Hello Everyone! I composed the following entry on Sunday, October 24th, and I've been having internet issues all week. So much more has happened since I wrote this, but time is limited so I'll have to write more later. THANK YOU ALL for the birthday wishes!
This week I visited the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. It included an interactive display that looked like a phone booth made of pink silk parachute material. As I stepped inside and sat down on a pink pouf, a woman started speaking welcomingly in Russian and the parachute material inflated all around me. I was inside a birth canal, ready to be born! In the entrance to the next room was a video camera shooting the door frame and projecting the image of me onto a screen directly in front of me. On either side of me were shots of people who had been there earlier in the day. On my left were a woman and a child, and the woman was pointing at the screen, showing the child where to look. On my right was a guy dancing to the music that was playing for part of an exhibit farther ahead in the room. It was funny but also somehow profound to be sharing space and time with these images, these people. Upstairs was an exhibit that consisted of 6 photographs of the same young man. He was a soldier in the French army who was just about to begin his service in the first picture and had just completed his 3 years of service in the last picture. He had the same expression on his face in each photograph, but I felt as though I could see through his eyes into his soul as his innocence was stripped away. It was frightening and moving and intensely personal.
This week I saw 3 plays: Othello in Lithuanian with Russian subtitles, directed by the same person who directed Uncle Vanya that I saw last week; White Guard; and Masquerade. Othello took place largely in or around a ship, and three actors provided a soundscape with containers of water in the back. On the ship, there were 3 hammocks strung across the stage, and the actors swung on them and into them in really interesting ways. In Desdemona's first scene, she carried a door on her back all around the stage and hid behind it and peeked around it. There were many fascinating and creative elements about the show, but it was really hard for me to either understand, ignore, or accept the fact that Othello was played by a white man. White Guard was one of the most naturalistic shows I've seen here. The set was my favorite part of this show -- there was a steep ramp made out of metal grating that slanted up from stage right to stage left. The Russian Army could hide under the ramp while the family interacted with each other inside. In the house were crooked lamps that flickered on and off, crooked piles of furniture, and deep black emptiness all around. Masquerade was a show that was developed by Meyerhold and shut down during Stalin's era. It was a comedy that was highly stylized with lots of really interesting movement. It took place on a frozen lake covered with snow against a black background. Many times during the show, it snowed, and the heavy snow falling was beautiful against the black background. Both Act 1 and Act 2 began with a childlike man making faces and noises at a hole in the lake. In Act 1, his antics caused a large fish to pop its head out of the water. In Act 2, these same antics caused a man in swimming trunks and a snorkel to pop out of a different hole in the lake. The childlike man made a small snowball near the beginning of the play, and throughout the action, he rolled it on and offstage and it got bigger and bigger and bigger. By the end, it was taller than him. There was a group of townspeople dressed in colorful costumes who always moved across the stage as a group with small, quick steps so that it looked like they were floating across the ice. I couldn't tell you exactly what the plot was, but the interesting movement choices kept me entertained.
This week Ilya my fruit and vegetable stand friend wrote me a letter in Russian that included a really touching poem. She told me that she always looks forward to seeing me, and she wants to know more about me. She has 3 children, and they live in a district nearby. I want to learn to speak Russian so that I can ask her about her family and her life and tell her that it makes my day when she helps me learn the names of fruits and vegetables, and when she smiles when she sees me coming. I will learn to say "I'm happy we're friends."
This week I went to the Diamond Fund at the Kremlin. It is said that only 2 other world collections are equal in status: the crown treasure in Great Britain and the treasure of the previous Shah of Iran. This collection was far more impressive than what I remember of the crown jewels in London. There were two large rooms -- one contained a collection of 20 platinum nuggets (the largest weighing 7,860 kg) and about 100 gold nuggets, all from different Russian deposits. In this first room also were a large collection of cut and uncut diamonds, the largest at 342.57 carats (I don't even really know what that means, but they were big and impressive!). This room contained a total of 14 showcases with diamonds, sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, aquamarines, rubies, pearls, and other precious gems. Many of the stones were piled into containers or arranged into shapes (including a map of Russia) and others were elaborate pieces of jewelry. I never really knew what the phrase "dripping with diamonds" meant until today. All of the earrings were fashioned so that they hooked all the way over the body of the ear rather than through the earlobe, because they would have been too heavy to hang in the normal way. As we were looking through this hall, I felt like my eyesight was on sensory overload: you know when you go into a candle store and you smell like 20 different candles, and then you feel like you've almost lost your sense of smell because you've smelled so many scents all in a row? I felt like that was happening to my eyes. It was amazing and impressive and overwhelming. The second hall contained historic jewelry from the 18th and 19th centuries. Highlights of this hall were the Grand Imperial Crown made in 1762 and containing (yes) 5000 diamonds, the world famous Orlov diamond at the end of the State Sceptre, and the Imperial Orb containing a sapphire of 200 carats. All of these were used during the coronations from Empress Catherine II in 1762 through the last Emperor Nicholas II in 1896.
We will be spending next weekend in St. Petersburg, so I may not post another update until the following week. Love to all of you!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
October 19th -- A few pictures
Friends! Todd, Jordan, Greg, Rachelle, and Darren at the Moscow Modern Art Museum
View from a window at school
The internet always kicks me off when I try to add pictures, so that's all for now!
Friday, October 15, 2010
October 15, 2010: 3 plays, Lenin's Tomb, and a New Friend
This week I saw 3 plays and Lenin’s tomb, and I jumped the language barrier to make a friend. I could write a whole entry on each of these, but I’ll try to be concise.
We saw a dress rehearsal of The Marriage of Figaro on Sunday night that was in French with Russian subtitles at the top. Although it was really different from Hamlet, the second act took on a dark and twisted tone that was reminiscent of Hamlet for me. The set was really simple with cloths hanging down for the doors that were pulled up or down quickly when people went in and out. The play was presentational in style, and the actors told the story more with stage pictures than physical gestures. The second act seemed to be from an entirely different play – the set changed to a sort of anti-realistic hunting lodge setting. There were groups of stuffed animals on the floor and hanging upside down from the ceiling, 2 carousel horses that moved up and down, and a smoke machine. For me, the highlight of the show was an extended party scene that included an old man in a skeleton costume and a guy in a bear costume doing a ridiculous hopping dance. If bad luck at a final dress rehearsal foretells a good show run, this show should be great: the lead actress twisted her ankle in the first scene and limped for the rest of the play, and had it wrapped for the second act. And during curtain call, one of the cast members fainted.
On Monday after class, I saw a play called Understudies at the Satirikon Theatre. My acting teacher Sasha is in it. I think it’s my favorite play that I’ve seen so far, which is surprising because going into it I had no idea what it was about (and it was in Russian). It was SO FUNNY! The first act was backstage of a period play, so people kept taking off their wigs and half-undressing from their hoop skirts and pants. Sasha was so interesting to watch! He was totally organic and real, but he made all these little tiny creative choices. He stirred tea really loudly, he played with a towel in about 20 different ways, he made faces and gestures in order to flirt and make his stage partners laugh. At one point he pulled his pants down to his red speedo shorts and scooted under the other woman’s hoop skirt to try to have sex with her! The second act was onstage of the play, and there were 2 actors who had to be replaced at the last minute, so Sasha and the leading woman spent a lot of time in the wings prompting them. Again, Sasha had all these really interesting, funny gestures. At one point when he was trying to get the actor onstage to turn around and look at the actor behind him, Sasha took his own face and pushed it from one side to the other. At another part, he took a quill pen out of the fountain to write a letter, but it was a prop so it was actually 3 quill pens stuck together, and he noticed and reacted to that and then proceeded to write the letter with 3 pens! I didn’t think I could laugh so hard at a play in a language I don’t speak, but I really understood a lot of it from their physicality, and they did so many funny things! I really, really enjoyed it.
We saw Uncle Vanya last night and it had a really dark, twisted, haunting, and wholly unsettling feeling. The stage was very deep (much like the Hamlet set) and there was smoke and darkness and overt symbolism. People posed and moved chairs in interesting ways and were unabashedly drunk. A large jug of strong wine that had to be sucked from a hose was used onstage for several scenes. When Sonya and Yelena played the piano at the end of the first act, they did it very jarringly with large gestures followed by jerky head-turns and huge smiles on their faces. They were accompanied by strange ball-game instruments. I think I would have liked the show (because it was the kind of show that stretches theatrical boundaries, explores theatre in new and interesting ways, and raises a lot of questions), but about 20 minutes before the end, a lady 3 rows in front of me had a seizure. It took what seemed like a very long time for anyone to do anything, and then finally a guy behind her carried her out. My friend Marissa (who is epileptic) had been sitting next to me in the middle of the balcony during the first act, but at intermission she just randomly decided to sit on the end of the row instead. Consequently, she was in position to go out and help. But the whole event really caused very little reaction from anyone, and nobody seemed to be very deeply affected. But I couldn’t concentrate on the play after that. I was really upset by the fact that nobody really seemed to care about this woman. I suppose there was nothing that I or anyone in the theatre really could have done, but it just seemed to me that no one cared. That, added to this twisted world view that was being created, was just too much for me. The strong, dark images onstage seemed too close to the reality I was experiencing in the moment, and because of that, I didn’t want to contemplate the big life questions that are usually philosophically interesting to me. I wanted the world to be a bit brighter and people to be a bit more compassionate and everything not to seem quite so dark.
Lenin’s tomb was strange and interesting. They have preserved his body using some kind of new technology, and 5 days a week between 10 and 1, people can walk into the tomb and view his body behind glass. It doesn’t look quite real to me, but my guidebook says that rumors that all or part of his body have been replaced with wax have been vigorously denied. To me, the most interesting part of this experience were the guards guiding people through. The path is laid out in a straight-edge, geometrical fashion with lots of corners to turn. You walk along an outside path with memorials to Russian leaders (including Stalin), and then down into the tomb. At every corner, there is a guard who doesn’t say anything but holds his arm out to show you the way. This is especially chilling inside the tomb, because it’s so dark that it’s difficult to see the stairs or the path to walk, so it’s sort of like a black hole where the only truly visible things are these guards. Also, you can’t linger at Lenin’s body. I stopped for maybe 20 or 30 seconds to look, and a guard appeared at my side and pulled my arm to make me keep moving. It was all a little bit surreal.
For the last two days, I’ve been really excited because I made friends with the lady who sells me fruits and vegetables. I’ve been wanting to make friends with her because every time I go there to buy produce, she helps me with the words I don’t know and repeats them with me until I get it right. She always smiles when I show up, and when we practice words, she says “Maladiets!” which means “good job!” when I say the words right. So, on Thursday I took a Russian dictionary with me and tried to have a conversation with her. Her name is Ilya and she’s from the Ukraine and she doesn’t speak any English, but I think I managed to communicate with her that I will be here for 3 months (when we got to that part, she said the 12 months with me), that I’m from Florida, and that I want to come back and talk with her to practice my Russian. She gave me presents – a tangerine and a plum and some chocolate cookies that she got out of her supply van. Today I brought her a chocolate bar, and she put 3 plums in my bag. It was so special and moving and exciting and such a big deal to make contact with this person. She is there every day, standing in the cold selling her fruits and vegetables. I can’t imagine what kind of life she has led, but we share this childlike excitement at meeting a person so different from ourselves, and sharing the few words we can.
We saw a dress rehearsal of The Marriage of Figaro on Sunday night that was in French with Russian subtitles at the top. Although it was really different from Hamlet, the second act took on a dark and twisted tone that was reminiscent of Hamlet for me. The set was really simple with cloths hanging down for the doors that were pulled up or down quickly when people went in and out. The play was presentational in style, and the actors told the story more with stage pictures than physical gestures. The second act seemed to be from an entirely different play – the set changed to a sort of anti-realistic hunting lodge setting. There were groups of stuffed animals on the floor and hanging upside down from the ceiling, 2 carousel horses that moved up and down, and a smoke machine. For me, the highlight of the show was an extended party scene that included an old man in a skeleton costume and a guy in a bear costume doing a ridiculous hopping dance. If bad luck at a final dress rehearsal foretells a good show run, this show should be great: the lead actress twisted her ankle in the first scene and limped for the rest of the play, and had it wrapped for the second act. And during curtain call, one of the cast members fainted.
On Monday after class, I saw a play called Understudies at the Satirikon Theatre. My acting teacher Sasha is in it. I think it’s my favorite play that I’ve seen so far, which is surprising because going into it I had no idea what it was about (and it was in Russian). It was SO FUNNY! The first act was backstage of a period play, so people kept taking off their wigs and half-undressing from their hoop skirts and pants. Sasha was so interesting to watch! He was totally organic and real, but he made all these little tiny creative choices. He stirred tea really loudly, he played with a towel in about 20 different ways, he made faces and gestures in order to flirt and make his stage partners laugh. At one point he pulled his pants down to his red speedo shorts and scooted under the other woman’s hoop skirt to try to have sex with her! The second act was onstage of the play, and there were 2 actors who had to be replaced at the last minute, so Sasha and the leading woman spent a lot of time in the wings prompting them. Again, Sasha had all these really interesting, funny gestures. At one point when he was trying to get the actor onstage to turn around and look at the actor behind him, Sasha took his own face and pushed it from one side to the other. At another part, he took a quill pen out of the fountain to write a letter, but it was a prop so it was actually 3 quill pens stuck together, and he noticed and reacted to that and then proceeded to write the letter with 3 pens! I didn’t think I could laugh so hard at a play in a language I don’t speak, but I really understood a lot of it from their physicality, and they did so many funny things! I really, really enjoyed it.
We saw Uncle Vanya last night and it had a really dark, twisted, haunting, and wholly unsettling feeling. The stage was very deep (much like the Hamlet set) and there was smoke and darkness and overt symbolism. People posed and moved chairs in interesting ways and were unabashedly drunk. A large jug of strong wine that had to be sucked from a hose was used onstage for several scenes. When Sonya and Yelena played the piano at the end of the first act, they did it very jarringly with large gestures followed by jerky head-turns and huge smiles on their faces. They were accompanied by strange ball-game instruments. I think I would have liked the show (because it was the kind of show that stretches theatrical boundaries, explores theatre in new and interesting ways, and raises a lot of questions), but about 20 minutes before the end, a lady 3 rows in front of me had a seizure. It took what seemed like a very long time for anyone to do anything, and then finally a guy behind her carried her out. My friend Marissa (who is epileptic) had been sitting next to me in the middle of the balcony during the first act, but at intermission she just randomly decided to sit on the end of the row instead. Consequently, she was in position to go out and help. But the whole event really caused very little reaction from anyone, and nobody seemed to be very deeply affected. But I couldn’t concentrate on the play after that. I was really upset by the fact that nobody really seemed to care about this woman. I suppose there was nothing that I or anyone in the theatre really could have done, but it just seemed to me that no one cared. That, added to this twisted world view that was being created, was just too much for me. The strong, dark images onstage seemed too close to the reality I was experiencing in the moment, and because of that, I didn’t want to contemplate the big life questions that are usually philosophically interesting to me. I wanted the world to be a bit brighter and people to be a bit more compassionate and everything not to seem quite so dark.
Lenin’s tomb was strange and interesting. They have preserved his body using some kind of new technology, and 5 days a week between 10 and 1, people can walk into the tomb and view his body behind glass. It doesn’t look quite real to me, but my guidebook says that rumors that all or part of his body have been replaced with wax have been vigorously denied. To me, the most interesting part of this experience were the guards guiding people through. The path is laid out in a straight-edge, geometrical fashion with lots of corners to turn. You walk along an outside path with memorials to Russian leaders (including Stalin), and then down into the tomb. At every corner, there is a guard who doesn’t say anything but holds his arm out to show you the way. This is especially chilling inside the tomb, because it’s so dark that it’s difficult to see the stairs or the path to walk, so it’s sort of like a black hole where the only truly visible things are these guards. Also, you can’t linger at Lenin’s body. I stopped for maybe 20 or 30 seconds to look, and a guard appeared at my side and pulled my arm to make me keep moving. It was all a little bit surreal.
For the last two days, I’ve been really excited because I made friends with the lady who sells me fruits and vegetables. I’ve been wanting to make friends with her because every time I go there to buy produce, she helps me with the words I don’t know and repeats them with me until I get it right. She always smiles when I show up, and when we practice words, she says “Maladiets!” which means “good job!” when I say the words right. So, on Thursday I took a Russian dictionary with me and tried to have a conversation with her. Her name is Ilya and she’s from the Ukraine and she doesn’t speak any English, but I think I managed to communicate with her that I will be here for 3 months (when we got to that part, she said the 12 months with me), that I’m from Florida, and that I want to come back and talk with her to practice my Russian. She gave me presents – a tangerine and a plum and some chocolate cookies that she got out of her supply van. Today I brought her a chocolate bar, and she put 3 plums in my bag. It was so special and moving and exciting and such a big deal to make contact with this person. She is there every day, standing in the cold selling her fruits and vegetables. I can’t imagine what kind of life she has led, but we share this childlike excitement at meeting a person so different from ourselves, and sharing the few words we can.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
October 10, 2010: The Armoury Museum at the Kremlin is a Fairytale Land
Six of us went to the Armoury Museum at the Kremlin today. They don't allow pictures, so words will have to suffice. It was the most amazing display of opulence I remember ever seeing.
The first room had a lot of large cases to hold the Bible - made of gold and silver and decorated with engravings, precious stones, and enamel. Each item was decorated with hundreds of precious stones ranging in size from the head of a pin to a ping pong ball. Famous in the collection are a number of faberge eggs that were often given as gifts among Royalty. They are colorful and intricately patterned on the outside, and each has a surprise inside. One is a music box, another contains a tiny working train, and another holds a ship that is an exact replica of one that was used to sail around the world. I was fascinated by a collection of intricately carved gold and silver castles that were actually incense burners, and the smoke would rise through the windows in the castles. There were samovars and tea sets and plates, all shiny and colorful and intricately designed. There was a room of weapons and armor including swords and rifles, decorated not only on their handles but all along the blade or barrel. Some were inlaid with stones or enamel; others were engraved. I learned that the average coat of armor weighed 30 kilograms! There was a room of dressings for horses - bridles and saddles decorated with silver and gold and precious stones. One of the saddles had tassles all the way around it made of silver thread (not silver-colored; made of silver). Downstairs, there was a large room of clothing and tapestries and crowns. Most of the clothing was decorated with pearls as well as gold and silver thread and precious stones. The pearls and precious stones were not sparsely distributed but rather arranged like kernels on corn on the cob: right next to each other and all over each garment. Sometimes they were arranged into desings, but when this was the case, the garment was decorated in the open spaces with gold and silver thread or small plates painted with cherubs. The clothing was very colorful. There was a throne room; one throne was decorated entirely with carved ivory; another was made for czars who were brothers: a 10-year-old and a 14-year old (history buffs? I don't remember their names...). The frame was ornately carved wood and the seat was plush red velvet, and into the back of each chair was a window where a tutor could peek through and instruct the boys how to receive guests.
I think the highlight of the museum was the carriage room. It was full of carriages that were more spectacular than I imagine Cinderella's carriage would be. One was a sled that was pulled by 23 horses. There were 3 small ones used for children that were pulled by ponies and attended by dwarves! The rest were chariots whose wheels were as tall as me and whose bodies made the room look small. Like everything else in the museum, they were intricately carved and adorned with silver and gold and elaborate paintings. It was like being in a fairy tale for the day.
The first room had a lot of large cases to hold the Bible - made of gold and silver and decorated with engravings, precious stones, and enamel. Each item was decorated with hundreds of precious stones ranging in size from the head of a pin to a ping pong ball. Famous in the collection are a number of faberge eggs that were often given as gifts among Royalty. They are colorful and intricately patterned on the outside, and each has a surprise inside. One is a music box, another contains a tiny working train, and another holds a ship that is an exact replica of one that was used to sail around the world. I was fascinated by a collection of intricately carved gold and silver castles that were actually incense burners, and the smoke would rise through the windows in the castles. There were samovars and tea sets and plates, all shiny and colorful and intricately designed. There was a room of weapons and armor including swords and rifles, decorated not only on their handles but all along the blade or barrel. Some were inlaid with stones or enamel; others were engraved. I learned that the average coat of armor weighed 30 kilograms! There was a room of dressings for horses - bridles and saddles decorated with silver and gold and precious stones. One of the saddles had tassles all the way around it made of silver thread (not silver-colored; made of silver). Downstairs, there was a large room of clothing and tapestries and crowns. Most of the clothing was decorated with pearls as well as gold and silver thread and precious stones. The pearls and precious stones were not sparsely distributed but rather arranged like kernels on corn on the cob: right next to each other and all over each garment. Sometimes they were arranged into desings, but when this was the case, the garment was decorated in the open spaces with gold and silver thread or small plates painted with cherubs. The clothing was very colorful. There was a throne room; one throne was decorated entirely with carved ivory; another was made for czars who were brothers: a 10-year-old and a 14-year old (history buffs? I don't remember their names...). The frame was ornately carved wood and the seat was plush red velvet, and into the back of each chair was a window where a tutor could peek through and instruct the boys how to receive guests.
I think the highlight of the museum was the carriage room. It was full of carriages that were more spectacular than I imagine Cinderella's carriage would be. One was a sled that was pulled by 23 horses. There were 3 small ones used for children that were pulled by ponies and attended by dwarves! The rest were chariots whose wheels were as tall as me and whose bodies made the room look small. Like everything else in the museum, they were intricately carved and adorned with silver and gold and elaborate paintings. It was like being in a fairy tale for the day.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
October 8, 2010: Hamlet at the Moscow Art Theatre
I saw Hamlet at the Moscow Art Theatre last night. It was unlike any show I've ever seen. Shakespeare purists would not like this show -- but then again, I'm not sure why a Shakespeare purist would choose to see Hamlet in Russian. It seems impossible to translate iambic pentameter into Russian: Russian words have more syllables, and I just don't think it would work. I don't speak Russian so I don't know how they handled the language, but my impression was that they realized this shortcoming and made up for it in every other aspect of the production. Here's what I saw:
The setting seemed to be Siberia, with perhaps 20 metallic cords upstage stretched all the way across the stage, from ankle level to just above head level. Strung on the cords were sharp looking metallic objects that looked like tin cans and gave the impression of barbed wire. The actors could fall into the cords, pull them together, or step between them. In the second act, they were lowered to the floor so the actors could run across them.
Scene changes were incredibly smooth, circular, and flowing in nature and were covered by a combination of the actors moving their own furniture, and a sort of underground army of people dressed in black overcoats and black bowler hats rolling the set pieces on and off. In the opening scene when the guards are watching for the ghost, this army was sitting in silhouette along the back of the stage, each holding a red apple.
Movement and music in the play reminded me of Commedia del Arte, at times almost to the large, garish extreme of Cirque de Soleil. Actors walked on tables, flipped over chairs (made of twisted metal) to create other set pieces, and flipped tables end over end to move them around. There was a giant industrial-looking fan onstage to blow smoke around and also to create a strobe light effect with a light in front of it. During the play within a play, Rosencrantz held up a metallic tabletop as a mirror to show the audience a different perspective of the actors.
There was a sense of dark comedy about the piece. When Hamlet is faking madness, there is a giant sheet of plastic hanging like a curtain across the middle of the stage. Hamlet takes a bucket and goes back and forth underneath the curtain and seems to be urinating in the bucket, but then he comes out with a bottle of water and sprays Horatio, the stage, and himself. Then he grabs the curtain and spins around several times, wrapping himself up like a mummy and yelling as if trying to scare Horatio.
During the scene where King Claudius goes to a church and tries to pray, he struggles to flip a table over twice. This physical struggle makes it really clear what his lines are about. As he stands the table up after the second flip, there is a white cross painted on the underside of it to make it clear that he is in a church.
Toward the second act, the symbolism of the play seemed to get stronger. When Ophelia goes crazy, she comes onstage in a nightgown, sopping wet, and instead of handing out flowers, she tears off strips of her dress and throws them on the floor. There is a giant plank down the middle of the stage, and her father (who has died earlier) walks down and carries her away in his arms. It was one of the most poignant moments I have ever seen in the theatre.
For the first part of Ophelia's funeral, the coffin and all the characters except Hamlet were posed along the back of the stage and back lit with blue light so that all we could see were their silhouettes. I have never seen a scene played for so long in silhouette, and it added a really creepy, otherworldly feeling to the scene. At the end of the scene, the coffin dropped through the table, so it looked like it dropped into the ground.
Throughout the play, scraps of paper and sawdust were used in scenes and left onstage. For me, this gave an increasing feeling that everything was falling apart.
Before the end of the play, they added a dream sequence showing the fight at the end of the play. Then for the last scene, all the characters (including Ophelia and Polonius who are dead) enter the stage twirling black bowler hats on the ends of sticks. Then everyone sits down around a rectangular wooden table and a bunch of silverware is thrown dramatically onto the table. There is no swordfight but just the lines, and every time a "hit" is made, everyone at the table takes a breath in and raises their chest and face toward the sky, then slams their hands onto the table at the same time.
The play left me with an immense feeling of unease, foreboding, and darkness. I thought I had seen dark plays before, but this one gave me a whole new idea of black humor. Hamlet is not a comedy, it is a tragedy, but somehow this play was both funnier and more tragic than I thought the story was. Was this a traditional production of Hamlet? Absolutely not. Was it what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote the play? I seriously doubt it. But I loved it because it highlighted themes that exist in the play in shocking, thought-provoking, highly creative ways.
And I got to see my master acting teacher play Rosencrantz.
The setting seemed to be Siberia, with perhaps 20 metallic cords upstage stretched all the way across the stage, from ankle level to just above head level. Strung on the cords were sharp looking metallic objects that looked like tin cans and gave the impression of barbed wire. The actors could fall into the cords, pull them together, or step between them. In the second act, they were lowered to the floor so the actors could run across them.
Scene changes were incredibly smooth, circular, and flowing in nature and were covered by a combination of the actors moving their own furniture, and a sort of underground army of people dressed in black overcoats and black bowler hats rolling the set pieces on and off. In the opening scene when the guards are watching for the ghost, this army was sitting in silhouette along the back of the stage, each holding a red apple.
Movement and music in the play reminded me of Commedia del Arte, at times almost to the large, garish extreme of Cirque de Soleil. Actors walked on tables, flipped over chairs (made of twisted metal) to create other set pieces, and flipped tables end over end to move them around. There was a giant industrial-looking fan onstage to blow smoke around and also to create a strobe light effect with a light in front of it. During the play within a play, Rosencrantz held up a metallic tabletop as a mirror to show the audience a different perspective of the actors.
There was a sense of dark comedy about the piece. When Hamlet is faking madness, there is a giant sheet of plastic hanging like a curtain across the middle of the stage. Hamlet takes a bucket and goes back and forth underneath the curtain and seems to be urinating in the bucket, but then he comes out with a bottle of water and sprays Horatio, the stage, and himself. Then he grabs the curtain and spins around several times, wrapping himself up like a mummy and yelling as if trying to scare Horatio.
During the scene where King Claudius goes to a church and tries to pray, he struggles to flip a table over twice. This physical struggle makes it really clear what his lines are about. As he stands the table up after the second flip, there is a white cross painted on the underside of it to make it clear that he is in a church.
Toward the second act, the symbolism of the play seemed to get stronger. When Ophelia goes crazy, she comes onstage in a nightgown, sopping wet, and instead of handing out flowers, she tears off strips of her dress and throws them on the floor. There is a giant plank down the middle of the stage, and her father (who has died earlier) walks down and carries her away in his arms. It was one of the most poignant moments I have ever seen in the theatre.
For the first part of Ophelia's funeral, the coffin and all the characters except Hamlet were posed along the back of the stage and back lit with blue light so that all we could see were their silhouettes. I have never seen a scene played for so long in silhouette, and it added a really creepy, otherworldly feeling to the scene. At the end of the scene, the coffin dropped through the table, so it looked like it dropped into the ground.
Throughout the play, scraps of paper and sawdust were used in scenes and left onstage. For me, this gave an increasing feeling that everything was falling apart.
Before the end of the play, they added a dream sequence showing the fight at the end of the play. Then for the last scene, all the characters (including Ophelia and Polonius who are dead) enter the stage twirling black bowler hats on the ends of sticks. Then everyone sits down around a rectangular wooden table and a bunch of silverware is thrown dramatically onto the table. There is no swordfight but just the lines, and every time a "hit" is made, everyone at the table takes a breath in and raises their chest and face toward the sky, then slams their hands onto the table at the same time.
The play left me with an immense feeling of unease, foreboding, and darkness. I thought I had seen dark plays before, but this one gave me a whole new idea of black humor. Hamlet is not a comedy, it is a tragedy, but somehow this play was both funnier and more tragic than I thought the story was. Was this a traditional production of Hamlet? Absolutely not. Was it what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote the play? I seriously doubt it. But I loved it because it highlighted themes that exist in the play in shocking, thought-provoking, highly creative ways.
And I got to see my master acting teacher play Rosencrantz.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
10-02-10: Russian Movement Nearly Killed Me!
Our Russian Movement teacher calls pain "special pleasure," and mine was very, very special yesterday. Russian movement is very different from any other movement class I've had. I'm certain the goals are the same, and clearly they work because there are so many incredibly talented theatre artists here, but WOW! I've never been quite so acutely aware of my body before! There is a lot of jumping and crawling across the floor, which although difficult, is tolerable for me. I can handle breaking a sweat and breathing hard and walking like a seal, jumping like a frog, or wheelbarrowing myself across the floor again and again. What I'm struggling with is the extreme stretching. We did a sort of back-hip-quad-butt stretch yesterday that I couldn't even come close to actually doing, and I thought my hips were going to break. Immediately afterward, we did a "scorpion stretch" which involves a sort of runner's stretch but with your head and shoulder burrowing under one knee while your other hand grabs your open foot and pulls it up to your butt. I really couldn't do this either, but the teacher came over and "helped" me grab my foot... and apparently I could! I did the rest of the class with tears in my eyes, as much from physical pain as from psychological fear that my body can't do this, and doing it anyway. I guess there's a balance between being gentle with myself to protect from injury, and diving into new territory because there is growth to be had. I think about the ballerinas I saw in Swan Lake and the amazing feats they are able to accomplish with such ease, and I'm sure they didn't get to that place through caution and hesitancy, but through hard work and courage. This is only one of the different mind sets here.
It's not too cold here yet. I make a 30-minute walk to school every morning, and I'm often carrying my coat by the end. There is a thermometer in the square near school, and the coldest I've seen it read is 6 degrees Celsius. There's been some rain and some sun, but mostly it's just really nice to be outside.
Our singing teacher is a short, squat, coloratura soprano who is probably in her 50's or early 60's. She doesn't speak English, but her gestures are expressive enough so that most of the time we don't really need the translator who is there. When she sings with us, she snorts and growls and meows like a cat, makes claws, pokes us in the diaphragm, twists our faces, and says "whiskey, vodka, gin!" with a fake shot glass to get us to lift our soft palettes as if we were taking shots. This is an effective metaphor for college students. She is as blunt with her "NO!" as she is enthusiastic with her "YES!" She is a firecracker of a woman.
There is a fish in a fishbowl in the lobby of the building where we have a lot of our classes. Next to the fishbowl is a hand mirror. One morning before class, our singing teacher was playing with the fish by holding the hand mirror in front of it. She was squealing and jabbering and singing in Russian to the fish, putting the mirror up and taking it away. As I observed, I saw that the fish truly was aware of the mirror, puffing itself up as if to show off for the mirror and my teacher. I have rarely seen such enthusiasm and joy as she had for that fish, and I couldn't stop laughing.
In acting class, we have been working on many, many etudes, or created scenes. These etudes are solo, partnered, and with the whole group. We did two rounds of object etudes, where we each chose an object to be. I was a book, there was a piece of gum, a ceiling fan, an umbrella, a door knob, a basketball, and many more. Both of our acting teachers speak English, but Sasha's is not quite as fluent as Oleg's. Sasha speaks the language of objects, though. Whenever he gives feedback, he instantly transforms himself into the object that has just presented, and adds interesting, hilarious details that we didn't figure out during our whole day of rehearsing and planning. We also did a round of animal etudes, and I was a pigeon because it was the only animal that I could observe in real life here. It's also really interesting to me that I only really see single pigeons here -- they're never in groups. There are fewer pigeons here than in any other city I've been to. When he gave me feedback on my pigeon, he told me that it was useful to take the most interesting qualities of the pigeon and transfer them into human characteristics. And he demonstrated, becoming a pigeon-man who was this inquisitive, suspicious, dense, quirky character -- just with a few specific movements that arose from what I was exploring with my pigeon imitation. He talks about learning to share the deepest parts of yourself in your acting, about making creative discoveries that come from your soul, that are uniquely yours to share through your art. We learn about the importance of observation: specific, detailed, instantaneous observation. My acting teachers have better memories than anyone I've ever met. With one look, they remember the clothes everyone is wearing, they remember the order of words we've said, objects we've passed, events that have taken place. This is important to acting because actors must be more acutely aware of their surroundings than everyday people. Life onstage is a heightened reality, and more than being naturalistic, the actors can choose to highlight details, and in order to work together in the most effective and fluid way, actors must be in the practice of evaluating and knowing the whole picture along with all the details. I'm so lucky to be learning from these master teachers.
I've never taken ballet before, and my first EVER ballet class last week was taught by a ballerina named Larissa Barisovna (sp?) who was a star ballerina with the Bolshoi ballet for many years. She also does not speak English, but says that she "speaks language ballet." And she does. She walks around talking to us in Russian and French, adjusting our bodies and yelling "NO!" or "YES!" much like our movement teacher. Even though she is probably in her 70's now, her form is still stunningly graceful, and I am struck repeatedly by how lucky I am to be learning from such a master. What an immense privilege.
Red Square, as I think I said before, is about a 7-minute walk from school. Whenever I have time on lunch, I walk over just to look at St. Basil's again. I can't believe I'm here.
It's not too cold here yet. I make a 30-minute walk to school every morning, and I'm often carrying my coat by the end. There is a thermometer in the square near school, and the coldest I've seen it read is 6 degrees Celsius. There's been some rain and some sun, but mostly it's just really nice to be outside.
Our singing teacher is a short, squat, coloratura soprano who is probably in her 50's or early 60's. She doesn't speak English, but her gestures are expressive enough so that most of the time we don't really need the translator who is there. When she sings with us, she snorts and growls and meows like a cat, makes claws, pokes us in the diaphragm, twists our faces, and says "whiskey, vodka, gin!" with a fake shot glass to get us to lift our soft palettes as if we were taking shots. This is an effective metaphor for college students. She is as blunt with her "NO!" as she is enthusiastic with her "YES!" She is a firecracker of a woman.
There is a fish in a fishbowl in the lobby of the building where we have a lot of our classes. Next to the fishbowl is a hand mirror. One morning before class, our singing teacher was playing with the fish by holding the hand mirror in front of it. She was squealing and jabbering and singing in Russian to the fish, putting the mirror up and taking it away. As I observed, I saw that the fish truly was aware of the mirror, puffing itself up as if to show off for the mirror and my teacher. I have rarely seen such enthusiasm and joy as she had for that fish, and I couldn't stop laughing.
In acting class, we have been working on many, many etudes, or created scenes. These etudes are solo, partnered, and with the whole group. We did two rounds of object etudes, where we each chose an object to be. I was a book, there was a piece of gum, a ceiling fan, an umbrella, a door knob, a basketball, and many more. Both of our acting teachers speak English, but Sasha's is not quite as fluent as Oleg's. Sasha speaks the language of objects, though. Whenever he gives feedback, he instantly transforms himself into the object that has just presented, and adds interesting, hilarious details that we didn't figure out during our whole day of rehearsing and planning. We also did a round of animal etudes, and I was a pigeon because it was the only animal that I could observe in real life here. It's also really interesting to me that I only really see single pigeons here -- they're never in groups. There are fewer pigeons here than in any other city I've been to. When he gave me feedback on my pigeon, he told me that it was useful to take the most interesting qualities of the pigeon and transfer them into human characteristics. And he demonstrated, becoming a pigeon-man who was this inquisitive, suspicious, dense, quirky character -- just with a few specific movements that arose from what I was exploring with my pigeon imitation. He talks about learning to share the deepest parts of yourself in your acting, about making creative discoveries that come from your soul, that are uniquely yours to share through your art. We learn about the importance of observation: specific, detailed, instantaneous observation. My acting teachers have better memories than anyone I've ever met. With one look, they remember the clothes everyone is wearing, they remember the order of words we've said, objects we've passed, events that have taken place. This is important to acting because actors must be more acutely aware of their surroundings than everyday people. Life onstage is a heightened reality, and more than being naturalistic, the actors can choose to highlight details, and in order to work together in the most effective and fluid way, actors must be in the practice of evaluating and knowing the whole picture along with all the details. I'm so lucky to be learning from these master teachers.
I've never taken ballet before, and my first EVER ballet class last week was taught by a ballerina named Larissa Barisovna (sp?) who was a star ballerina with the Bolshoi ballet for many years. She also does not speak English, but says that she "speaks language ballet." And she does. She walks around talking to us in Russian and French, adjusting our bodies and yelling "NO!" or "YES!" much like our movement teacher. Even though she is probably in her 70's now, her form is still stunningly graceful, and I am struck repeatedly by how lucky I am to be learning from such a master. What an immense privilege.
Red Square, as I think I said before, is about a 7-minute walk from school. Whenever I have time on lunch, I walk over just to look at St. Basil's again. I can't believe I'm here.
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