Someone stop this crazy thing

Saint Mary's University

Friday 5th of December
Wednesday and Thursday almost blended together as we got use to the flow of the schedule and we got closer to our trip to Galway this weekend. We visited two churches, had another class with Dennis, and saw two shows. Let’s take a look.

Our church visits were interesting. The first was Christ’s Church on Wednesday at about 9:30 in the morning. The church itself was large and beautiful and reminded me a lot of Canterbury Cathedral. In one part, there was a video detailing the history of the church from the first bricks to the church of today with several statues and other artefacts as well. On the other side there were more statues as well as the mummified bodies of a cat and a mouse that were found in the organ pipes.

The other church was Saint Michan’s the following day. We didn’t get to see a lot of the church itself, but we did get a guided tour of the crypt below. The tour guide was great and had the sound of a creepy gravedigger. The mummies were really cool and we learned a lot about the crypt and the history of the families buried there. We even got the chance to “shake hands” with one of them meaning touch his hand. I didn’t because I was sure that I would have broken his hand off or something.

The class with Dennis on Thursday was a compare and contrast class almost. We looked at the works of O’Casey and compared his work to that of Synge. The last half of class was spent talking about how the plays were received by the theatre going audience. The theatre going audience hated the plays. They threw vegetables and stones and shoes to the point the play could not continue. The police had to be called and ushers used to restore order.

The plays that we saw were Oedipus Loves You at the Project Theatre and Cinderella, which is a Pantomime or Panto, at the Gaiety Theatre. At Oedipus Loves You, we saw a completely different take on the old story everyone knows. I didn’t like it very much so I asked the others what they thought. Generally they liked the show and most of them bought the script afterwards. They described it as edgy and different giving it a fresh look at an old tale.

The Panto, Cinderella, could not have been more fun. It was a great time for everyone with simple comedy for children and hidden humour for the adults. There is a bunch of audience participation with children screaming and funny sound effects. There are songs that are on the radio and songs that everyone knows from musicals or television. At the end of the show there was a sing along to “Galway Girl” complete with hand motions and then a competition between the two sides of the theatre.