19 July 2007

Around town: plays, hooligans, and friends

I went to see Loyac's summer production, Galatia, tonight at the Abdulaziz Hussein cultural center. I was quite impressed that 1) the play was actually in Classical Arabic and the Kuwaiti actors didn't butcher it*; 2) the actors took themselves seriously. Of course the depressing part was that as soon as the director finished telling the audience to hold their applause to the very end and to shut off their cell phones, the crowd started cheering like hooligans in a soccer field. How sad is that?! I was mostly annoyed but somewhat amused by how silly the audience was acting; the girls next to me were calling out "Go Hussa!"; Hussa was playing the ivory statue at the center of the story. Did they really expect Hussa to acknowledge their screams?! There needs to be more culture in Kuwait as most people, myself included, are waaaay under-exposed!! Anyway, congratulations Hussa and the rest of the cast on a job well done!

Its really nice to be able to do something different in Kuwait. As I'm not a big fan of commercial theater I don't attend very many plays; although I do enjoy amateur troupes' productions. (A couple of months ago, I saw a production by Al-Jeel il-Wa3id...if my memory serves me...it was quite good as well.) Anyway, I try to do my part to "support the arts" by going to events like photography exhibitions, theater, and film screenings around town. The problem is I usually don't find very many people willing to go with me, I've been wanting to go to the Tareq Rajab Museum's Calligraphy exhibition for sometime now (I don't know if its still on...but I think/hope it is). I'm still kinda bummed I didn't find anyone to go to the Jazz Festival with me a couple of months ago, that would've been fun.

Today's lesson: I need more interesting friends.

*butchered Arabic always brings the old time cartoon Adnan w'Lena to mind. (I must say the song is worse than I remember.)

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