University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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There ' s the bell. With a sigh of relief, you jump from your seat, with the new energy that the end of a day of classes can bring. The walk to your dorm is easy and carefree, because the pressure of the day is over. Almost. The smile fades from your lips as you open the door to your room, and discover a desk piled high with what looks like a long night ahead. There ' s a paper due tomorrow, and a Physics test - which will involve memorizing 4, 5, or 6 chapters, and ten million homework assignments to do. Only 21 more hours to go. No problem. That means you have five hours to write and type the paper, one and a half hours to study each chapter, one-half hour to wolf down dinner, four and a half hours for homework, and maybe two hours to sleep until the test. After dinner, it ' s time to buckle down. Packing up your books, you head for the upper echelons of the library. Encountering a pre-med camping out in a carrel on the 13th floor, you make a hasty retreat. (After all, that dirty look was directed toward your squeaky chair, wasn ' t it?) The roar from the 2nd floor lobby lures you, but the social hour has no appeal tonight. Next stop: LaFortune. All the tables seem to be taken up by people studying with friends, and someone is playing the piano in the ballroom. You decide it ' s about time to check out your dorm ' s study lounge. Here, you sink into a comfortable couch, and write your paper between falling asleep and making periodic trips to food sales. You trek upstairs to type the paper, and it ' s time to leaf through the test material. The homework is almost completed, and you finally crawl into bed, as the sun begins to peek through your window curtains. Studying is just another part of The Routine 16 Studymg

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Hamlet In Washington Hall A four-story-tall banner proclaiming its message in Gothic lettering unfurled down the front of Washington Hall. As I walked by, students were stopping to take another look. Something was new in the state of Notre Dame. The enormous poster announced a ND-SMC production to be performed in Washington Hall. Only graduate students and architects can remember the last time this happened. Washington Hall, one of the oldest existing academic theatres in the country, had been closed to ND-SMC Theatre performances since 1974 for repairs. Although the work was not fully completed, HAMLET opened there on October 5 and became the first play to be produced on the Notre Dame campus in five years by the ND-SMC Theatre. A professor with the Drama Department for thirteen years, Reginald Bain, the last to direct a major production in Washington Hall, was given the honor of directing HAMLET. The production marks the reopening of the building as a viable theatre. Dr. Bain remembers Lance Davis, the special guest artist who played Hamlet, as a student. This man, who drew all those less- than-Shakespeare-lovers to see Hamlet, graduated from Notre Dame ten years ago. Dr. Bain says of the actor -alumnus, He was an actor you could not take your eyes off on stage. I personally remember this intense hard work at rehearsals and his immense determination in the face of youthful insecurity. Since his undergraduate days, Davis has appeared on stage and in television. His special perspective based on experience and his training at Notre Dame was invaluable to the department and his fellow actors. Complementing Davis as Hamlet, characters such as the doting, practical Polonius (John Davenport) and the emotional Gertrude (Susan Gosdick) were well-developed, credible, humorous and genuinely human. The scenic design dorf Dorothy Hanrahan and joe Martin, reflected and emphasized the basic bleakness and hopeless of Shakespeare ' s complicated plot. In contrast, the authenticity and brightness of the costumes designed by Diana Hawfield allowed the characters to stand out as individuals and humans against the dark circumstances and fate which surround them. The efforst of all involved in the ND-SMC production of HAMLE aided us, the audience, in realizing the truth that the three-hundred-year old plays of Shakespeare hold for today ' s world. This sensitive, funny, dynamic and realistic interpreta- tion of HAMLET reaffirmed the belief the Shakespeare ' s plays were truly written for the stage and not the p: