Macaulay Seminar One at Brooklyn College

During one of our classes we brought up the question- if you had to choose between losing one of your senses, which would it be?

This past week, I was in Israel. My family visited many museums while we were there and two of them that I found particularly interesting were the deaf museum and the blind museum. I have actually been to the blind museum twice before and the deaf museum once before, but I have never gone to them back to back, until last week.

A little background for those who have never heard of these museums-

Deaf museum- you go in with a group of about ten people and you put on noise canceling headphones. You are not allowed to talk, to increase the feeling of being deaf. The museum is split into a few rooms, each with its own display and activity. For example, one room teaches you how to use facial expression to express emotions, instead of using your words, and another room teaches you how to use your hands to express something.

Blind Museum- a group of 10 people are guided by a blind guide. In this museum, you enter into complete darkness. This museum is also split into different rooms, such as a grocery store and a playground.

At the end of the tour you can buy drinks or food without talking, or without seeing.

Both of these museums are really cool in understanding how blind/deaf people live. The guides learned how to cope with their situations.

When in the deaf museum, I had to learn to express myself with my hands and facial expressions, which at first seemed really hard to do, but then got easier as I got used to the fact that I couldn’t hear and nobody could hear me. I had to use my sight if I wanted to see what was going around me.

In the blind museum, I couldn’t see anything. I had to use my sense of touch to feel where I was going and to feel all the objects in each room. I also had to use my hearing to hear where the guide was and to keep up with the group.

Each museum tour was about an hour and a half long. When I came out of the museums I was grateful for my ability to hear and see. However, I understood that losing one of those senses is bearable, not ideal, but bearable. If you lose one sense, it just increases all of your other senses. Going to the museums back to back was very cool in seeing the difference in both situations and learning how to react to both.

Overall it was a great experience and very relevant to what we were learning in class!

When I heard that we’d be watching a staged play, I imagined a couple of people lined up on a large stage, practicing their parts dully. However, this was not the case. Mohammed’s Radio, although it was staged, was a pleasure to watch.

I thought that reading the play beforehand would affect my interest while watching the actual characters act. However, when faces and voices were put to the characters, the play just got better! What I had imagined, came to life. Each character presented his/herself in an extraordinary way and each individual brought something different to the table. The actors used a voice, expression, and personality that best fit their characters’ and really brought their hearts into the play.

I was especially moved when I saw tears in ‘Alice’s’ eyes. The actress actually placed herself in Alice’s shoes and was in tears towards the end of the play when she found that her daughter had been raped. It was extraordinary to watch the regular individuals play their parts with lots of emotion and passion. The actors/actresses made it hard for me to differentiate between the performer and the true character.

Overall, the staged play was beyond what I expected. I was immersed into the play and felt that I truly understood each and every character’s motives and behaviors.

The stage reading of “Mohammed’s Radio” was an incredible personal experience. It also emphasizes the importance of actors in bringing a play to life. I read the play prior to watching it, and at first, wasn’t all that emotionally affected by the plot. However, the performers were able to change my mind completely. The performers were able to give a voice to the characters, bring them to life, get so emotionally invested in them that it was difficult to differentiate the performer from the character.

Watching the staged reading of the play, I was immersed in the play, sometimes creating scenes in my own head of a particular moment of the play. This was different from when I read it by myself. Reading alone tended to be more of a hassle, an assignment where the goal was to not enjoy the play, but to finish reading the play. Therefore, it was harder to really get into the play and truly understand the characters. But watching the actors and actresses, full of enthusiasm, I really enjoyed the play as they were able to give the characters in the play a personality so realistic that I felt like I personally knew some of the characters.

I was absent on the day that the class spoke about religion and I will make a short post about my thoughts as Professor Ugoretz emailed me what happened!

For me, I do enjoy looking at religious art and not for the reasons you would expect, but for one specific reason. I can say a lot of artists have their own muse, their own beliefs, their own ideas and these thoughts are portrayed in their art. When I see any kind of religious art, it make me happy that people have faith. I am not a religious person so I can’t really relate, but this art makes me excited no matter how grueling, sad, ugly, nice, or happy it is. No matter, if you don’t believe in religion, you subconsciously put your faith in something that you didn’t even know you did. It can be your career, sister, mom, dog, etc. and it’s nice to see people admit it through religious art.

Mohammad’s Radio was different than other plays from what I was able to see. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stay for the whole thing, but I stayed for most of it! I was hoping that the end would come sooner because I really wanted to see how they would show the unseen rape scene and the suffocating of the father. Those two intense scenes would’ve been great to see and judge.

However, from what I saw, I did prefer to read the play than to watch it. I am obviously no expert in anyway, but there were certain things that could’ve been altered (character wise) in the play. The major problem I had was that, they didn’t let the daughter talk. She had plenty of time to defend herself even if she was being passive. If this was intentional, I don’t think the daughter was developed enough as a character to do that. All we know is that she’s a teenager who changes her style a lot. I feel like they didn’t do this so teenagers could relate to her and so the audience can understand what she was going through, but it didn’t pull through. I didn’t feel too much sympathy for her for this reason. Then I feel like the mother’s overwhelming attitude was too exaggerated. It was obvious that she was having trouble choosing between her husband and father. If the production is going to do a play on an Irish-Catholic girl becoming Muslim, then yes, show how society is overbearing and wants this change to end, BUT they are making the daughter look like a hero because the mother is too exaggerated. However, if they wanted us to not like her than it is ok, but at the same time there was no development with her character besides her killing her husband.

I think the reason why I can’t really convey what I disliked about the play was because there was really no character development. Honestly, I didn’t think the main character went through this development, the mother obviously didn’t because she is still her obtrusive self, her father didn’t, and not even my two favorite characters the sister and little Joe. I believe this mostly has to do with is the time, how time skips in this play. I like it, but there were times where it wasn’t necessary.

Fortunately, if this would ever to become a big production, I would love to see what changes they do on a bigger stage! It’s a very interesting story and I can’t wait to see it.