Hamlet

 My theater class went to see Hamlet today.

It was at the Cameri Theater, which is one of the most famous theaters in the city. The theater in which the show was performed was really quite an interesting concept: it was not just a crowd and a stage; it was a crowd within a stage. The seats could spin all the way around, to enable you to see what was going on at all times. There was an aisle straight through the middle of the seating area and stages all around the room. They supported this idea with the notion that the audience is comprised of "the silent participants" and that this brings the crowd further into the production. Sometimes the actors would interact with us and even walk between the seats. One girl (incidentally another Shira) was sat on by Hamlet. There were huge fans of his in the crowd, who were all extremely jealous of her.

The production was a more modern rendition of the play; electronics and modern dress were part of the show. In one scene, Hamlet is wearing headphones, supposedly listening to something - but the headphones aren't plugged in to anything (this is just after he begins to go crazy), so he's just dancing to nothing.

I enjoyed it immensely; the acting was phenomenal, the monologues well-done. And there was comic relief. Always important.

You know what? Shakespeare really was quite brilliant.

Crazy Home Thoughts

Yesterday I was watching Wizard Rock, a song that I really do love. It's about, well, Wizard Rock, which is a music genre about Harry Potter. It's a good song anyway, but it's about Harry Potter so...it's awesome. It's also about depression a bit, which, well, is okay.

But what I was going to say is that listening to this song made me really sad, not just because Potter is "over" but also because my friend would always play it on her iPhone and we would sing it. We used it to annoy our cabin mates on a school trip - they ended up shooing me onto the porch when we had to do written work because I was the louder one of us.

And that made me wonder: how will it be when I get home? Will I look at Doctor Who and Hunger Games and be really sad because it reminds me of the days here? I don't know, but I can't help thinking that after this I won't have a home. It's scary, not knowing where you belong or if you should be here at all.

Evening at the Theater

Last night, our theater teacher took us to, well, the theater.

At 7:30 all of us met up at school and boarded buses that took us to the Gesher Theater. We were about eighty or ninety kids in all in grades 7-12. The show was Harvey, about a man (Elwood P. Dowd) who has an imaginary friend named Harvey, who is (in the English version) a six-foot, three-and-one-half inch tall pooka which takes the form of a white rabbit. His sister, who is embarrassed of his insistence that Harvey exists, tries to commit him into a sanatorium. However, they end up committing her instead on the pretense that she is the one that is not quite sane. When the sane and insane are sorted out, a search for Elwood begins. The production plays with our views of sanity and its benefits.

After the show, we were all saying, "Ah, now where is Harvey? I want to drink a martini and carrot juice with him" (that's what Elwood would order for Harvey) and "Sane people ruin the world." Which is true, on some grounds.

The evening ended up being quite rainy, but still enjoyable. It was one of the better experiences I've had here. And we're going to see Hamlet on Tuesday! Whoopee!

Cheers, guys, and happy Friday!