That's Entertainment?

The last week or more have been extremely taxing with only a few spots of light and pleasant activity tossed in here and there, but even then there were bumps in the road. Perhaps one reason is that for about 15 days the weather was miserably uncooperative in terms of elevating one’s mood by providing rain and/or snow showers almost daily.

I had thought we would get some refreshing entertainment by attending a play in English, performed by a local troupe. A British ex-pat authored the play, so we were prepared for some language issues. You know how Brits speak. Our friend Dan was the only one we could convince to join us, though we did try our best to corral others into shelling out the 2,100 Huf for a ticket.

As it turned out, those who held out were the smart ones. Although the play was advertised as an English production, written by an Englishman, sponsored by an English language company, half the cast were Hungarian and a chunk of the dialogue was in Hungarian. The “theater” was makeshift, not allowing the professionalism of super-titles, but the least they could have done is have someone stand by with the translations on large sheets of cardboard. The only laughter came from those who seemed to be native Hungarian speakers.

As entertainment, it was a disaster. There were few smiling faces amongst the crowd (regardless of the graphic in this post), but when the cast came for their accolades, it was apparent the audience was staggeringly stuffed with family and friends like a 3rd grade dance recital.

I am almost tempted to learn enough Hungarian just to be able to enjoy the theater here without feeling abused or for that matter deprived of culture. Thankfully, there are dance performances aplenty where language is not needed.

This post should have been titled "No Laughing Matter".

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