Thursday was another awesome morning
of movement with Vladimir. Of all the
training we get here, his is by far the most unique – the stuff we’re least
likely to be able to find back state-side.
And probably the hardest to replicate on our own. There’s just something about having a giant
Russian man yelling at you that makes all these crazy things possible. We’re getting pretty far into a bunch of
acrobatic stuff this time – lots of different lifts and partner stands and
stuff. Pretty bitchin’.
At lunch, I was off as usual to score
tickets to – of all things – Калека с Инишмана (The Cripple of Inishmaan).
The guy who played Cripple Billy at Wayne State a season ago is on the
trip with us, so he’s pretty jazzed to see the show. I’m personally fascinated to see how they
approach this play. First of all, it’s
at the same place where we saw Marat/Sade
and The Good Person of Setzuan, so I’m
interested in seeing something that is more based in psychological
realism. Second – McDonaugh’s plays are
so distinctly Irish in tone, I’m very curious to see how that will transfer.
After lunch we headed to acting class
where our first day of observation etudes didn’t go super great. We had sort of lost our sense of “the event”
in favor of an accurate depiction of the person we had observed. I had a pretty cool personal moment that
taught me some things about me, but the etude itself needed much more. I think this was actually pretty good for us
as a group, since we’ve been trucking along pretty well – it’s good to be
reminded of the basics and how much attention to detail is really necessary.
We had a nice long dinner break on
Thursday, because we were seeing a student show at the MXAT – so no Metro for
us! The show itself was На дне(The Lower Depths). Literally translated as “At the bottom,” It’s
a famous Russian play about a bunch of people who live really hard lives, and then this guy Luka
makes them think that life can get better… and then it doesn’t. It was a project performed by the 3rd
year acting students (who are students of our acting teacher Sergei), and it
was pretty impressive. The language
barrier remains a frustration, but the quality of the acting was
undeniable. There were certainly people
who were better than others, but the overall sense of emotional truth on stage
was pretty impressive.
Friday was another day of film
history. This time we watched The Man with the Movie Camera – which is
basically a montage of images of modern life as of 1928. It was an interesting little film.
For lunch, it was back on the road to
pick up tickets to the ballet. Thanks to
the very helpful young woman in line behind me who spoke some English and was
able to translate for me with the surly box office woman, we will be seeing Жизель
(Giselle) at the Stanislavsky/Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre. It’s not the Bolshoi, but it’s absolutely on
par with the Bolshoi.
Then it was back for acting class
during which our etudes went much much better.
There were some very cool portraits today. I performed as my niece Anya and was told
that it was a “delicate portrait.” Hell
yeah! Go me!
Our show for Friday was another
student production – this time by the 4th years – of Трамвай
<<Желание>> (A Streetcar Named
Desire). It was pretty fascinating
to see them treat such an American classic.
It was a highly stylized production with a lot of dance/movement pieces
strung throughout. I liked a lot of
things about it, but overall I found the production a little uneven, and the
music included so many different styles and languages and nationalities, I wasn’t
quite sure what it was trying to do. There
was one guy who put on a weird voice that I assume was his “jackass American”
voice. And poor Blanche suffered from
the same problems that all 20-something Blanches do. But it was still pretty damn impressive to
see students doing that kind of work.
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