A Word to the Wise for Those Who May Find Themselves in a Similar Situation in Future...

(Unlikely as it may seem...)

Should you finally feel confident enough of your language skills to brave a serious play in German and, unexpectedly finding yourself alone in the endeavour due to a friend's sudden illness, buy a programme and a glass of wine and retreat to a table against the wall of the foyer bar in order to study the synopsis properly, it is NOT false modesty to know where the theatre has decided to place your publicity shot.  You WILL inadvertently plonk yourself directly underneath it, and the coincidence WILL be remarked upon loudly and enthusiastically by a hitherto-unknown-to-you member of the public.  (I cannot stress enough the depth of embarrassment I felt at having managed to do this.)

Said gentleman will be entranced and will avidly engage you in conversation until the last bell rings, at which point you will file into the theatre and proceed to fail to understand huge chunks of the play.  Flashes of comprehension will occur with words concerning gods, or curses, or incest (well sorry, but opera German is, shall we say, rather specialised... I'm sure they also talked about the price of fish or whatever), but you will spend vast swathes of time utterly mystified, working up to a splitting headache, and wondering how you managed to choose a play with so little movement (movement tends to be fairly self-explanatory) and with so many Serious Speeches...

At least that's the hurdle of the first play over with.  I'm fairly certain at least that it's not going to get any worse than that!