So much about what we think we know is just about perspective.

Viewed from a particular angle, or at another point in time in our lives, the same situation, people, experience, can seem totally different. At times, it can appear that we are in fact dealing with something with which we’ve never before come into contact.

I have been to Melbourne’s Princess Theatre quite a few times over the years. The first was in the early 90s. I can’t remember if they had Les Miserables there when it came to Melbourne, but I am sure that I sat in the stalls for the first Melbourne season of Phantom of the Opera with the glorious Anthony Warlow and Marina Prior. I remember the theatre had newly been restored at that time, and it seemed like a glittering jewel had just been unveiled. I sat in my seat, probably right in the middle of the stalls, as I remember it, marvelling at the intricate detailing of the walls and ceiling, the gilt-edged splendour of the decoration of what seemed like an enormous space. The show began, and the audience rode it like a bullet train, heart in mouth, holding its collective breath as we were surprised by the falling chandelier, and sightings of the sinister Phantom lurking in all kinds of precarious locations in the theatre: above the stage, in his preferred box, or suspended here and there on the outer part of the stage scaffolding.

We returned to this theatre again and again over the years, though I can’t remember exactly which shows we saw there. For many of those I did my usual cheapskate thing of buying seats up in the ‘gods’ – I’d rather go to the theatre often in bad seats than less often in good ones. In the back row, the theatre always looks enormous, and the stage the size of a postage stamp. Each time sitting up there with my fellow cheapskates, I wish I’d remembered binoculars. I never do.

But last Saturday, when I returned once again to the Princess, I had front row seats. They weren’t the cheapest, sure, but they weren’t the most expensive either. They were, in fact, the same price as most of the seats in the entire theatre that were not at the very front and middle of the three sections. As it turned out, our seats were the last three in the front row, and were deemed second rate. So we sat there, and had an absolutely wonderful view of Fiddler on the Roof – featuring the still fabulous Anthony Warlow! We were close enough to be able to see the microphones on the faces of the performers and if we leant forward, we could peer right into the orchestra pit.

What was most surprising, however, was not how good it was to be this close for a change, but how the theatre looked from our front row seats. Surprisingly, it did not look that big. I was amazed that it was in fact so small. If someone had led me there, blindfolded, and sat me in those same seats, I would have sworn I was not sitting in The Princess, but in a similar, but smaller version of the same theatre. I turned my face up to the ‘gods’, and I was struck at how close they seemed. I could hardly believe the stage would look so far away as I remembered from my many times up there.

My companions agreed, all of us gobsmacked at how one thing can be so different when viewed from a different end. It’s like that in many aspects of life, and something we often forget at the most crucial times.