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.