trip compared to our last trip, because there will be several evenings on this trip for which we have no sightseeing planned and no theater performances scheduled.

My sister has recently become fascinated by F. Scott Fitzgerald, having read “The Great Gatsby” in her senior year of high school and having read a collection of Fitzgerald’s short stories earlier this summer. She has selected Fitzgerald’s first two novels, “This Side Of Paradise” and “The Beautiful And The Damned” as her travel books.

Andrew’s mother has selected “The Making Of Victorian Values—Decency And Dissent In Britain: 1789-1837” by Ben Wilson.

Andrew’s father, Andrew’s brother, and Andrew and I have selected five books, books of no particular theme but books we can pass back and forth, as necessary, as our interest waxes and wanes. We chose “Nixon And Mao: The Week That Changed The World” by Margaret MacMillan; “A History Of The English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900” by Andrew Roberts, a continuation of Winston Churchill’s four-volume history; “Anzio: Italy And The Battle For Rome—1944” by Lloyd Clark; “1920: The Year Of The Six Presidents” by David Pietrusza, an examination of the American Presidential Election of 1920; and “The Battle For Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939” by Antony Beevor. None of these books should be challenging or intense, but all should carry some degree of interest for us, the fine line to which all travel books must adhere.

This is my last blog entry for at least three weeks.

We return on Tuesday, August 19, but Andrew and I head East on Friday, August 22. We will stop in New York and visit Andrew’s older brother and his family on that Saturday and Sunday, but on Monday, August 25, we will proceed up to Boston. I have first-year orientation on Thursday of that week, and Andrew and I want to be settled as much as possible into our place in Boston (which we have not even seen yet) before my classes start and before Andrew starts his new job.

"Joshua Und Andrew Heraus!"

Andrew and I rose very, very early this morning in order to clean our small apartment from top to bottom and to wash all of our clothing and bedding.

Today is our final day in the apartment. In a short while, we will be turning the apartment over to Andrew’s brother and moving to Andrew’s parents’ house for the next five days.

Other than cleaning everything, our move does not involve much more than taking our clothes with us.

We are leaving behind our furniture, such as it is, as well as our computer, our sound system and even our books and discs. Even our cookware, dinnerware and tableware are remaining behind for Alex to use, as are our bath towels, dish towels, sheets and blankets.

The move will be very simple for Alex, too. All he need do is bring over his clothes and his television, and settle right in. Everything else he needs is already here for him, clean as a whistle, polished to show-room perfection.

In August, our move to Boston will be equally efficient. Alex’s cookware and dinnerware remain boxed up over at Andrew’s parents’ house, as are his towels and bedding and even his computer. When we return from Britain, Andrew and I will stamp new shipping labels on those unpacked boxes and ship them to Boston for our own use of the contents.

We planned all this back in May, before Andrew and I even headed out to Denver to help Alex prepare for his move home. We did so in order for all three of us to save hours and hours of aggravation involved in our moves. Effectively, only one moving project was involved for the three of us: Alex’s stuff gets shipped to Boston after a short stopover in Minneapolis.

I think this has been very efficient!

Over the course of the next few weeks, Alex will take a few of our books or discs over to his parents’ house every time he goes over for a visit, leave them behind, and bring a few of his own books and discs back with him.

I think this is very efficient as well.

Today Andrew and I hung the three Hans Rudi Erdt lithographs on our apartment walls. It is kind of ironic that we waited until our final day in the apartment to put anything on the walls.

However, we do not want to take the lithographs with us to Boston, and Alex likes them, and he will enjoy having them on the apartment walls.

The alternative was to store them at Andrew’s parents’ house, but we wanted them to be seen and enjoyed and not shoved into a closet. (I don’t think Andrew’s mother would want the lithographs to be hung in her house—she appreciates their artistry, but she is not, all in all, particularly keen on displaying lithographs of The Kaiser’s U-Boats.)

The most well-known of our lithographs is “U Boote Heraus!”, which in English means “The U-Boats Are Out!”

The most beautiful of the lithographs is “Bei Unseren Blaujacken”. Translated into English, its title is “With Our Boys In Blue”.

The most controversial of the lithographs is “Der Magische Gurtel”. A literal translation is “The Magic Girdle”, but a truer translation is “The Enchanted Circle”. It refers to and depicts the ring of U-Boats that circled and threatened Britain during the war.

Something tells me that Andrew’s mother would not want to hang “Der Magische Gurtel” in her living room or in her dining room or on one of her stairwells, where her guests might see it.

So “U Boote Heraus!” and its two companions shall remain here, in what will soon be Andrew’s and my old apartment, for Alex to enjoy.

“U Boote Heraus!”

And “Joshua Und Andrew Heraus!”, too.

Laptops, Lithographs, First Editions And Farewells

Last night was Andrew’s farewell dinner at his firm. The affair was held at a private club, and it was a splendid setting, a splendid dinner, and a splendid evening.

When Andrew and I arrived at the club last night, we discovered, to our surprise, that Andrew’s parents and brother had been invited, too. They had withheld from us the information that they had been invited.

The speeches were full of praise for Andrew and his work, and were very warmly and heartily delivered. Happily, Andrew will be welcomed back at his firm three years from now.

The firm’s gifts to Andrew were exceedingly generous: a First Edition of Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street” (the novel in its first printing was titled “Main Street: The Story Of Carol Kennicott”) and three World War I lithographs, beautifully framed, by Hans Rudi Erdt, a German graphic artist from the early 20th Century.

“Main Street”, set in the fictional town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, is one of Andrew’s favorite novels, and he was deeply moved by the firm’s gift of a First Edition. Sinclair Lewis is one of two major novelists from Minnesota who emerged in the 1920’s (F. Scott Fitzgerald is the other).

Andrew has been fascinated for years by Erdt’s lithographs created to glorify the German Navy during the First World War, and now we own three of them. The lithographs were ordered from a dealer in Germany, but all three were framed here in the Twin Cities once they arrived in the U.S. Our three lithographs are U-Boat lithographs. They are amazingly beautiful.

We are very, very excited. Andrew was literally stunned when he was presented with the Erdt lithographs—he had made a single offhand remark to one of his colleagues about the work of Hans Rudi Erdt more than a year ago and he was dumbfounded that his colleague had remembered his interest in Erdt, an artist totally unknown in the U.S.

I think that one reason Andrew was given the lithographs was because everyone who knows us believes that it is long past time for us to put something on our apartment walls!

My farewell luncheon was today, at a restaurant near the office. Everyone from my firm who was not on travel or in court attended, which moved me very much. It was a very nice lunch, and the people at my firm could not have been kinder to Andrew and me. My farewell gifts were a laptop computer, ideal for me to take to my classes at law school, and a Legal Dictionary, another item essential for law school.

Today was a very sad day in many ways. Andrew and I are today leaving jobs we love, and leaving behind people we like, respect and admire.

Tomorrow evening Andrew and I have a party to attend. The party is in honor of our departure from the Twin Cities.

Sunday is Andrew’s father’s birthday, and we have a special birthday celebration planned for him. Sunday will also be the last Sunday Andrew and I will be in Minnesota, and we will mark the occasion by saying “Farewell” to so many church members we know and love.

Monday my sister arrives from Oklahoma, and on her first night here Andrew’s brother and Andrew and I are going to take her to see the Twins play the White Sox (not that any of us are true baseball fans).

On Thursday evening, we fly to London.

Three days after we return from London, Andrew and I head for Boston.

Saint-Petri-Kirche

Saint-Petri-Kirche, another of Hamburg’s five Lutheran Hauptkirchen, is located in what is now the city’s main shopping area. The church is named after the Christian Apostle Peter, whom the Roman Catholic Church believes to have been the first pope. The church is situated on the highest point of land in the Altstadt. Saint-Petri-Kirche is the oldest parish church in Hamburg.

Saint-Petri-Kirche is also located in the midst of the original fortified settlement known as Hammaburg, Hamburg’s historic core edifice. It is believed that a church has occupied the site since the 9th century. It is known that a baptistery was on this site as early as the beginning of the 11th century.

First mentioned as a market church in documents from 1195, Saint-Petri-Kirche was rebuilt in the North German Brick Gothic style between 1310 and 1418. After The Great Fire Of 1842, the central part of the church structure was completely rebuilt according to the original Gothic model. Miraculously, World War II did not cause any significant damage to the church. Saint-Petri-Kirche is the only one of Hamburg’s five main churches that did not suffer significant, if not overwhelming, damage during the war. Consequently, the Saint-Petri-Kirche of today is more or less the same as it was in the early 15th century.

The steeple and the stepped roof are particularly notable architectural features of the church. The photo below, from 1920, provides an excellent view of the spire and roof.

The following photo of the side of the church also offers a glimpse of the unusual roof of Saint-Petri-Kirche.

The main entrance doors have a lovely lion’s head as a doorknocker, dating from 1342. It is Hamburg’s very oldest work of art.

The church’s mammoth interior is all white, of classic Gothic design, with three naves and high, arched ceilings.

The church is famed for its amazing number of valuable treasures and artworks. Among other priceless artworks, the church has its own Hugo Van Der Goes and Sassoferrato paintings. The Van Der Goes alone would be worth millions and millions and millions of dollars on the open market. The paintings, windows, and figurines date from various centuries. There are altars from 1500 to the present. The original multi-paneled winged altar of Saint-Petri-Kirche was created by Master Bertram from 1379 to 1383. It is one of the greatest works of art from the International Gothic period of painting, and perhaps the single greatest surviving example from Northern Europe. It may now be admired in Hamburg’s Kunsthalle, where it occupies an entire exhibition room and where it is one of the museum’s most valuable and cherished holdings.

The main pulpit is one of the most intricate pulpits in Northern Germany. A Gothic mural from approximately 1460 portrays Hamburg’s first bishop, Bishop Ansgar Of Bremen, with the words “Apostle Of The North”. A column in the choir area contains a statue by Bernt Notke, from 1480, showing Archbishop Ansgar and the Hamburg Marienkirche, which he founded. From the 17th century are two famous oil paintings by Gottfried Libalt, “Jacob’s Dream” and “Christ’s Birth”. A famous history painting, “Christmas 1813 in Saint Petri”, is on a column in the south aisle of the church. It shows Hamburg citizens hiding in the church from Napoleonic invaders, fearful for their lives because they could not feed the French soldiers. In the front of the church are Neo-Gothic representations of the evangelists. A modern bronze sculpture by Fritz Fleer shows Nazi opponent Dietrich Bonhoeffer dressed as a convict, with his hands bound.

The foundations of the church tower date from 1342. The original tower was replaced in 1516 with a new structure that towered above even the old Hamburg Cathedral. However, the second tower was torn down in 1807, decayed because Napoleon’s soldiers had used it as a horse stable. In 1878, the current church tower—132 meters high, with a copper spire—was completed.

In the first half of the 20th century, Saint-Petri-Kirche lost most of its members as nearby residential neighborhoods were torn down, replaced by banks and department stores as the city center evolved into a pure business and shopping district. The parish currently consists of only a few hundred members.

Saint-Petri-Kirche was the most interesting of the five Hamburg Hauptkirchen, probably because it had the finest collection of artworks. We spent more than two hours exploring the church interior alone.

The church docent on the day we visited was a very nice and very highly-educated man in his late fifties or early sixties. He spoke flawless English. Like the elderly woman docent at nearby Saint-Jacobi-Kirche, he couldn’t take his eyes off Andrew.

The docent took us around the entire church, pointing out anything and everything of note, and then he disappeared into a private room and soon returned with books containing ancient photographs of the church and the neighborhood.

He showed us the old photographs at length, and he talked to us about other interesting Hamburg churches, giving us a long, long list of other Hamburg churches which, he said, were well worth a visit. Alas, we only visited churches in the center of Hamburg, and did not have an opportunity to explore churches in outlying districts.

The docent also asked us whether we were interested in a scholarly art book about Northern German churches. We said that we were. He told us that the book was out of print, but that he would attempt to locate a copy for us at one of Hamburg’s antiquarian bookshops, and that we should drop by the church in a day or two to see if he had succeeded in locating a copy.

We DID return to the church two mornings later (Saint-Petri-Kirche was only a short distance from the Levantehaus, our hotel), and the docent told us that he HAD located a copy of the book, and he provided us with the name and address of the antiquarian bookshop, which he said was holding the book for us.

We walked to the antiquarian bookshop that very day and bought the book. The book is in German, of course, but it contains lengthy discussions about the history and architecture of almost all important churches in Northern Germany, and it is filled with truly stunning photographs. All five Hamburg Hauptkirchen were addressed in the book, naturally, as well as several other Hamburg churches, a few of which we visited. Most of the book, however, is devoted to churches outside Hamburg. The book will be an excellent source of information for us in preparation for our next trip to Northern Germany (whenever that will be).

While we were touring the church interior, Andrew and his mother were riveted by one particular artwork in the church, a large and complicated marble relief of Christ’s Resurrection by one Hermann Schubert, a sculptor about whom we have been able to find no information whatsoever other than the fact that he was born in 1831 and died in 1917 and that the most recent of his works to come up for auction was in 1999 in Munich. The mural was dated 1859. According to Andrew and his mother, the relief was worthy of Pierre Puget, the greatest sculptor of the French Baroque. Puget was THE master of the marble relief, and Andrew and his mother said that the Hermann Schubert relief was as fine as Puget’s very greatest completed relief, “The Meeting of Alexander The Great And Diogenes”, housed in the Louvre. Andrew asked the docent about the Hermann Schubert relief, and the docent said that he had no information about it at all and no information about Hermann Schubert.

We did not climb the church tower the day we made our visit to Saint-Petri-Kirche. However, a few days later, Andrew’s brother and Andrew and I returned to the church in the very late afternoon for the express purpose of climbing the tower. (It is 544 steps to the top—there was no elevator—and we did not want to make Andrew’s mother climb to the top of the tower the day we toured the church interior.) Although dusk was setting, the views from the tower were magnificent.

Happily for us, the stairs were spacious and well-maintained.

Saint-Jacobi-Kirche

Saint-Jacobi-Kirche, dedicated to Saint James The Elder, is another of Hamburg’s five Lutheran Hauptkirchen (Main Churches). The lithograph above presents a view of the church exterior as it was in 1900.

The first mention of a church at this location can be traced to 1255, when Saint-Jacobi-Kirche was a small chapel located outside Hamburg’s city walls. After the city walls were extended in 1260, the church became part of Hamburg city territory.

Between 1350 and 1400, the old chapel was replaced by a large hall church of typical North German Brick Gothic design, with three naves. One hundred years later, a fourth nave was added. The attached sacristy was erected in 1438. The sacristy is Hamburg’s only surviving example of secular Gothic architecture.

The Gothic brick building has been constantly changed and enlarged over the years.

The interior of the church—a 1710 Baroque remodeling effort, never since altered—is itself unimposing, but its treasures and artworks are incomparable.

Saint-Jacobi-Kirche houses three magnificent medieval altars: The Holy Trinity Altar in the main choir (1518), The Saint-Petri Altar in the first south nave (1508) and The Saint-Lukas Altar in the second south nave (1500), which originally was installed in Hamburg’s Cathedral.

Medieval piety did not allow the retables to be opened during the week. Only on special Sundays, high festivals of the church and feasts of the saints were the wings of the altars opened and their panoply of panels displayed. Otherwise, the retables remained closed and only the outward paintings could be seen. On the outward panels of The Saint-Lukas Altar, a very special form of sponsorship may be traced: the donors of the altarpiece are prominently displayed among biblical saints. At the time, this was an accepted way of recognizing a donor’s generosity and piety and worthiness.

Saint-Jacobi-Kirche is also known for its ceiling and wall decorations. The Baroque ceiling murals, testaments to civic virtue, show the importance of maintaining both sacred and secular rectitude. The murals were painted, like the landscape paintings on the walls, by Johann Moritz Riesenberger. The many coats of arms on the walls designate the pastors, vicars and jurors who have served the parish since the 16th century.

The greatest treasure in the church, however, and the reason so many people make a pilgrimage to Saint-Jacobi-Kirche, is the Arp Schnittger organ in the West Gallery, one of the largest organs in the world and the most important organ in Northern Europe, famed since the day of its completion.

Built from 1689 to 1693, the organ has 4,000 pipes, 60 registers and 4 keyboards. This is the legendary organ that Johann Sebastian Bach specifically traveled to Hamburg—walking, for days—to see and to play in 1720. The organ has been carefully tended for more than 300 years, and was fully restored from 1989 to 1993 to mark its 300th anniversary.

We took the weekly guided tour of the organ and we stayed for the short organ recital that followed. The guided tour was supposed to be in German, but since we were the only persons who showed up for the tour that particular day, the guide quite naturally gave us the tour in English.

The organ recital that followed the tour, however, was attended by a couple of hundred persons, locals who worked nearby and who were attending the recital on their lunch hours.

In 1944, a bomb hit the church’s steeple and destroyed the dome. Luckily, most of the valuable interior was saved and from 1951 to 1953 Saint-Jacobi-Kirche was restored to its former glory. A new 125-meter spire was erected in 1963, but the new spire bears no relation to the original spire. The replacement spire looks cheap and out-of-place.

The photo below, from 1920, shows the beautiful church tower as it was prior to its destruction during the War.

The photo below shows the tower of today.

Hamburg churches employ pensioners as caretakers. They serve as guides for visitors as well as keep their eyes on the church treasures.

The day we visited Saint-Jacobi-Kirche, the caretaker was an elderly woman, approximately 70 to 75 years old, who spoke excellent English. She couldn’t take her eyes off Andrew, and she followed us around the church the entire time we were there.

She talked to us nonstop, but she didn’t talk to us about the church or its treasures. Instead, she wanted to know all about us—who we were, where we were from, what were our professions, why we were in Hamburg, how long we would be in Hamburg, what else we would be seeing in Hamburg—and she wanted to tell us all about herself.

She was very well-dressed and very well-coiffed, but she complained to us nonstop about how small her government pension was and how tiny her state-subsidized apartment was and how paltry were the sums the church was paying her for her hard work and how she did not have enough money to go to the opera as often as she would like.

Near the end of our visit, she told us that things were soon going to get far worse for her and for other Hamburgers: once the Eastern European countries were granted full membership in the European Union, Hamburg would be overrun by Jews.

Saint-Katharinen-Kirche

Saint-Katharinen-Kirche is another of the five principal historic churches of Hamburg known as Hauptkirchen (“Main Churches”). The base of its spire, dating from the 13th Century, is the oldest building preserved in the city of Hamburg.

The church is situated on an island near what was formerly the southern boundary of the medieval city, opposite the historic harbor area on The River Elbe. This may be seen in the photograph below.

Much the same view is offered in this photograph from 1920.

Saint-Katharinen-Kirche traditionally served as the church of Hamburg’s seamen, as well as shipbuilders and brewers living in the district.

The earliest attestation to the existence of the church dates back to records from 1250. From 1350 to 1425, Saint Catherine’s was rebuilt as a Gothic Basilica. It is this building that may be seen today.

The main body, consisting of a triple nave, was constructed in the North German Brick Gothic style.

In 1657, a Baroque rooftop was added. A spectacular Baroque spire was added two years later, designed by Peter Marquardt, who also designed a spire for Saint-Nikolai-Kirche (the old Saint Nicholas's, destroyed in The Great Fire Of 1842). Saint Catherine’s Baroque spire, with its two magnificent rotunda arcade levels, reaches a height of 115 meters. This is the spire that adorns the church today, a copper-plated feature that is one of the greatest landmarks of the city. A Baroque west façade was added in 1737 in order to stabilize the church tower. The church’s exterior, aside from its spire, has been criticized, said to resemble a humble country church enlarged to gigantic dimensions. I think such criticism has some validity.

The interior of the church is home to two pieces of priceless ecclesiastical art: a 14th-Century Crucifix and a 14th-Century statue of the church’s patron. Otherwise, the church’s interior is a reconstruction of the medieval church, rebuilt in the 1950’s.

Any distinction in the church interior results from the contrast between its massive round pillars, which support the cross-shaped vault, and the airy height of its middle nave.

The church was severely damaged during World War II—only the outer walls and the base of the spire were left standing. The building was carefully restored to its previous form between 1950 and 1957.

When Hamburg’s free port was founded in 1881, residents of the area were required to vacate, resulting in a loss of 20,000 members of Saint-Katharinen-Kirche’s congregation. This loss forced the parish to look for new tasks. Since the church’s current members are scattered throughout all parts of Hamburg and environs, the church concentrates on offering church services and special events for the entire town. The church is the official church of Hamburg’s main university.

The photograph below, from 1930, is an ideal bird’s-eye view of the church and its surroundings.

We enjoyed visiting Saint-Katharinen-Kirche, but it was probably the least interesting of Hamburg’s five Hauptkirchen because the interior was so spare. We spent only thirty minutes in the church interior, and we did not even bother to climb the church tower.

Saint-Katharinen-Kirche is only three or four city blocks away from Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, and the views are very similar. We visited Saint Catherine’s immediately after visiting Saint Nicholas’s, where we HAD taken the elevator to the top of the tower. We decided not to go to the top of Saint Catherine’s tower, as there was no elevator at Saint Catherine’s, and we did not want to make Andrew’s mother climb the tower.

Saint-Nikolai-Kirche

Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was formerly one of five Lutheran Hauptkirchen (“Main Churches”) in the city of Hamburg. Now in ruins, it serves as a memorial and as an important architectural sight of the city.

All five main churches of Hamburg were damaged or destroyed in World War II. In contrast to the other four, however, Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was never rebuilt—its ruins, instead, serve as a memorial against war, dedicated to “the victims of persecution in The Third Reich”. Only the spire, caked in black soot, and a few walls from the church remain. The church, a stark contrast to the rebuilt city of Hamburg, leaves an unforgettable impression.

With the founding of a settlement and a harbor on The River Alster in the 11th century, a chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, was erected. This wooden building was the second church in Hamburg, after The Cathedral Of Hamburg.

In 1335, some years before the onslaught of The Black Death, construction of a new brick building began. The structure was a hall church in the typical North German Brick Gothic style. This building stood until the middle of the 19th century, even though it had been changed and expanded—and had to withstand destruction—several times. The original tower, erected in 1517, burned down in 1589. A new tower built to replace it collapsed in 1644. The last tower of the old Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, from the late 17th Century, was designed by noted architect Peter Marquardt. The Marquardt tower was 122 meters high, with its characteristic dome a landmark of the city and the jewel of its skyline.

The drawing below shows the old Saint-Nikolai-Kirche shortly before the church’s destruction in The Great Fire Of 1842, which destroyed the entire city of Hamburg.

The end of the old Saint Nicholas’s came in May 1842, the first significant victim of The Great Fire Of 1842. The destruction of Saint Nicholas’s is described by chroniclers as an especially haunting event that deeply jarred the citizens of Hamburg and brought before their eyes for the first time the magnitude of the fire disaster. The destruction of the old church, the first large public building to burn in The Great Fire Of 1842, was the first indication of how catastrophic the fire would become.

Shortly after the fire, it was decided to rebuild the church. The English architect George Gilbert Scott, designer of so many buildings we visited in London and an expert in the restoration of medieval churches and an advocate of the Neo-Gothic architectural style, designed an 86-meter-long nave, with a vault 28 meters high. The architecture was strongly influenced by French as well as English Gothic, but the pointed spire was typically German.

Construction started in 1846. In 1863, the new church was consecrated, although the 147-meter spire was completed only in 1874. At that time, Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was the tallest building in the world, a distinction it held only for two years, until the completion of The Cathedral Of Rouen in 1876.

Below is a drawing of the George Gilbert Scott church structure, made shortly after the building was completed.

Below is a photograph of Saint-Nikolai-Kirche from the 1920’s. This photograph displays the surrounding buildings, too, all of which were destroyed in 1943.

The photograph below, of the front of Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, is from the 1930’s.

Saint-Nikolai-Kirche suffered heavy damage in World War II. The clearly-visible spire of the church served as a control and aiming point for the pilots of the Allied Air Forces during air raids on Hamburg. On July 28, 1943, the church was heavily damaged by aerial bombs. The roof collapsed and the interior of the nave suffered heavy damage. The walls, however, although damaged, did not collapse. Neither did the spire.

After bombings, the basic structure of the Gothic construction had remained intact to a large extent and the condition of the building as a whole permitted a potential reconstruction to appear realistic. Nevertheless, Hamburg authorities decided to demolish the nave and to leave the spire untouched. As the area surrounding the church was no longer a residential area, a new Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was built in the Hamburg district of Harvestehude. In 1951, the nave was finally demolished and rubble from the church was partially used for reinforcement of The River Elbe embankment.

The loss of a valuable Gothic Revival architectural monument was regretted by many, but after the war Hamburg had other priorities—the city’s entire housing stock had to be replaced. Contrary to the Baroque Saint-Michaelis-Kirche and the German Gothic churches of Saint-Jacobi, Saint-Petri and Saint-Katharinen, the Neo-Gothic Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was not regarded as one of Hamburg’s most important landmarks. The spire and some remainders of the wall were preserved as a memorial against the war, but the remainder of the ruins was allowed to disintegrate.

This situation changed in 1987. The Rettet Die Nikolai-Kirche (“Save The Nikolai Church Foundation”), founded that year, is responsible for the restoration of the ruin. The foundation is supported in its work by The City Of Hamburg, the congregation of Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, and various corporate sponsors and private contributors. The organization takes care of the maintenance of the building fabric, the repair of known damaged sections, and administration of the church’s programs, such as the arrangement of events and displays at the church. Even some rubble from the destroyed nave was reclaimed from the embankment of The River Elbe in 2000.

When Hamburgers mention Saint-Nikolai-Kirche, it is generally this church that is meant, and not the new Hauptkirche of Saint Nicholas, located in the Harvesthude district.

Our visit to Saint-Nikolai-Kirche was an extensive one. We visited the church on a Thursday so that we could hear the 12:00 Noon Thursday Carillon recital.

At 12:30 p.m., we visited the exhibition center, constructed in the church crypt, which recounts a history of the church. The crypt displays remnants of statues salvaged from the post-bombing rubble and various memorabilia about the church’s history, including numerous photographs. The crypt also presents a two-hour film about Hamburg during The Third Reich, in German only, which was riveting. We had never seen much of the historic footage before, and we watched the film in its entirety.

After our visit to the crypt, we took the elevator to the top of the spire. The platform, 75-meters above street level, offers inspiring views of Hamburg.