A trip to the theatre

Abstract

We always make decisions at the very last minute, and from observations among friends it seems that many other doctors do the same. Maybe it's an attempt to thwart fate—we all know that there's no surer guarantee of a record attendance at evening surgery than a fixed-time social appointment for that same evening. This time there was no such excuse. It was a scorching August weekend, none of the doctors among us were on call, and after a hard working week there was nothing I wanted to do more than collapse by the sea. However, we had cultural obligations in the form of a longstanding promise to our goddaughters to take them to the theatre, and Saturday's much advertised production of Euripides's Hecabe, with a famous tragic actress in the leading role, seemed an ideal opportunity to fulfil this. There was another, more personal reason: my husband had attended the same actress briefly on one occasion when she had been slightly indisposed, had taken her blood pressure, held her hand, chatted for a few minutes, and fallen forever captive to her charm. Optimistically, he was sure we could combine both objectives despite the fact that over 250 kilometres separated the cottage by the sea from the site of the ancient theatre at Epidauros. He had heard of a new route which avoided well …