This past week, if ever, has been a blur. One moment, I was entering the Elizabeth Sneddon theatre to watch Monkey Nuts, and the next, I’m here, at the end of yet another busy week, completely brain-frizzled.

Mid-year exams are fast approaching; in fact, my Drama prac exam is this Tuesday, and so it’s once again back in the acting mode, this time for marks.

My writing is starting to take a small step into the back seat with each second nearer to the big exams. However, one last exciting bit before I press pause on the word pressing, is a really cool piece I’m working on for Byte Lounge. It’s a review piece for a new South African startup, but at this stage that’s all I can say. Watch the blog or follow me on Twitter to find out when it’s posted.

What really struck me this week is how fast life moves. Besides this coming week being the final approach to June exams, it also marks only three weeks until I leave for a two-week long tour of Europe. So there is light at the end of the tunnel! But this speed of life is starting to get to me. Society is increasingly becoming faster, in its needs and wants.

Take the recent Google I/O event that was held this week. The company released a plethora of new services aimed at taking down Apple, a once long-time best friend. There’s serious animosity spreading throughout Silicon Valley; Apple vs Adobe and Google. At the end of the day, this hate is throttling innovation, and at the rate our lives are moving, it’s a sad prospect.

Now, if ever, we need to put our differences aside for the sake of progress. Sure, competition is great. But only if it’s healthy, and the way brands once so respected like Apple are now doing business, we’re not treading that road.

Anyway, coming back to the smaller world of my own life, the end of one week and the beginning of another brings with it new challenges, more sleep-deprived nights and lots of hard work.

Bring it on.

I just watched the hilarious and brilliant one-man play, Monkey Nuts, at UKZN’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. It’s performed by genius actor Matthew Ribnick, written by Geraldine Naidoo — yes, the same duo that brought us The Chilli Boy and Hoot, another two comedic plays that have a take on the lives of South Africans living in our new, free society.

Once again, Ribnick proved his theatrical brilliance in performing over 20 distinct characters, each with their own accents and idiosyncrasies. His acting has now been accentuated by his fun takes on singing and dancing; put together, it was a rip-roaring theatrical experience.

And this made me realise: the theatre is a magical place. To echo my Drama teacher’s words before we performed in the opening night of What the Dickens? last week, what happens on stage is magical; it’s something that may never again happen. In films and adverts, actors can do multiple takes to get the perfect shot. In theatre, there is only one shot, and the audience is watching your every move, unlike in film shooting, where the audience has yet to see what you’re to present.

But with the rise of home entertainment and social media, the question I’m finding that’s floating through my mind often is whether the time for the theatre is up. And I strongly feel that it certainly is not. The theatre is here to stay; it’s what instigated the desire for people to be entertained; to be elevated from the mundaneness of their lives and transformed into a world of intrigue and wonder.

Sure, films and YouTube are great; I’m a huge fan of both. That’s the entertainment of the 21st century. But the thing is that the theatre is still the centre of magic in the entertainment field. Hardly does a person feel that particular sense of excitement before the curtains rise to reveal the stage beyond it, when seated before the screen flashes to life in a cinema. The theatre has within it a sense of charm that no other house of art can emulate or mimic.

And that’s why I will always relish the opportunity to go and watch a play. Because of the rarity of this art form. And I feel that more people should also discover the theatre – especially the younger generations. The support of art is an integral part of our society; in fact, in Ancient Greece, it was compulsory for citizens to attend plays put on by the titans of the dramatic texts — the likes of Sophocles and Euripides.

So go out and watch a play. Be inspired. Laugh. Enjoy every minute of being within the theatre. Because this form of art is unique; what you see on stage will never again occur.

Exactly a week ago, I concluded what was a glorious few months full of rehearsals for my school’s senior Drama production, a revue of the best of Charles Dickens’s works, titled What the Dickens?

It was great fun, and I got to make a load of new friends from the other grades’ Drama students.

For those that don’t know, apart from being a passionate writer and techno-fanatic, I love the theatre and from a young age have enjoyed participating in small plays put on by my school. In 2006, the final year at my preparatory school, I played the role of Jughead in an adaptation of the Archie comics.

At the beginning of last year, I took up the subject of Dramatic Arts as one of my four subjects for FET (a South African equivalent — sort of — of the A-levels). Whenever I tell most people that this is one of my four choice subjects, they always regard me with a puzzled look and begin a rant about why I’d even think of taking up a subject like this, or they might curiously question this seemingly strange decision.

As my Drama teacher constantly says, and what I also strongly believe in, is that Drama is an essential subject — an integral life skill — the benefits of which impact hugely in the success of one’s life in the long-run.

You see, Drama is not just about getting up on stage and acting, similarly to how karate (another art that I practice) is not just about kicking and punching. It involves a state of mind, a quest for attaining complete concentration. It’s about learning a vast amount of theory based on acting, and about immersing yourself in rich cultures and fascinating social histories. It’s about learning to become confident and bold. About having fun.

But enough of that rant about the subject; for an entire seven days last week (Saturday to Friday), I got to immerse myself in the world of Drama as the cast of this show tirelessly agonised over intricate details to pull-off three amazing nights of awesome performances on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. In case you’re wondering, I played the convict Magwitch from Great Expectations, and performed the opening scene with Pip (“The Convict Frightens Me”).

But alas, after seven days of living in the fantastic, I return to the mundaneness of daily life. It’s brutal of me to say that, but this past week has been exhausting to say the least. And as I approach half-year exams, my writing and blogging time is becoming increasingly shortened. I yearn for an ounce of free time just to read my own novel for leisure, but find that I’m too tired to even concentrate on it (I’m currently reading Area 7 by Matthew Reilly; great novel, by the way). In the meantime, I hope to clear a block of time on weekends to catch up on my blogging; let’s hope my mind won’t be fried by the information-bombarding I’m beginning to get from my revision!