I Haz The Culture

Posted by admin on Feb 23rd, 2009 | no comments | 36 views home title

An old staff member was putting on a bit of an Am-Dram production at her college. She asked if I wanted to come along, so how could I refuse? Armed with my fellow culture vulture (also a Brit) we got tickets and waited with intrepidation.

That’s until I found out the play was about women empowerment.

I then looked forward to it with a certain amount of dread, convinced I would come out at the end of it hating myself for being a guy.

I’ve never seen any amateur productions before, so didn’t really know what to expect. The play itself was being done on an all girls campus, and I want to put these vicious rumours to rest right now that the only reason I went was to go and pick up girls from the all girls college. It wasn’t. Honest.

The play was called Black, Blue and Other Hues (an ominous title for a womens empowerment play!). It was split in to 6 mini plays which tell different stories about different women.

When it started, an old lady gave an introduction. There were all kinds of technical problems, and we even had the old classic:

“hello? hello? HELLO? Is this thing on? Can you hear me? Hello”

So once the microphones were sorted out, the lights turned off (and on, and off again) she proceeded to speak a lot, without (I felt) saying very much.

I have to say at this point, I enjoyed the play more than I thought I would. It wasn’t as feminist and ‘girl power’ as I thought it was going to be. They’d put a lot of effort in to the script and learning the lines.

Apparently they had been rehearsing for the last 3 months, and I think it paid off.

Of the 6 plays, the one I enjoyed the most was about an old Indian Mum going to visit her son in London. It was played out by a single actor and lasted about 30 minutes – I have no idea how she remembered all those lines! It was fairly funny in places and really well acted.

Some of the other plays went right over my head. I think it was mostly because some of the actors had very strong Indian accents (year is pronounced yer, wallet is prounced walelet) and spoke pretty quickly so I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

There was one play where I had no idea what was going on and seemed to go on for a lifetime. A lady saw invisible snakes (or something), a guy blows himself up with a bomb, a suicide and a person reflecting on her life. Apparently that was the play that got the best reviews. oops!

By the end of the play I was clock watching a little bit. My concentration levels couldn’t cut through the accent and I was a little bit relieved when it finally ended.

In all, I didn’t quite get how it was about women empowerment, but rather women in different situations.

The best part was, I didn’t come out hating myself for being a guy!

What ever will I do next on my cultured journey?