Oktoberfest
On Wednesday, I went into NYC to go to my high school. My old German teacher had gone to the alumni office and gotten emails of all her former students, because this year would be the 20th year that she had run the high school's Oktoberfest cabaret show. Since this year would be particularly big, she wanted some alumni to come back. I was one of 5 that came and certainly the oldest (my Oktoberfests were the 5th through 9th).
I don't know why I expected a polished show with lots of German, because it most certainly wasn't this year and it probably wasn't in my years either. All the skits were written by the students, so it was a lot of high schooler randomness and in-jokes and flubbed lines. There were three things that really surprised me about the performance. 1) how many students she had -- the German class in my year was only 5 students and the numbers weren't much different for neighboring years. 2) how young the freshman looked. I saw them sitting in the audience and thought that they had brought in students from a neighboring middle school. 3)--this was the biggest shock to me -- how students could be openly gay or at least ambiguous. One of the two emcees played the emcee from Cabaret, with a little swish that didn't seem parody but rather seemed genuine (the other emcee was Arnold Schwarzenegger). That emcee did a serious duet with another senior who was dressed perfectly as Marlene Dietrich, in tight jeans, blond wig and carefully done makeup. And then in one dating show skit, the "woman" asks one of the eligible bachelors who his celebrity crush is and he starts rapping about how he has a crush on Brad Pitt. I really couldn't believe how much the school had changed. I mean, we weren't censored in my day, but neither could we be so open. Things really have changed quickly about acceptance of gays.
Still, the reason I had gone to the performance was to catch up with Frau Lampe, my teacher. She looked pretty much the same, except her blond hair had gone grey, but her energy level and positivity were at the same level as when I knew her. And she remembered a lot of things about me (and the other alumni), like the trip to Austria, or how in senior year we read through Brecht's Galileo. She had run into one of my classmates a few months ago, even, because he was working as a waiter in between acting jobs. It was really nice to reconnect and reminisce.
I don't know why I expected a polished show with lots of German, because it most certainly wasn't this year and it probably wasn't in my years either. All the skits were written by the students, so it was a lot of high schooler randomness and in-jokes and flubbed lines. There were three things that really surprised me about the performance. 1) how many students she had -- the German class in my year was only 5 students and the numbers weren't much different for neighboring years. 2) how young the freshman looked. I saw them sitting in the audience and thought that they had brought in students from a neighboring middle school. 3)--this was the biggest shock to me -- how students could be openly gay or at least ambiguous. One of the two emcees played the emcee from Cabaret, with a little swish that didn't seem parody but rather seemed genuine (the other emcee was Arnold Schwarzenegger). That emcee did a serious duet with another senior who was dressed perfectly as Marlene Dietrich, in tight jeans, blond wig and carefully done makeup. And then in one dating show skit, the "woman" asks one of the eligible bachelors who his celebrity crush is and he starts rapping about how he has a crush on Brad Pitt. I really couldn't believe how much the school had changed. I mean, we weren't censored in my day, but neither could we be so open. Things really have changed quickly about acceptance of gays.
Still, the reason I had gone to the performance was to catch up with Frau Lampe, my teacher. She looked pretty much the same, except her blond hair had gone grey, but her energy level and positivity were at the same level as when I knew her. And she remembered a lot of things about me (and the other alumni), like the trip to Austria, or how in senior year we read through Brecht's Galileo. She had run into one of my classmates a few months ago, even, because he was working as a waiter in between acting jobs. It was really nice to reconnect and reminisce.