Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Doppelganger Day

Steps: 14991
Miles: 4.73 (I don't think this is right though... I feel fairly certain that I covered far more distance)

Today was a big day for me.  Our morning theatre history class was canceled due to the instructor's illness (don't worry folks, Anatoly is fine, and will be back soon!), so pieces of the group headed down to Red Square while I headed to the Pushkin Theatre to secure tickets to Much Ado About Nothing and The Good Person of Sezuan.  I did very well at this particular theatre - negotiating ticket prices, explaining that I couldn't buy tickets to the classic she wanted me to see because we have class at that time, fending off a woman who was randomly trying to sell me an art book in the lobby... I was a machine.  Then I headed out to the Taganka Theatre to get tickets for tonight to Twelfth Night... and somehow managed to forget how to do basic multiplication.  I mean, to the point that I was doing really wrong long form multiplication in front of the box office woman.  Apparently my brain can handle EITHER Russian OR math... and in that moment, I chose Russian all the way.  Of course, the worst part of this is that I'll have to be back at that theatre later in the month for another show... and I know that woman is going to remember me.

Anyway, after all my very sweaty running around, I headed back to the theatre for our afternoon acting class.  So far I find all of his exercises very interesting, but I don't entirely see a through line yet. I'm looking forward to seeing where he takes them next.  Then it was a quick dinner before leading the group through the Metro for our first show of the month!  It was a bit of a risk, because neither JT nor I had seen this show before, the MXAT doesn't usually recommend stuff at the Taganka, and though I've seen some great stuff there... it is also where I saw the worst show I've seen in my four summers here (I say that with confidence that nothing could be worse than their Cripple of Inishmaan).  So I crossed my fingers and hoped that their first experience would be a good one.  And in general, it was!  This was not an earth-shattering production - mostly it was just a lot of fun.  There was great music, Maria was played in drag by a really sizable (and very funny) dude, Malvolio was great, we saw the most vuluptuous Olivia in recorded history, and the biggest monkey wrench was that the same actress played Viola and Sebastian, so there was a lot of goofy on stage/off stage body doubling in the final scene that was clearly the gag on which the entire show was based.  I assured the group that, as charming as this was, and as non-traditional as some of their decisions may have seemed... they just haven't seen anything yet.  This hardly contained the largest changes they were going to see to a script they know.  I really can't wait for them to see more.

But even more odd... today was definitely the day of doppelgangers. I saw Russian Alec Barbour standing at the top of the stairs at my Metro stop.  I saw Russian Amy Holtcamp strolling down Tverskaya.  In Twelfth Night I saw Russian Ryan Bradburn (Andrew Aguecheek) and Russian David Sterritt (Orsino).  And, I saw Russian Nathan Fillion.  Unless it turns out that Nathan Fillion is actually in Moscow right now... in which case... boy was that a missed opportunity!

Well, the night finished off with a little Metro 101 on the much-less-crowded-than-rush-hour Metro on our way home!  And now... there is a bed waiting for me to melt into it.  Here's hoping that sleeping through the night is in my future!  Спокойной ночи, interwebs!

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