Playing Catch-Up

Well… the internet has been entirely unreliable, and I have been completely exhausted, so I am WAY behind in the whole blogging thing.  There are so many things that have happened since our big adventure with all the Russian visitors! So buckle up... this is a long one!

Sunday we were planning on taking a boat ride on the Moscow River, but the forecast called for heavy thunderstorms all day, so we decided to take the day off instead.  This left time for morning skyping, late morning writing and early afternoon PhD meeting.  Then in the evening, we headed down to the MXAT to watch the fourth year students perform Мы Карамазовы (We Karamazov), an evening of etudes based on The Brothers Karamazov.  I haven’t read the book, but I have read a Wikipedia synopsis, so I had a very general framework from which to approach the piece, and it was super cool.  It was in a tiny, intimate little space that was actually a reproduction of their main studio classroom, and it was just over an hour of some really interesting, creative, funny and moving studies on the characters and situations in this famous novel.  At the end, as the actor playing Алеша went around from person to person asking forgiveness, I couldn’t stop crying – it was a palpable moment of their realization that their time together was coming to an end, and it was so moving!  It was a really gorgeous, personal moment that we got to share.  Way cool.

Monday we were back to class, but only half of us had singing, so I – surprise surprise – went around to get tickets for shows. I am so close to being done doing that… I really can’t wait.  Acting class was interesting on Monday, as we had to perform our etudes of each other.  By and large they were fun, but not super advanced etudes.  Mostly we would fixate on one trait or one specific event, rather than really living the inner life of the person.  But there were some good laughs at any rate.

Monday night brought be back to my Russian boyfriend, Константин Хабенский (Konstantin Khabensky) in the MXAT’s performance of Трехгрошовая Опера (Threepenny Opera).  I have seen this show three times now, and it never disappoints.  I will say, however, that since my last visit, the actress who played Mrs. Peacham was killed in a car accident, and though the new actress was lovely, she really couldn’t hold a candle to her predecessor. 

Tuesday was our penultimate day of movement class, which is always the hardest goodbye for us.  First of all, Vladimir is a ball of amazing Russian sunshine.  Second, this is the training that is the most different from what we tend to get in the US – it’s the sort of thing that we’re less likely to encounter again.  And he pushed us pretty hard today – particularly in the partner work we’re doing – lots of balance and lifts and standing on people and stuff.  It’s not work that I’m super comfortable with, but it’s pretty fun to take pictures of… which is what I’m mostly doing, since most of the work takes place in groups of three… with 16 people, I’m the odd man out.  That’s fine though… that’s the job. <shrug>

Tuesday afternoon was an abbreviated acting class in which we finished our etudes of each other and launched into our etudes about The Seagull.  It is always so amazing listening to Sergey talk about Chekhov plays…the way he understands them is so deep and personal and applicable and amazing.  I learn so much from these discussions!  Then we ended class a bit early so that we could watch a series of documentaries on the last 20 or so years of Stanislavsky’s life by the one and only Anatoly Smeliansky (the dean of the MXAT theatre school and our theatre history teacher, in case you’re having a hard time keeping track of the absurd number of incredible people over here)!   Then, it was a super quick dinner for us before taking our seats for On Kamergersky Lane – a show of etudes that the fourth years students have been working on for two years.  This was their final performance of their MXAT student careers.  And it was amazing!  There was a panda, an encounter between a cat and an iguana, a body building fantasy, a heartbreaking clown act, a series of etudes built around famous paintings, raucous musical numbers (including one featuring the Beatles… until Yoko showed up and ruined everything).  I can’t even begin to outline all the great, creative and energetic work they presented, but it was so much fun to watch.  Our one big moment of “wow… we are not in Kansas anymore” came when they did a recreation of the final song from the movie Sister Act… with one of the actresses in blackface.  Now, blackface does not have the historical baggage here that it does at home… but boy howdy… you could feel the air get sucked out of the first row where we were sitting.  It was really uncomfortable.  Still, aside from that, it was an utterly phenomenal evening – one that I hope the Wayne State showcases can learn from!

And all this brings us to today!  Phew!  Today started out with our new dance teacher, Irina, who is this beautiful, delicate Russian flower of a woman, and she took us through the paces big time in our new Russian Folk Dance class.  It’s a completely different way to think about moving your body after all the ballet of the last two weeks, and it’s a very cool opportunity.  We covered a lot of ground today… and I’m pretty sure I remember none of it.  But it’s still pretty damn cool!

Next up was singing, during which Marina is trying desperately to get me to keep my nostrils open.  It’s such a great time.  I really do miss voice lessons.

Our acting class was sort of a rough one today.  We were told to get more fantastical with our etudes, which really didn’t work out super well, and we were all tired and crabby and had a very hard time focusing today.  And we discovered that our translator (along with some of the people in our group) does not know how to spell beggar.  That led to a particularly frustrating moment.  Still, even after all that, our Chekhov etudes were very interesting today.  There was a lot of stylized dancy stuff, which Sergey is now trying to steer us away from, but it was pretty cool to watch today anyway.  And though it didn’t really have an ending, I did feel pretty good about my Polina etude… so go me!

After acting class we headed back to the Tanganka theatre one last time to see – of all things – Калека с Инишмана (The Cripple of Inishmaan).  This was a tough one to get through for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s such a text-driven show, not speaking the language really mattered for this one.  Second, they didn’t really seem all that interested in the comedy of the piece and really seemed to focus in more on the melodrama and the tragedy of it.  But our biggest issue was this: Cripple Billy was played as mentally handicapped in addition to his very extreme physical handicap.  It was really unsettling in terms of the action of the play, and also in terms of watching a guy playing at mental disability all evening.  Maybe as Americans we’re too culturally sensitive or whatever, but the fact is, mental disability is not borne out by the script, and I found his portrayal downright disrespectful.  I’m glad we saw it, because I was definitely curious about how they would handle such a regional script.  And they had a very cool lighting and fog effect at the beginning of each act that made the fog and the footlights look like the white caps of waves on the ocean.  Plus, it’s nice to get a reminder each summer that Russian theatre is not the Utopia we make it out to be – they can make mistakes too.  But most of all, I’m also glad that it was only 200 rubles.