Number of steps: 19715 (6.22 mi)
Well… as far as the Moscow Art Theatre is concerned, today was it
for us! We came in at 12:00 for
individual assessments with our acting teachers Сергей and Илья. It’s funny – they tell us that after a month
they can’t really know us that well – but they really do. They’re extremely insightful. And while I’m sure they could be a lot more
brutal, they still manage to do a nice job of giving everyone very personal
feedback that leaves them feeling like they have accomplished something here
and that they can take that something home with them. Of course, when I walked in the first thing
Sergei said was that he was sure he’d be seeing me again. I told him he certainly would. I’ve really caught the Russian fever… and I
will be back here more than a few times throughout the course of my life. From there, they went on to talk to me about
my commitment, my hard work, my leadership, my relationship with the other
students, my creativity and my constructive and insightful feedback – basically
all of this was stuff that made me sound like a good director, teacher and
group leader. And all of this was said
in front of JT – so it was double good!
 |
| Our fantastic group with our acting teachers for the month: Sergei, Ilja and Stanislavsky! |
After that we had our little reception with snacks and champagne
and not much fanfare – but who needs fanfare when you have studying at the
MXAT?!? Frankly, I think we were all
perfectly pleased with the level of fanfare.
And the snacks were delicious!
From there, we went to a “Mexican” restaurant for lunch. This ended up being a bit difficult for the
vegetarians – so we just ended up with a tiny salad and some borsht with beef
in it (yeah – they served borsht at a Mexican restaurant – but apparently it
was spicy!), but we also all got strawberry margaritas… so all was well with
the world.
We had most of the afternoon to ourselves, which was a nice little
slice of down time before I headed out on my own to Театр Ет-Сетера for a production
called Шейлок (Shylock), which was an adaptation of Merchant of Venice. Now, the
theatre itself was pretty darn cool. The
seats were all a bunch of different upholstered arm chairs like you see in
period plays, but they all fold up like normal theatre seats. I really liked it. The show, on the other hand, was really not
very good. Portia was lovely, and
Nerissa kinda looked like my darling Anne Kelly Tromsness, but it was really a
bit of a mishmash. It was set in modern
day Wall Street (sort of), which seems like a logical setting for this play. But it wasn’t completely there. And the movement and music were weird and
stylized in a way that didn’t fit the gravity of the show. And
Lorenzo and Bassanio were both really not very attractive – definitely not
attractive enough for the women they were with.
And the movement in this production was extremely awkward – a huge
contrast to the physical artistry of most Russian theater. Oh, and the woman who played Portia’s other
servant was totally out of time with the rest of the show – and she was way too
hammy. The set had its interesting qualities,
there were some admirable performances and some lovely moments, but overall the
show had the quality of a pretty good community theatre production. Really, according to most of the photos on
the walls, this is a theatre devoted entirely to the lead actor (who played Shylock)
playing all the roles he ever wanted to play.
Not the best. But I have to
admit, it’s a little comforting to know that Russian theatre isn’t all the
mind-bogglingly awesome artistry that we have seen. Sometimes they suck too.
From there, I came back to the dorm for a little me time, since
the rest of the group was out for the evening.
I should really catch up on my journal or read some stuff for my quals,
but instead…I’ll probably just reread the Hunger Games trilogy.
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