Medea and More!

Number of Steps: 19035 (6.01 mi)

This morning we started out with another phenomenal film history lecture.  We finished the 1956 movie The Cranes are Flying that we started during the last class – I saw it last year, and it was just as lovely and moving as it was the first time.  We talked through a few other directors, and even some prominent women directors of the middle of the 20^th century, which is always something that floats my boat.

At lunch I ran to a theatre to pick up a couple more tickets for a show we were planning on seeing tonight… and I remembered that I have yet to blog about one of my favorite things about the Moscow metro system: and it is the fact that every day around 1:00, as if synchronized in every station, you can see the little subway cleaning guys running their little subway Zambonis back and forth across their respective stations.  Gotta love that Russian efficiency!

Acting class was low key today.  We did some training exercises and some etudes – nothing to really write home about.  At this point I think we’re trying to sort through all the notes from each etude, trying to create the perfect piece that will answer all of their desires…but that piece doesn’t exist, and we just have to be happy in the struggle and muck!

After class I ran over to another theatre to pick up tickets for a show tomorrow night.  This particular excursion involved asking for directions in Russian… and then being made fun of by some Russian women in the lobby of the theatre who were amused that I didn’t speak much Russian.

At any rate, the show we saw tonight had a later start time than the usual 7:00 curtain fur Russian theatres: this show began at 9:00.  The play was called Театр Медеи (Theatre Medea).  It is a piece written for two women about actresses playing Medea – one before the murder and one after the murder – but both roles were performed by one virtuoso actress.  She says it's because she's interested in that line between sanity and madness, and wanted to play around on both sides of it.  I actually saw her last year in another one woman show called K.I. from Crime.  I do think K.I. was a better, more dynamic piece, but this show tonight was still enthralling.  It was just her in an empty room with a chair, and the small audience on pews.  Her face and eyes are so alive, when she makes eye contact with you – and she does at many points throughout the performance – it feels like it’s just the two of you there in the room together.  She’s magnetic.  And the few times that she stood up from her chair and moved around the space, she was so amazingly powerful!  It was a fantastic evening of theatre, followed by a giant petulant drunk woman sitting on Vanessa in the metro.  So really… tonight had it all.  The next three days are about to be break-neck pace... so buckle up folks... we're about to do Russia up right!