https://youtu.be/abd9nkF1fX4
Pardon the painful audio/visual delay.
Monday, February 1, 2016
A Musing on Opera and Why We Do What We Do
On our first day in St. Petersburg, after getting settled into the Hotel Dostoevsky, our group got all gussied up to shuffle on over to the Mariinsky-2 to see the opera. This particular opera -- conducted by Valery Gergiev himself -- was Semyon Kotko, an old Soviet opera.
Though the show was originally written as borderline government propaganda, the presentation of this particular production moved beyond partisan political commentary in favor of becoming a meditation on what motivates us when we fight each other for our ideologies.
The production’s use of lighting in the show -- particularly choice of color -- was the strongest and most notable technique used in this approach to the show. Rather than melding colors with slow fades to light a scene, the designers of the show opted to illuminate the stage with sharp changes of bold hues. The main colors used were: red, green, white, and blue.
Red was used, quite obviously, to emphasize the zeal of the Red Army protagonists. Green was conversely used to highlight the German antagonists. I take this to suggest that these two colors may represent the conflicting ethoses of the two armies.
White was present on stage primarily when characters were plotting and/or scheming. It was also prominent whenever the Cossacks (who presented in this show as cold, unfeeling brutes) came on stage to wreak their mayhem. I suggest that white was to suggest logos.
Blue lights generally came on during very emotional scenes. I think it is safe to say that blue is pathos in this scenario.
It is interesting to note that the antagonists were limited in the colors they were lit by: as previously mentioned, the Cossacks were only lit in white, and the Germans were mostly lit by green with the occasional white. However, the story’s protagonists, in their peak scenes at least, were lit by white, blue, and red on different levels of the stage -- making an oh-so-subtle Russian flag, perhaps?
I think it’s possible, given this lighting scheme, that the playmakers are trying to remind us to keep a balance of our hearts, minds, and spirits as we fight for what we believe in, lest we blind ourselves to our original intentions.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
Mitya's Love in Review
I'm back in the U.S., but the internet is still in Russian
I finally made it home this afternoon! I managed to sleep about 8 hours last night, and I stayed awake and semi-sane through the 3 hour car ride with my mom, sister, niece (1 1/2 yrs old), and nephew (4 yrs old). I gave them all their gifts, and realized I still have a lot to get done for this class by midnight (whoops... )
Although it's a pretty easy transition coming back to the U.S. and everything I've known for... well, my entire life, there are still some things that are weird at first. Like people now understanding everything I say when I'm out in public and having to order all of my food in English.
Although communication with others is definitely easier in my native language (and the only language I'm fluent in), I am going to miss being surrounded by native/fluent Russians speakers everywhere I go. I'm also going to miss having rubles in my wallet (they're so much prettier than U.S. money!) and the awesome feeling of being able to buy lunch for about $3 (NOT at McDonald's).
However, I will NOT miss my fear of ingesting tap water or ice potentially made of tap water, and being self-conscious whenever I speak in English (both somewhat irrational, but they happened).
Russia was incredible, and I definitely want to go back someday. But right now, I am very much looking forward to sleeping in my own room tonight!
Although it's a pretty easy transition coming back to the U.S. and everything I've known for... well, my entire life, there are still some things that are weird at first. Like people now understanding everything I say when I'm out in public and having to order all of my food in English.
Although communication with others is definitely easier in my native language (and the only language I'm fluent in), I am going to miss being surrounded by native/fluent Russians speakers everywhere I go. I'm also going to miss having rubles in my wallet (they're so much prettier than U.S. money!) and the awesome feeling of being able to buy lunch for about $3 (NOT at McDonald's).
However, I will NOT miss my fear of ingesting tap water or ice potentially made of tap water, and being self-conscious whenever I speak in English (both somewhat irrational, but they happened).
Russia was incredible, and I definitely want to go back someday. But right now, I am very much looking forward to sleeping in my own room tonight!
Mother Earth Review
This is a review meant more for general consumption. (I couldn't figure out how to imbed it, so here is the link)
https://youtu.be/HrH8WxHBZ0U
https://youtu.be/HrH8WxHBZ0U
Reflections On My First Voyage Abroad
Until this month, I had never left the country. Not even to go to Canada or Mexico. I'd never even been on a trip for more than a week. So for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to change all this and ship off to Russia for a month. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I saw Russia's two biggest cities, visited four art galleries, marveled at eight churches (and a monastery), saw twenty-one plays, road the metro forty times, and ate, this is a conservative estimate, one hundred and twenty Russian pancakes. It was a busy, busy trip.
I ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for. I really couldn't have anticipated what it means to be with a different culture, or what it's like to not be surrounded by my native language. These experiences ranged from amazing (discovering the Russian passion for culture, be it literature or theater), to charming (discovering how kind most people were, and having fun conversations in my broken Russian), to frustrating (constant difficulty and embarrassment while ordering at restaurants), to terrifying (being taken aside by security at the theater and asked questions/given instructions I couldn't understand). I'd foolishly thought that culture shock wouldn't be so bad, but by the second week of the trip my language skills were shot, my energy was gone, and my frustration with the country had peaked. Thankfully the frustration waned, and writing this from the US all I can think about is how I can't wait to go back to Moscow some day.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Developing a Taste for Theater
Having only
been exposed to theater as a child, sans a couple of musicals I had seen during
high school, I really did not have a taste for theater, or even a particular
style I enjoyed. Part of going on this trip was knowing I was going to be
completely out of my element. I was willing to step out of my comfort zone and
experience this, new to me, form of expression. Over the past 4 weeks we have
seen a broad spectrum of performances, from musicals, to surreal nightmares
across a giant stage. Each and every performance has been great in its own
accord, however seeing such a broad spectrum has cause a novice theater goer to
develop a taste for theater. I didn’t set out on this trip expecting to want to
go to theater when I returned, spending a large amount of time has made me
appreciate it. Returning to Russia next fall will allow me to voluntarily
attend some of the performances we didn’t get a chance to see and enjoy.
Accessibility of Theater
A large part of a person's view of theater is based on their access to it. This applies both to their physical capability to attend performances, as well as how open-minded they are and how emotionally connected they allow themselves to be when attending theater. It is for these reasons that I think theater can be a personal experience or it can be a mass experience.
When going into a performance, of any kind really, there's some factors that I like to consider. Not all of these are controllable, especially on a trip like ours, but for me at least this will not be the last of my theater experience. One of the first things to consider is the type of performance you're going to. You should have a sense of what will happen. For example, if you go to an American musical its traditional to clap at the end of a song but not necessarily the end of a solo. If you're going to a ballet, they take bows during and after every act, then again at the end of the whole show.
If you're going to a performance that is somewhere culturally different than where you're from, try to understand what the local people will get out of a show or what they will expect. Knowing a little about their history helps, especially if you're seeing something that might be political. Keeping culture in mind will allow you to better understand, or if not accept, performances or audience reactions that you disagree with.
You should also know why you're going to a production, and who you're going with. Are you going to relax and escape? Are you going to have your thoughts provoked? Perhaps you just want to see something funny, or something beautiful, or even something sad. I think any reason to see theater is a valid reason, even if it's boredom. Having a reason though can help you select a show that will make your evening enjoyable. If you don't want your emotions ripped right from your chest, don't go see Butusov. Go see Talents and Corpses instead. Your theater-going companions should optimally have a similar reason for going as you do.
Along with your reason, you should keep in mind the rest of your day. In the case of our trip, all the shows we've seen have been somewhat under duress. Traveling is always stressful, especially when you're navigating a language barrier. If you're having a bad day, I find it best to leave as much of it as you can at the coat check. No sense in spending money to sit tensely in a seat for 3 hours and not pay attention when you can easily do that at home. If you allow your day to close your mind to the performance, you very well could miss a chance to drastically improve your day. And should it occur that the wrong day and the wrong performance align to make one truly horrid day (as it very well has and could), well then there's always tomorrow. In Moscow and St. Petersburg that means there's always a hundred more shows to watch.
When going into a performance, of any kind really, there's some factors that I like to consider. Not all of these are controllable, especially on a trip like ours, but for me at least this will not be the last of my theater experience. One of the first things to consider is the type of performance you're going to. You should have a sense of what will happen. For example, if you go to an American musical its traditional to clap at the end of a song but not necessarily the end of a solo. If you're going to a ballet, they take bows during and after every act, then again at the end of the whole show.
If you're going to a performance that is somewhere culturally different than where you're from, try to understand what the local people will get out of a show or what they will expect. Knowing a little about their history helps, especially if you're seeing something that might be political. Keeping culture in mind will allow you to better understand, or if not accept, performances or audience reactions that you disagree with.
You should also know why you're going to a production, and who you're going with. Are you going to relax and escape? Are you going to have your thoughts provoked? Perhaps you just want to see something funny, or something beautiful, or even something sad. I think any reason to see theater is a valid reason, even if it's boredom. Having a reason though can help you select a show that will make your evening enjoyable. If you don't want your emotions ripped right from your chest, don't go see Butusov. Go see Talents and Corpses instead. Your theater-going companions should optimally have a similar reason for going as you do.
Along with your reason, you should keep in mind the rest of your day. In the case of our trip, all the shows we've seen have been somewhat under duress. Traveling is always stressful, especially when you're navigating a language barrier. If you're having a bad day, I find it best to leave as much of it as you can at the coat check. No sense in spending money to sit tensely in a seat for 3 hours and not pay attention when you can easily do that at home. If you allow your day to close your mind to the performance, you very well could miss a chance to drastically improve your day. And should it occur that the wrong day and the wrong performance align to make one truly horrid day (as it very well has and could), well then there's always tomorrow. In Moscow and St. Petersburg that means there's always a hundred more shows to watch.
A Study in Beauty at the Mariinsky
Last night we went to the Mariisnky and saw a ballet performance of Don Quixote. Just take a minute and soak in that sentence. I know that I have several friends that would gladly do something highly illegal to be able to say the same about themselves. It was a huge gift to be able to go to one of the premier ballet performance companies in the world.
I don't even want to talk about the set or the lighting, because both, though immaculately done, pale in comparison with the beauty of the dancers. I have seen my fair share of of ballet before this, but never at the level of the Mariinsky. Most of the shows I have seen prior have been high-school/student performances of the Nutcracker, or selections from Swan Lake. I did see the Joffrey ballet in Chicago when I was little, but it comes nowhere close to the quality of the Mariinsky.
I couldn't help but whisper to myself in excitement during the wedding dances of the last act. The dances were so impressive, and I found it extremely poignant to notice the tensing of the dancers' muscles and watch their chests heave after finishing a dance. The movement that they accomplished was so seemingly effortless and beautiful. It was wondrous to watch the dancers just move across the stage, let alone gracefully leap into the air.
Don Quixote had a very large ensemble that was often on stage, either posing, as in Don Quixote's dream sequence, or acting as local Spaniards in most of the other scenes. Despite the ensemble's huge presence, it never drew attention from the principal dancers. Though the ensemble often joined in with the dance, they seem lesson blended into the background when they finished. One of the most impressive scenes was during Don Quixote's dream scene. About 30 female ensemble members were in the background holding poses for upwards of 15 minutes at a time, while the principals had their solos. Their ability to hold pose and then run across the stage was quite impressive.
I admit I have fallen into the habit of disrespecting ballet as an art. At points in the past, I fell into the trap of labeling ballet as a pretentious "high art", and writing it off as disinteresting and unimpressive. Thankfully, last night I had none of these thoughts, and I could only think of how impressive the dancing was. When faced with the beauty of the show, I could only be blown away and watch in wonder.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Why was the called Don Quixote
Going in to Don Quixote I had high expectations as everyone had talked up the reputation of the Marinsky's ballet. Unfortunately as the show started I came to the realization that my expectations weren't to be met. My main problem with the show is that they titled it "Don Quixote"; I personally think a more fitting title would have been "impressive athletic abilities with zero plot". As I've read Don Quixote twice and enjoyed it both times I was hoping for a significant more amount of plot. Unfortunately for me the only parts I could recognize were the beginning with Don reading the novels and the part involving the windmills. The rest as far as I could tell involved several couples or one couple hat had no part in the original text. While their athleticism was enviable, with no purpose or plot behind their movements, it held no attraction for me. The other major problem I had was was the lack of consistency in the choreography and moments. During act one I felt a distinct disorganization that felt to stem from a lack of practice as the music seemed to randomly sink up with the movements and everything seemed slightly blocky. This feeling slowly receded in me as the show continued and eventually by the end of the third act I felt like we were at a part of he show in which they had practice a significant amount and that the music synced with and was a coercive piece.
Monday, January 25, 2016
There are no strings on me
So it's been quite a while since we saw the puppets at the "Shadow" theater, but I find myself comparing what we're seeing lately more and more. First of all, stage presence is extremely different. When we saw the grand opera which used its massive cast to the fullest potential, there were still several small, but noticable, mistakes. When actors were entering or exiting the stage, of course they didn't all move at the same pace. When 30 bodies need to exit the stage uniformly, there's a massive bottleneck effect causing a momentary break in the action. And this is to say nothing of a few of the actors accidentally slipping and sometimes falling on the awkwardly slanted stage. With the puppet opera, all of the puppet bodies are static. Each one permenently wired in place, moving at exactly the same pace no matter what. In this one small way, the puppet theater is actually more visually impressive than the grand opera!
The other and most obvious change (you know, other than the whole puppet thing) is the time commitment required by this medium. Even though it could be argued that a maximum 10 minute length had primarily children in mind, but everyone has enjoyed these plays, the plethora of golden mask awards is a testiment to this. I'd hesitate to say this is a better system than several hours for character building and plot structure, it's not, but I think I enjoyed it more. Purely arbitrary and subjective of course, but the time requirement concieved by the attention span of children needs to be compact and straight foreward. (You may now make jokes) I think this demands an unique take on these ancient stories, one that can only be conveyed through this medium.
One last thing I really enjoyed was that there no secrets with the puppets. They didn't just allow, the performers encouraged us to go behind the scenes and see how everything works.
This may mostly be due to the miniscule audience size, but it seems like that wouldn't exaclty fly with some of the bigger names in theater anyway.
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya which in my own opinion was the best show we've seen in St. Petersburg. Nothing quite reminds me of home like a bunch of farmers feuding and arguing who's going to marry the man whose got several decades on them. The only thing missing is the slight hint of inbreeding and a dab of bestiality. People say the best stories are the ones that draw you in and paint you the most vivid of mental pictures to make you feel as if you're actually present for the events. Uncle Vanya does this perfectly by presenting a scene that at first glance appears to show any and all things one would expect of a historical farming area. An older gentleman sits rocking in a chair as the discussion of what's going on around him takes place. Then ones initial intrigue with this scene starts to take a turn for revulsion as you realize the woman close to mine own age is flirting with a doctor twice her age. This revulsion doubles once it is revealed that the other young woman is actually married to the man who appeared to be in his 70s and who was hovering on the brink of death. In my mind this reminds me of the many women Hugh Hefner has married over the years. A similar revulsion other than at least the woman in the play married him for his intellect. The most shocking part to me is not from any one of these "revulsive" scenes but from the sheer ignorance of the older Doctor. The fact that he is portrayed in this play as the smart and considerate man, but still can't tell that the professors daughter loves him may show more of his true intelligence. However, he would hardly be the only character in the show that hides their true nature or character. Uncle Vanya the compassionate and submissive uncle throughout the majority of the play eventually snaps and tried to murder his brother for the injustices he has received. These contrasting dualities show what I believe to be the true point that the show is getting at which is a duality focused realism in which for everything someone experiences there is also another opposite to it. The old and young relationships, the easy going and the anger fueled emotions, and the compassion for one and the lack of attention for another all drive home this point.
Musings on the Role of Writers and Scripts in Russian Theatre
One of the most striking aspects of the Russian approach to playmaking is the way they handle their scripts: not only is it acceptable for a show to deviate at least somewhat from the original script, it’s kind of expected.
At one point during our talk with Valery Pachejkin at the Gogol Center (Jan. 17), he mentioned that Russian audiences love a foreign name on the poster, but still demand a sort of Russian spin on the play. This has lead to incidents where Pachejkin has found himself rewriting classical works, such as with the Gogol Center’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Let’s think about that for a second: this guy is rewriting Shakespeare. I can almost hear Dona Werner Freeman’s horrified gasp. How could any contemporary writer think to modify the Bard’s immortal lines? The concern is not without merit: too many times have we seen -- in both theater and film -- cringe-inducing productions that attempt to “improve” Shakespeare by modernizing the text or adding extra bits.
But, as applied in Russian theater, this practice is not as egregious as it may at first sound. Over the course of this trip, we’ve been consistently seeing fantastic productions that askew from their original scripts, ranging from minor shifts in scene order in the Maly Theater’s Love & Intrigue to the complete deconstruction in Butusov’s work on plays like Flight and The Seagull. Pachejkin’s Midsummer has been received exceedingly well and I wish we could have seen it while we were in Moscow. The point is, their approach is working; their editing of classical texts not only does not diminish, but in fact enhances, the final product.
Why is this? Maybe it’s because these rewrites are not meant to ‘improve’ the script, per se, but rather to make it more applicable to its audience and to emphasizes the themes that a particular run of the play is focusing on. And this focus on audience is arguably one of the greatest strengths of Russian theatre. When we tell Russian playmakers how impressed we are with their unique approach to the form, they are a little confused because they don’t see what they’re doing as that innovative or revolutionary. That’s because the Russian theatre scene exists in a little bit of a bubble; not many outsiders come to see their plays (this class being an exception). And it has been because of this bubble that the Russians have been able to focus their plays specifically to the home audience. Without the restriction of an aim for mass appeal, there is a lot more room for experimentation.
To be clear, I’m not saying the way we approach the role of the script in American theatre is wrong. There are definite economic and artistic reasons that we have the system that is currently in place. From an economic standpoint, US copyright law helps ensure that our writers are fairly paid for their work and are able to continue supporting themselves in that field. From an artistic standpoint, it prevents someone from making changes that are bad and make the writer look untalented, hurting their reputation as an artist.
Perhaps it is for this second reason that the Russians are more likely to take their liberties with classic works; no one is going to doubt the literary merit of Chekhov or Shakespeare just because of a poorly edited production. But the Russians still do occasionally take on contemporary plays (such as 2003’s The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, which we saw at the Moscow Art Theater) and that’s a good thing. We shouldn’t have to sit on a script for a couple hundred years before we’re allowed to do something new and interesting with it.
And, in a way, I think the strictness of our copyright law is a disservice to writers in some aspects. When we in the US are served with performance contracts that repeatedly and strongly emphasize that we are not allowed to deviate even a single word from the script, the writer is no longer a creative entity. Instead they are an obstacle that has to be worked around, like a small budget or a less-than-ideal venue.
Theatre is all about the collaboration of multiple artists to create the final product. When the writer is removed from being a collaborator, they are somewhat removed as an artist. A play is not made by just one person, and it’s odd that our legal system names one person to be the sole creator of a work. Why is one person’s vision prioritized over everyone else’s?
It’s important that we protect writers legally and financially, but it’s also important that we protect our art from the threat of crippling stagnation.
Yuri Butusov: Music and Madness
While we've been in Russia, one director in particular has caught my eye: Yuri Butusov. He is a star of the Russian theatrical avant garde. He manages to produce packed houses month after month, full of people eager to see his challenging productions. His style is incredibly visceral, filled with haunting symbolism and aggressively loud sounds. He does to the old standards of theater what Charlie Parker does to the old standards of jazz. He chops them up, repurposes them, intensifies them. He deletes entire characters, and repeats scenes at his pleasure. He takes the story on long dreamlike tangents of dance and song. I was struck both by the Jazz sensibilities of his directing, and by his particular choice of music. His productions of Flight and The Seagull contained some of the most effective music choices I've ever seen in the theater.
Flight was very heavy on Anglo-American music. Songs from Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon were interspersed throughout. The play opens with a heartbeat juxtaposed with the cash register sounds from the beginning of "Money". Towards the end, "Money", "Time", and "Great Gig In The Sky" are played entirely. They strengthened Flight's themes of despair and desperation. The entire play has the same sort of dark, existential attitude of Dark Side of the Moon. Butusov contrasted the Pink Floyd and difficult, horrifying moments of the play with some extremely upbeat music. "Mr. Sandman", accompanied by a group of women, repeatedly served to segue into some of the shows more bizarre moments. Presumably, to signal dream sequences. However, it's hard to say exactly how intentional all of his music choices were lyrically. I had the privilege of getting to talk to him at a q/a session and asked him how he chose the music for Flight. He said that, essentially, he just listens to a lot of music, and when it comes time for the play he picks songs mostly intuitively. Another person asked if he knew what the words meant for the English music he uses such a great deal. He said that occasionally he'd look up lyrics, but usually just picks them for the way they sound and nothing else. He shared a story about his first production where he accidentally picked a song where the lyrics exactly matched the action, though he had no idea they did. It's hard to tell by watching his plays what music was picked for the lyrics and what wasn't. In Flight, "Mr. Sandman" seemed to pretty clearly tie into the dreamlike atmosphere of the the play, but other music choices weren't so clear. The play featured a cover of "Stacie's Mom" done in a lounge style. The context made it seem like he was going for lounge-y sounding music, but for English speakers the lyrics we comically out of place. The Americans in the audience (us) were the only ones laughing at the song. We got some strange looks.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter. The plays are produced for a Russian audience, and so the lyrics are beside the point. What is much more impressive is how well Butusov's music choices communicate the tone of a scene, or provoke certain emotions. In The Seagull, Butusov himself is a character, and a big band rendition of "Caravan" serves as his leitmotif. He runs on stage and dances to it wildly. The Seagull is all about the difficulties of theater, and "Caravan" comes to represent catharsis for Butusov. His performance in Seagull is extraordinarily manic, especially his dancing to the music. This theme of mania is also present in Flight. Towards the end an actor sings a Russian rock song and plays the tambourine more intensely than I've ever seen it played. His performance was desperate, like Butusov's dancing. The intensity seems very purposeful.
If I had to guess, I would say that his end with all of the deafening music and wild dancing is catharsis. Perhaps this catharsis is part of a larger system. Perhaps the musical mania present in his work is theatrical therapy. It was certainly that for me.
Flight was very heavy on Anglo-American music. Songs from Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon were interspersed throughout. The play opens with a heartbeat juxtaposed with the cash register sounds from the beginning of "Money". Towards the end, "Money", "Time", and "Great Gig In The Sky" are played entirely. They strengthened Flight's themes of despair and desperation. The entire play has the same sort of dark, existential attitude of Dark Side of the Moon. Butusov contrasted the Pink Floyd and difficult, horrifying moments of the play with some extremely upbeat music. "Mr. Sandman", accompanied by a group of women, repeatedly served to segue into some of the shows more bizarre moments. Presumably, to signal dream sequences. However, it's hard to say exactly how intentional all of his music choices were lyrically. I had the privilege of getting to talk to him at a q/a session and asked him how he chose the music for Flight. He said that, essentially, he just listens to a lot of music, and when it comes time for the play he picks songs mostly intuitively. Another person asked if he knew what the words meant for the English music he uses such a great deal. He said that occasionally he'd look up lyrics, but usually just picks them for the way they sound and nothing else. He shared a story about his first production where he accidentally picked a song where the lyrics exactly matched the action, though he had no idea they did. It's hard to tell by watching his plays what music was picked for the lyrics and what wasn't. In Flight, "Mr. Sandman" seemed to pretty clearly tie into the dreamlike atmosphere of the the play, but other music choices weren't so clear. The play featured a cover of "Stacie's Mom" done in a lounge style. The context made it seem like he was going for lounge-y sounding music, but for English speakers the lyrics we comically out of place. The Americans in the audience (us) were the only ones laughing at the song. We got some strange looks.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter. The plays are produced for a Russian audience, and so the lyrics are beside the point. What is much more impressive is how well Butusov's music choices communicate the tone of a scene, or provoke certain emotions. In The Seagull, Butusov himself is a character, and a big band rendition of "Caravan" serves as his leitmotif. He runs on stage and dances to it wildly. The Seagull is all about the difficulties of theater, and "Caravan" comes to represent catharsis for Butusov. His performance in Seagull is extraordinarily manic, especially his dancing to the music. This theme of mania is also present in Flight. Towards the end an actor sings a Russian rock song and plays the tambourine more intensely than I've ever seen it played. His performance was desperate, like Butusov's dancing. The intensity seems very purposeful.
If I had to guess, I would say that his end with all of the deafening music and wild dancing is catharsis. Perhaps this catharsis is part of a larger system. Perhaps the musical mania present in his work is theatrical therapy. It was certainly that for me.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Another Dysfunctional Family
Tonight we witnessed the staging of "Uncle Vanya" at the Maly Theater. This play, of you are not familiar with it, follows the troubles of a family with rather common woes, from money problems to self-worth problems. Most of the characters expressed sadness and disappointment that they were not able to achieve all that they dreamed in life, and it is this woe that drew them all together and yet also pushed them all apart in the end. They could not help each other, so they all separated to (presumably) sulk individually.
In classic Chekhov fashion, we grew to know these characters in a few short hours like we had lived with them all our lives, and only through watching them interact like "normal" people. However, were they really acting as normal people would? I would argue that they seemed a bit dramatic, but just enough to make them seem human. Also, they made mistakes that made it all believable, like Vanya missing both times when trying to shoot the professor. That was a very human thing to do, and it fit his character. It also seemed to be a symbol for his missed opportunities in life, blamed on the professor but which are his own fault in the end. He missed his shots. Also, the professor skated by somehow. These symbolic and yet real (blank) gun shots showed both.
The ending of this play seemed a bit slow, but this kept with the theme of sorrow over missed opportunities. This long ending scene was depicting them all officially giving up on each other, which really did deserve a funeral-like ceremony of a goodbye. They all seemed to me to be acting as if they were sending each other to their graves. A pity that some of them died so young, like Sonya.
Mother Earth
Let's hit the rewind button back to one of our last performances in Moscow.
For our second to last performance in Moscow we had the choice of seeing Mother Earth, a movement based performance, or Madea, a performance similar to the shows we've seen previously. As a dancer, I chose to attend Mother Earth and found myself pleased with my decision, but a little disappointed as well.
Mother Earth is an hour long performance based on the story of a mother's love. Her journey is told through body language alone and revolves around the death of her husband, their three sons, and her daughter in law who later becomes pregnant. Two of her sons and husband are shot, another dies in a snowstorm, and her daughter-in-law dies during childbirth leaving her alone with the child. As we watch this mothers trials and tribulations, we are joined by Mother Earth, who circles the stage calmly inserting herself into the scenes as these individuals pass away and monitoring the family.
The use of set itself was very innovative. The set transformed itself with two rolling counters being pushed by the actors, either cutting off the audience from the scene being played out or creating walkways and tables for the actors to work upon. The actors also utilized their basic props, such as wooden tables, water, stones, and empty ammunition shells, to tell their story. The deaths of the two sons and father killed in war were represented through the placement of an empty ammunition shell somewhere within their belongings. As you watch the shell fall and hit the ground, your heart falls alongside it as the actor disappears behind two metal sliding doors with a loud *CRACK*.
I found the movement to be very similar to techniques taught at St. Olaf and therefore I was surprised to discover that they used actors instead of dancers for the performance. Their movements were both technical and expressive, but this is something I have found to be common among Russian actors.
Still, after such a wonderful performance, I found myself feeling empty. The majority of the other nine students who attended the performance were deeply moved and found this performance to be incredible. I was disappointed I wasn't able to join them.... maybe I was focusing too much on analyzing the performance? Or maybe I was just having an "off" night, either way, the performance was spectacular and I have a lot of respect for the actors who took on this project.
For our second to last performance in Moscow we had the choice of seeing Mother Earth, a movement based performance, or Madea, a performance similar to the shows we've seen previously. As a dancer, I chose to attend Mother Earth and found myself pleased with my decision, but a little disappointed as well.
Mother Earth is an hour long performance based on the story of a mother's love. Her journey is told through body language alone and revolves around the death of her husband, their three sons, and her daughter in law who later becomes pregnant. Two of her sons and husband are shot, another dies in a snowstorm, and her daughter-in-law dies during childbirth leaving her alone with the child. As we watch this mothers trials and tribulations, we are joined by Mother Earth, who circles the stage calmly inserting herself into the scenes as these individuals pass away and monitoring the family.
The use of set itself was very innovative. The set transformed itself with two rolling counters being pushed by the actors, either cutting off the audience from the scene being played out or creating walkways and tables for the actors to work upon. The actors also utilized their basic props, such as wooden tables, water, stones, and empty ammunition shells, to tell their story. The deaths of the two sons and father killed in war were represented through the placement of an empty ammunition shell somewhere within their belongings. As you watch the shell fall and hit the ground, your heart falls alongside it as the actor disappears behind two metal sliding doors with a loud *CRACK*.
I found the movement to be very similar to techniques taught at St. Olaf and therefore I was surprised to discover that they used actors instead of dancers for the performance. Their movements were both technical and expressive, but this is something I have found to be common among Russian actors.
Still, after such a wonderful performance, I found myself feeling empty. The majority of the other nine students who attended the performance were deeply moved and found this performance to be incredible. I was disappointed I wasn't able to join them.... maybe I was focusing too much on analyzing the performance? Or maybe I was just having an "off" night, either way, the performance was spectacular and I have a lot of respect for the actors who took on this project.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Cutting the Lifeline
As a child I remember being fascinated when my friends with foreign families
would speak another language to their parents when I was over for dinner or to
hang out. It always seemed that they would revert to their native tongue when
the mother or father was scolding their child and didn’t want the American to
understand or to embarrass their child. This occurred a lot during a homestay
in England where I was with an Indian family for a week. This ability to have a
conversation that only some could understand was very enticing as a young
person.
Now
that I have been studying Russian for almost 3 years now my appreciation for
language and culture goes far beyond a novel ability to speak in encoded
messages to other people. And I find that for the first time in my life the
language that I have chosen to study is not just a novel thing for me to have,
now it have become the life line that has gotten me around this incredible country on my own at times. The feeling of
having that life line cut is not only scary but has been one of the most
frustrating things of my entire life, and I am sure there will be more
frustrations to come.
The
linguistic breakdown was something that had been unknown to me until I found
myself in the midst of it. Literally drowning in confusion and endless file
cabinets of vocabulary in my brain suddenly becoming jumbles and blank in the
most pertinent of situations. Just last week I could order a coffee with ease
and ask for milk and sugar, but now I was there stuttering in front of a short
tempered lady trying to figure out how to ask to not have sugar or milk put in
my coffee. All those hours of study and all of those exercises flew out the
window in an instant. Once it was sorted out I sat down and was red with
embarrassment but also steaming with anger and frustration. How come a week ago
I was doing just fine but now I can’t even ask for a damn cup of Joe. How come
last week I could understand when someone asked if I had a cigarette but now I
stand there with a stupid look on my face muttering the same phrase over and over again in an attempt
to buy myself more time to search the blank file cabinets of vocab in my head.
The feeling of having a word on the tip of my tongue has become all too familiar.
Loud music (thoughts, not conclusions)
Sometimes stories are worth telling because of how they're told, sometimes because of what they're telling. For me, last night's "Cabaret Brecht" was worth telling because of how it was told. It was beautiful and loud filled with silhouettes, typewriters, flutes, short skirts, suspenders, smoke, and wooden chairs that guided us through Brecht's lifetime.
While talking to director Yuri Butusov last night one question was "Why do you play the music really loud?" or something along those lines.
"Because I like listening to loud music."
Yeah, that's it. I think this is an acceptable answer because I also like to massacre my eardrums with unnecessarily loud music. You can feel the essence of a sound. He thinks that it's bad that American theatre doesn't incorporate music from other languages. I think this is absolutely true. I've been thinking a lot about how in the USA we segment parts of theatre and parts of the arts unknowingly. The theatre is a place we go to talk and understand. Dance is where we move. Art is where we see.
Walking around St. Petersburg at 11pm (don't worry, not alone) it's dead quite. Compare this to the USA where there is honking, shouting, sizzling steam, wind, subway, blinking light, neon sign, gasoline, grease, clicks, whirrs, buzzes, slush, and it's all a flurry of activity. Maybe our lives are already attributed to being so involuntarily sensorial that we want to segment and control what we can, resulting in limiting ourselves in the arts. Oh you want movement in production? Let's go find a choreographer. Oh you don't understand the words of the song? Well, let's not use it then.
Butusov mentioned an exercise they did where they tried to devise a piece of theatre around a song. The immediate reaction would be to look at the lyrics and just go with the narrative they provided. I would already be segmenting how I sense things. If you used a song that wasn't in english or wasn't understandable, maybe you would be forced to base your piece of theatre on the essence of the song. Tastes, textures, smells, sounds, dialogue, color, all wrapped into one. I want to do this and try it out. Conveying the essence of something works against all the instincts we've created when it comes to creating theatre.
While talking to director Yuri Butusov last night one question was "Why do you play the music really loud?" or something along those lines.
"Because I like listening to loud music."
Yeah, that's it. I think this is an acceptable answer because I also like to massacre my eardrums with unnecessarily loud music. You can feel the essence of a sound. He thinks that it's bad that American theatre doesn't incorporate music from other languages. I think this is absolutely true. I've been thinking a lot about how in the USA we segment parts of theatre and parts of the arts unknowingly. The theatre is a place we go to talk and understand. Dance is where we move. Art is where we see.
Walking around St. Petersburg at 11pm (don't worry, not alone) it's dead quite. Compare this to the USA where there is honking, shouting, sizzling steam, wind, subway, blinking light, neon sign, gasoline, grease, clicks, whirrs, buzzes, slush, and it's all a flurry of activity. Maybe our lives are already attributed to being so involuntarily sensorial that we want to segment and control what we can, resulting in limiting ourselves in the arts. Oh you want movement in production? Let's go find a choreographer. Oh you don't understand the words of the song? Well, let's not use it then.
Butusov mentioned an exercise they did where they tried to devise a piece of theatre around a song. The immediate reaction would be to look at the lyrics and just go with the narrative they provided. I would already be segmenting how I sense things. If you used a song that wasn't in english or wasn't understandable, maybe you would be forced to base your piece of theatre on the essence of the song. Tastes, textures, smells, sounds, dialogue, color, all wrapped into one. I want to do this and try it out. Conveying the essence of something works against all the instincts we've created when it comes to creating theatre.
Brechtian Butusov
We've seen three shows by the director Butusov during our time here in Russia, and I think it's safe to say that, as a group, we've had pretty mixed feelings about his style. It's jarring, visceral, and intense, though the specific subject matter has varied greatly in each performance.
First there was Flight, a chilling and visually striking industrial surrealist nightmare. Then there was The Seagull, a bizarre deconstructionist version of Chekhov’s classic play. And finally, we saw Brecht Kabaret, an abstract biographical drama of the life of German writer Bertolt Brecht.
I was rather invested in liking this final Butusov show from the time I first heard we'd be seeing it. Having spent a gap year in Germany before going to St. Olaf, I get very excited at the prospect of encountering German history and language when elsewhere in the world. And the style of theater that Brecht popularized (Google “epic theater”) is exactly the sort of thing that Butusov does well, so combining the two seemed like a match made in heaven.
We were not disappointed. Butusov’s disjointed narrative style painted the story of a writer caught in emotional and political turmoil. Though we missed most of the specifics to the language barrier, we could tell that the scenes unfolding onstage portrayed historical situations, as well as more personal commentary on current events. Marc was generous enough to translate a moment in which the actor playing Brecht broke character in order to blatantly criticize governments that wage unnecessary war on other countries against the will of the people.
It was quite a multilingual production, and by the end of the first act I had developed a slight headache from linguistic whiplash. Many songs were in English, French, and German, with Russian surtitles, and occasionally they would speak German, or quote Brecht in Russian with the original text projected. Trying to follow everything was a lot of fun, though their thick Russian accents made the English and German hard to distinguish. Marc’s occasional translations helped us recognize just how political the show was, using Brecht’s writings and ideology as a medium to express their displeasure with Russia’s current government.
The second act emulated a cabaret-style show, with a number of songs, skits, and dance numbers by the different actors. They were a fantastically talented bunch, and their costume and makeup changes altered their appearances enough to make it seem like the cast was much larger than it was. Even without knowing entirely what was going on, it was a pleasure to watch them sing, dance, and give dramatic monologues, just for the impressive visuals that Butusov’s shows are known for.
Of the three shows we saw by this director, Brecht Kabaret was by far my favorite. And the fact that we got to meet him afterwards to ask about his creative process was icing on the cake. His shows are pretty hit-or-miss for me, but when I like them, I love them, and I'd be more than happy to see more of it work if the opportunity arose.
First there was Flight, a chilling and visually striking industrial surrealist nightmare. Then there was The Seagull, a bizarre deconstructionist version of Chekhov’s classic play. And finally, we saw Brecht Kabaret, an abstract biographical drama of the life of German writer Bertolt Brecht.
I was rather invested in liking this final Butusov show from the time I first heard we'd be seeing it. Having spent a gap year in Germany before going to St. Olaf, I get very excited at the prospect of encountering German history and language when elsewhere in the world. And the style of theater that Brecht popularized (Google “epic theater”) is exactly the sort of thing that Butusov does well, so combining the two seemed like a match made in heaven.
We were not disappointed. Butusov’s disjointed narrative style painted the story of a writer caught in emotional and political turmoil. Though we missed most of the specifics to the language barrier, we could tell that the scenes unfolding onstage portrayed historical situations, as well as more personal commentary on current events. Marc was generous enough to translate a moment in which the actor playing Brecht broke character in order to blatantly criticize governments that wage unnecessary war on other countries against the will of the people.
It was quite a multilingual production, and by the end of the first act I had developed a slight headache from linguistic whiplash. Many songs were in English, French, and German, with Russian surtitles, and occasionally they would speak German, or quote Brecht in Russian with the original text projected. Trying to follow everything was a lot of fun, though their thick Russian accents made the English and German hard to distinguish. Marc’s occasional translations helped us recognize just how political the show was, using Brecht’s writings and ideology as a medium to express their displeasure with Russia’s current government.
The second act emulated a cabaret-style show, with a number of songs, skits, and dance numbers by the different actors. They were a fantastically talented bunch, and their costume and makeup changes altered their appearances enough to make it seem like the cast was much larger than it was. Even without knowing entirely what was going on, it was a pleasure to watch them sing, dance, and give dramatic monologues, just for the impressive visuals that Butusov’s shows are known for.
Of the three shows we saw by this director, Brecht Kabaret was by far my favorite. And the fact that we got to meet him afterwards to ask about his creative process was icing on the cake. His shows are pretty hit-or-miss for me, but when I like them, I love them, and I'd be more than happy to see more of it work if the opportunity arose.
An Opera at The Mariinsky-2
Only a few hours after getting off of the high speed train to St. Petersburg, our group had the chance to see an opera at the new stage of the Mariinsky. All of us were exhausted from our trip into the city. The gorgeous train ride through the wintry Russian countryside, left little time for sleeping. Coupled with the early morning, and traversing stairs with our suitcases, we were a tired bunch as we picked our way over the ice towards towards the theater on the Neva River. It was my very first opera, and I was pleasantly surprised by the Soviet Opera, Semyon Kotka.
The best part of the experience was hands down the theater itself. Opened in 2011, the second stage of the Mariinsky theater is opulent in its modernism. The onyx stone walls were back-lit with chandelier icicle lights providing the rest of the illumination. The theater space itself was very minimal and the stage curtain had a single feather on it. The set of the Opera, supposedly the Ukraine, was a dark, raised platform, with a useful hole in the middle. While an interesting, and somewhat neutral setting, I had the feeling that I was watching a Star Wars movie after a few hours.
Personal opinions on the show varied, however I enjoyed the performance. At almost four hours, the Soviet Opera was involved. Semyon Kotka, our main character, has just come back to his home town after fighting on the front lines on WW1. Once there, he wishes to get married to his childhood sweetheart, but complications ensue. One of them being her father, who would rather his daughter die than be married to Semyon. The main conflict was the arrival of Germans and Tussian nationalists who oppose communists like Semyon. The final scene sees communism triumph in a musical number praising Lenin and advocating "sprinkling the blood of our enemies on our freedom". With a premiere date of 1940 this propaganda like feeling was anticipated.
An infinite source of help were the English subtitles. It helped to keep me focused on the plot. That was the reason that the opera did not feel like a four hour performance to me, I was able to be involved. Unfortunately for my fledgeling opinion of opera, that also enabled me to realize how profuse and unnecessary the dialogue was. I enjoyed this opera, I would recommend it. Unfortunately, I do not know the next time that I will go to an opera voluntarily.
The best part of the experience was hands down the theater itself. Opened in 2011, the second stage of the Mariinsky theater is opulent in its modernism. The onyx stone walls were back-lit with chandelier icicle lights providing the rest of the illumination. The theater space itself was very minimal and the stage curtain had a single feather on it. The set of the Opera, supposedly the Ukraine, was a dark, raised platform, with a useful hole in the middle. While an interesting, and somewhat neutral setting, I had the feeling that I was watching a Star Wars movie after a few hours.
Personal opinions on the show varied, however I enjoyed the performance. At almost four hours, the Soviet Opera was involved. Semyon Kotka, our main character, has just come back to his home town after fighting on the front lines on WW1. Once there, he wishes to get married to his childhood sweetheart, but complications ensue. One of them being her father, who would rather his daughter die than be married to Semyon. The main conflict was the arrival of Germans and Tussian nationalists who oppose communists like Semyon. The final scene sees communism triumph in a musical number praising Lenin and advocating "sprinkling the blood of our enemies on our freedom". With a premiere date of 1940 this propaganda like feeling was anticipated.
An infinite source of help were the English subtitles. It helped to keep me focused on the plot. That was the reason that the opera did not feel like a four hour performance to me, I was able to be involved. Unfortunately for my fledgeling opinion of opera, that also enabled me to realize how profuse and unnecessary the dialogue was. I enjoyed this opera, I would recommend it. Unfortunately, I do not know the next time that I will go to an opera voluntarily.
So long, and thanks for all the...Butusov
A few days ago, our group left Moscow for the more European St. Petersburg, and I suppose the best way to put this is- I miss Russia. Yes, I realize the people speak Russian, the plays we're seeing are by Russian professionals, but honestly it just doesn't feel like the same country to me.
The incredible Russian (and sometimes Soviet) architecture has been replaced with cookie-cutter Italian 17th centuary, minus the churches every building looks the same. And although impressive, those churches are distinctly European. There is a grand total of one place of worship in Petersburg that has the distinct Russian candle shape, which feels disappointing after everything we've seen. We are surrounded by great food, but we're also literally surrounded by KFC and Subway. While the "Craft Brew Cafe" was very good, it also wasn't very foreign.
Not to say the city itself is unimpressive. The sculpture work and plethora of museums dotting the city are more than worth the trip, and having an English speaking waiter at every other place I eat is definitely a breath of fresh air after several weeks of struggling. Still I find myself...missing Russia. This trip has been far from my first time abroad, and not even my first time in the far east, but the culture of Russia is so distinct that I can't help but feel the metro stops here are lackluster.
But no mall rat could argue with the Dostoevsky hotel/shopping centre combo :)
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Claire Underwood Goes to Denmark
But seriously. That was all I could think of!
To start at the beginning, we filed into the Alexandrinsky Theatre for V. Fokin's 2010 adaptation of Hamlet. I was immediately confused; onstage were rows of bleachers, facing away from the audience. I felt like I was going to watch a high school couple make out on stage right, like during a football game. Then someone would bring out some cigarettes stage left and peer pressure some underclassmen to try them, like in a bad health class video from the early nineties. I thought, "Oh, no no no no! This will not do!"
But the moment the actors stepped down from the bleachers, working in, under and around them, it was hard to imagine the show without them. It heightened the sense of private court intrigue and scandal, of secrecy and deceit. And of course, when Gertrude stepped down in her little black dress and blonde pixie undercut I could only think of the cunning Claire Underwood from a modern plot, House of Cards. Like Claire, Fokin's Gertrude is a ruler herself. She works literally hand in hand with Claudius as his support and at times his minder. It seems even that the whole affair is her doing. Confidently confronting Hamlet, bolstering Claudius and inciting Laertes, she is in control at all times; even her death is knowingly self-inflicted! By thrusting Gertrude into a much more active role in the intrigue, Fokin updates the classic for a new repertoire and a younger audience that wants more explicit complexity from their female characters.
In theory, I would probably have been opposed to such radical deviations from Shakespere's folios. I always was loathe to complete high school assignments that challenged me to "update" classics like Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet. What a pointless, fruitless exercise, I thought. How could it compare with the the original? How could taking it out of context improve the story in the slightest? Even though I would still hate the assignment, I can now grant the pedagogical reasoning behind it, and would hate it not for having to take Hamlet out of context, but for having to work so hard to put it in our context. I see now that updating the story is more than just live-tweeting it; putting it in context may take some radical revision. And someone like Claire Underwood is a well-chosen catalyst, even if she's under the bleachers.
To start at the beginning, we filed into the Alexandrinsky Theatre for V. Fokin's 2010 adaptation of Hamlet. I was immediately confused; onstage were rows of bleachers, facing away from the audience. I felt like I was going to watch a high school couple make out on stage right, like during a football game. Then someone would bring out some cigarettes stage left and peer pressure some underclassmen to try them, like in a bad health class video from the early nineties. I thought, "Oh, no no no no! This will not do!"
But the moment the actors stepped down from the bleachers, working in, under and around them, it was hard to imagine the show without them. It heightened the sense of private court intrigue and scandal, of secrecy and deceit. And of course, when Gertrude stepped down in her little black dress and blonde pixie undercut I could only think of the cunning Claire Underwood from a modern plot, House of Cards. Like Claire, Fokin's Gertrude is a ruler herself. She works literally hand in hand with Claudius as his support and at times his minder. It seems even that the whole affair is her doing. Confidently confronting Hamlet, bolstering Claudius and inciting Laertes, she is in control at all times; even her death is knowingly self-inflicted! By thrusting Gertrude into a much more active role in the intrigue, Fokin updates the classic for a new repertoire and a younger audience that wants more explicit complexity from their female characters.
In theory, I would probably have been opposed to such radical deviations from Shakespere's folios. I always was loathe to complete high school assignments that challenged me to "update" classics like Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet. What a pointless, fruitless exercise, I thought. How could it compare with the the original? How could taking it out of context improve the story in the slightest? Even though I would still hate the assignment, I can now grant the pedagogical reasoning behind it, and would hate it not for having to take Hamlet out of context, but for having to work so hard to put it in our context. I see now that updating the story is more than just live-tweeting it; putting it in context may take some radical revision. And someone like Claire Underwood is a well-chosen catalyst, even if she's under the bleachers.
Screening of Lolita.
last week we saw a wonderful production of a play called Gentle Creature. The acting was wonderful, the set was perfect for the show, it was all really well done. However, right from the beginning all I could think about was the story of Lolita.
For those of you playing at home, and those who maybe haven't read the book, which I highly recommend, Lolita is the story of a middle aged man who falls in love with a nine year old, kidnaps her to make her his lover, and then grieves over her when she leaves him to have a life of her own. It's a terribly screwed up book, and for whatever reason people who haven't read it seem to think it's this great love story. Even some people who HAVE read it think it's some great love story and they end up sad that the main character didn't get to be with the love of his life, which is creepy. Anyway, I digress.
What's most important about this novel, for the sake of my argument, is the fact that it's a story about the use of power over another, particularly a lover, for selfish reasons.
This play begins with the male lead dolling up his dead wife. She doesn't appear dead to us, but this is happening after she has committed suicide. He is creating for the audience an image of his wife that isn't real, but what he wishes had been. This is similar to the beginning of Lolita. The man character creates an image in his head of "Lo" that is based on the girl he was in love with when he was young, not on what is real, as can often happens in relationships.
In the next scenes of the play, we watch the male lead "falling in love" with his female counterpart and going to lengths such as following her home(!!!) and getting her to marry him without really knowing her. This is a pretty well to do man coercing a young, impressionable female without much of a shot at a good life, and he is well aware of this. Similar to Lolita, where the protagonist convinces a young girl who clearly doesn't know what she's doing to run away with him after he kills her mother.
As the play progresses, the husband starts controlling his wife's behavior and holding the fact that he saved her from an awful life over her head. He even watches her when she isn't aware. Everything he does for her is to benefit him, even when he's telling her they'll run away and start a whole new life, it's so he doesn't have to deal with the negative aspects of the relationship anymore. Lolita is very similar. From the beginning, the protagonist watches Lo from afar to learn about her activities and figure out how to make her like him. As Lo gets older he begins controlling her activities to ensure that she doesn't meet other boys or get caught.
I'm not really surprised by any of this, as both pieces are pieces of Russian literature. Honestly it kept me more engaged. I love both of these stories, not necessarily for the plot, but for the writing and the way they're told. I think they're neat parallels.
For those of you playing at home, and those who maybe haven't read the book, which I highly recommend, Lolita is the story of a middle aged man who falls in love with a nine year old, kidnaps her to make her his lover, and then grieves over her when she leaves him to have a life of her own. It's a terribly screwed up book, and for whatever reason people who haven't read it seem to think it's this great love story. Even some people who HAVE read it think it's some great love story and they end up sad that the main character didn't get to be with the love of his life, which is creepy. Anyway, I digress.
What's most important about this novel, for the sake of my argument, is the fact that it's a story about the use of power over another, particularly a lover, for selfish reasons.
This play begins with the male lead dolling up his dead wife. She doesn't appear dead to us, but this is happening after she has committed suicide. He is creating for the audience an image of his wife that isn't real, but what he wishes had been. This is similar to the beginning of Lolita. The man character creates an image in his head of "Lo" that is based on the girl he was in love with when he was young, not on what is real, as can often happens in relationships.
In the next scenes of the play, we watch the male lead "falling in love" with his female counterpart and going to lengths such as following her home(!!!) and getting her to marry him without really knowing her. This is a pretty well to do man coercing a young, impressionable female without much of a shot at a good life, and he is well aware of this. Similar to Lolita, where the protagonist convinces a young girl who clearly doesn't know what she's doing to run away with him after he kills her mother.
As the play progresses, the husband starts controlling his wife's behavior and holding the fact that he saved her from an awful life over her head. He even watches her when she isn't aware. Everything he does for her is to benefit him, even when he's telling her they'll run away and start a whole new life, it's so he doesn't have to deal with the negative aspects of the relationship anymore. Lolita is very similar. From the beginning, the protagonist watches Lo from afar to learn about her activities and figure out how to make her like him. As Lo gets older he begins controlling her activities to ensure that she doesn't meet other boys or get caught.
I'm not really surprised by any of this, as both pieces are pieces of Russian literature. Honestly it kept me more engaged. I love both of these stories, not necessarily for the plot, but for the writing and the way they're told. I think they're neat parallels.
Hel Hath No Fury
Love is weird, isn't it? A mysterious and powerful perversion of natural
instincts, the most innocent and pure elation of the human mind, capable of
bringing two distinct animals together through a force incomprehensible to
us... yet at the same time the single most destructive force, equally able to
destroy an individual's mind as it is to tear down the walls of Troy. So,
naturally, love is also one of the driving forces in several of the plays we've
seen so far in Russia.
It makes sense for love to be such a common characteristic in theater,
as it’s such a common feeling in the human mind that can manifest itself in
many more ways than just romantic, and since it creates some of the most
fascinating characters. It’s so easy to connect to those feelings in some way
or another, yet even despite that, I see a very typical response among an
audience when watching a conflicted couple on the stage or screen.
“Why did he think that’s a good idea?” “Doesn’t he know that won’t
impress her?” “Why can’t he just calm down and relax?” and my personal
favorite, “I would never do that to the person I love.”
Now, most of you reading this have seen the plays I’m talking about,
namely something like Mitya’s Love or Chekhov’s The Seagull. We’ve all seen
some of the things these characters have done in the name of their “love.” I
don’t excuse Mitya’s subtle attempts at emotional manipulation of Katya because
he can’t handle her having a life outside of him. I don’t agree with Treplev
presenting Nina with a deceased bird in some desperate attempt to prove his
love to her.
But I understand it. As much as I hate to say it, I understand all too
well, because their love has grown toxic and they’ve become obsessed. Obsession
is the point when something that means more than the world to you becomes
inaccessible to you, and the feeling when you realize this but are unable to do
anything about it is what makes these characters do these awful things. After
all, there is no great love without great jealousy, and sometimes that jealousy
will take over. It’s taken me over before.
Perhaps you’re reading this and thinking, “I’m sorry it happened to you
Sean, but it won’t happen to me because I know better.” Of course it will
happen to you. You might not obsess over another person, maybe something
seemingly insignificant, in which case it’s not as severe and destructive to
others, but it’s still the same thought process.
Hel hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. Have you ever felt something so
powerful as that? When you love them so much and you can’t understand why
they’d be treating you with such disdain, that unbearable desire for everything
to just be okay again… it will tear you apart like nothing you’ve ever
experienced. Perhaps the things your lover is doing aren’t bad or even outwardly
mean spirited, but you’ve acquired such a toxic and illogical mindset that you
overthink and overanalyze what they do to the point where they’re actions seem
like an active attack against you. It will make you shoot down a seagull in
complete clarity of thought because you genuinely think it will make things
better. These people on the stage who we’ve come to so readily judge, they’re
just us. They’re probably a personal experience the playwright has had, which
is why they’re so visceral to us.
I’ve heard time and time again, on tumblr, in poems, in movies, in
everything, that love is pain. Love is not pain, obsession is pain. Obsession
is an unfortunately too common side of love, which is how they get confused too
easily. So, seeing these characters on stage do such appalling things because
they’ve become so obsessed… it just makes me want to cry. I see so much of
myself in them, I can even see myself doing the things they’re doing, and
that’s scary. However, it’s the reality we all face. So do not judge these
characters, learn from them. Understand them. In the times where I was lost in
obsession, I so desperately craved someone to understand what got me there so
they could pull me out in a way I could no longer do for myself. Hell, you don’t
even need to be obsessed to feel something like that. Still, if only we could
do that to the characters on stage.
Then again, if we did, there’d be no spectacle. After all, few things
are as spellbinding to watch unfold as a tragic obsession.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Facing My Fears in the City of Smoke and Snow
When I was a child, I was very fearful. I was shy, I hated crowds, and any new experiences were always extremely stressful. As I've grown older, I've made a conscious effort to push myself into situations that would help me deal with the anxieties that still linger from my childhood. One of these decisions was coming to Russia. It holds an overwhelming number of fears that were both anticipated and unanticipated. At heart, I'm a small town girl who would prefer to stay home and hear stories of adventures rather than take them, but two weeks ago I found myself thrust in the middle of Moscow running to the metro to get to shows. Had young me taken this trip, I wouldn't have made it the first day, much less these first few weeks. I was scared of crowds, of loud noises, of too many sounds, of language barriers, of getting lost, and of instability in any sense really. Moscow was all these fears realized all at once, even physical instability, as the snow covers the ground and mixes with dirt and cigarette smoke to make a slurry that makes every surface a hazard to walk on. All this set at a brutal pace of a show every night, class every day, and sight-seeing in the afternoon.
At first, I thought I hated Moscow. I was tired of translating. I was tired of slipping every other step. Tired of inhaling secondhand cigarette smoke And in many ways I still am, but I love theater. I love drinking so much tea. When the light hits just right, and you look up from the snow falling around your boots when you walk through the streets of Moscow you can be shocked by the stunning beauty that is Russian architecture and Russian culture. I've been abroad before to France, Belgium, and Ireland, and the Russian aesthetic is an entirely separate one from more western ones. Women are in full makeup and full furs, which looks surprisingly luxurious. So as I leave Moscow for St. Petersburg I think that I don't hate it, and perhaps one summer when the sun has melted the snow and a nice summer breeze has cleared the smoke I'd like to return.
At first, I thought I hated Moscow. I was tired of translating. I was tired of slipping every other step. Tired of inhaling secondhand cigarette smoke And in many ways I still am, but I love theater. I love drinking so much tea. When the light hits just right, and you look up from the snow falling around your boots when you walk through the streets of Moscow you can be shocked by the stunning beauty that is Russian architecture and Russian culture. I've been abroad before to France, Belgium, and Ireland, and the Russian aesthetic is an entirely separate one from more western ones. Women are in full makeup and full furs, which looks surprisingly luxurious. So as I leave Moscow for St. Petersburg I think that I don't hate it, and perhaps one summer when the sun has melted the snow and a nice summer breeze has cleared the smoke I'd like to return.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Well Dang.
I probably definitely won't be the only one to write a post about this show, but tonight we saw Pillowman, which is better explained by the Wikipedia summary than by me. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillowman)
A moment from "The Little Jesus"
Spoilers follow, so either read the play (or summary) or continue with that warning.
I was equally horrified and amazed by the production we saw, because they really committed to the storyline. Every grisly detail was represented with impressive immediacy and artistry. For instance, in the scene where Katurian tells the story of his brother being abused, the actions play out behind a sheer curtain while Katurian narrates. The action behind the curtain certainly isn't explicit, but all the actors are doing just enough that you know you don't want to know any more. Additionally, in that same scene two actors in giant, plush animal heads came on and it illustrated the nightmare-scape in a way that I hadn't even thought to worry about.
Another aspect of this show that really impressed me was the two foley artists who would mimic and amplify certain sounds from the show like running water, creaking doors, and so on as well as making other background sounds like white noise or dissonant, ringing tones. Overall, their soundscape created a sense of dread because any time you started hearing extra sounds, something bad would almost always follow. Plus, the "live" sound effects tailored the sound to the show in a way that is very difficult to do with pre-recorded effects, which made the performance all the more immediate. For example, when Tupolski is dropping toes back into the tin, the foley artist would change the way she made the sound depending on how he dropped each toe.
I really think this might have been the best performance we've seen so far, but the whole time I was watching it I was wishing they'd be a little worse at their jobs because this company brought The Pillowman to life in a way I didn't think anyone would be willing to do.
Katurian's story (animal heads in the background)
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Dancing, music, confetti, and more
We’ve been in Moscow for over a week now and have seen quite a variety of shows – everything from a traditional children’s story to a hip hop operetta. Some of the shows we have unanimously loved, while others we have mixed feelings about. Yet I’m sure we all agree that watching shows in a language we cannot (or can barely) understand has been an adventure.
What do you rely on when language is essentially reduced to gibberish in its meaning? (Think of watching the beginning of the Minions movie… you don’t get much out of the text besides “banana!”). One tool available to us is the scripts and stories on which these shows are based. Knowing the characters and storyline before viewing the show can really help in understanding what exactly is going on onstage - when the show follows the original script or story. However, a number of shows have been altered, interpreted, and deconstructed so that even with knowledge of the original text the show is difficult to follow. What to do then?
Of course the body language, facial expressions, and vocalizations of the actors inform us of, at the very least, the mood of the characters. Russian theatre is also oftentimes very physical – dancing is present in many shows, and many ordinary movements seem to be in some way informed or inspired by dance. The physicality of Russian theatre is one of my favorite parts of shows we have seen here. In “Mitya’s Love,” the actors performed almost the entire play on a wall, balancing and swinging from pegs. (The strength these actors have is just amazing!). Along with distinct physicality and dance, music is almost always incorporated into the shows. Most surprising perhaps is the prevalence of western music (most specifically the song “Stacey’s Mom”), especially in the shows we have seen directed by Yury Butusov (“Flight” and “The Seagull”). Many actors have also been required to sing or play instruments in shows, and music is actually a part of the training actors go through here in Russia. In “Who Lives Well in Russia?” the female actors formed a choir of sorts, and all of the music was performed live - it was incredible!
The props and effects (as I’ll call them) of Russian theatre have also created some captivating moments despite the language barrier. I almost believe that one of the goals of Russian theatre is to see how big of a mess they can create onstage during the show. So many plays have involved throwing paper, styrofoam, water, apples, and other things all over the stage (and sometimes the audience). We have also seen many people climb and swing from ropes, and a lot of fog has been created. There was also a hamster that repeated whatever the actors said (or played on the saxophone) in one show.
So we have heard a lot of Russian,
and understood very little of it. We’ve seen a lot of crazy and impressive movements,
music, and effects… along with a lot of stationary monologues. Russian theatre
has offered us a lot despite our struggles with the language. And at those
times when it has only given us a monologue we don’t understand… we simply
watch the people next to us to know when to laugh.
A Hip-Hop Cockroach
My favorite stories as a child were always the ones with layers of characters. I found this when I read The Cockroach by Chukovsky. Written in the early 1900’s, the poem starts out quite typically: lots of animals are living a peaceful and idyllic life together. Unfortunately, a mustachioed, power-hungry cockroach comes into town. He begins to terrorize the rest of the animals, threatening to cut them up with his moustache if they do not bow to his commands. His most astonishing desire is to eat the baby animals. Of course, the conflict is resolved and a plucky sparrow consumes the cockroach.
On January 12th our group saw a “Hip-Hop Operetta” based on this children's verse. Performed by students, his was the first run of the play. It opened with copious amounts of fog and an electric version of “hip-hop” music that remained constant throughout the play. The plot of the play differed slightly from the poem, instead of the cockroach wanting to eat the babies, he wanted to take away their books. This i obviously upsetting and our main character defeats the cockroach with words at the end of the play.
Not having a dance background, I do not know if I would call the style of dancing “hip-hop”. It reminded me of stomp. The constant music was quite loud, and combined with the flashing, I am very impressed with the baby who sat so calmly in his Mother’s arms next to me. However, I was never bored. The plot and actions were clear enough that the English speakers could follow. At an hour and fifteen minutes,I thoroughly recommend this play.
Even though the children's verse was written before the Stalin took control of Russia, the cockroach in the story was compared to Stalin. This resulted in Chukovsky being persecuted. With this play premiering at an equally fractious time in Russia, we can only wait and see what will come of this play with an emphasis on censorship.
On January 12th our group saw a “Hip-Hop Operetta” based on this children's verse. Performed by students, his was the first run of the play. It opened with copious amounts of fog and an electric version of “hip-hop” music that remained constant throughout the play. The plot of the play differed slightly from the poem, instead of the cockroach wanting to eat the babies, he wanted to take away their books. This i obviously upsetting and our main character defeats the cockroach with words at the end of the play.
Not having a dance background, I do not know if I would call the style of dancing “hip-hop”. It reminded me of stomp. The constant music was quite loud, and combined with the flashing, I am very impressed with the baby who sat so calmly in his Mother’s arms next to me. However, I was never bored. The plot and actions were clear enough that the English speakers could follow. At an hour and fifteen minutes,I thoroughly recommend this play.
Even though the children's verse was written before the Stalin took control of Russia, the cockroach in the story was compared to Stalin. This resulted in Chukovsky being persecuted. With this play premiering at an equally fractious time in Russia, we can only wait and see what will come of this play with an emphasis on censorship.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
That Snowstorm Tho
I just want to start off by saying it took me longer than it should have to figure out how to work this website. Mobile is not always best, let me tell you.
Anyway as our first full week of being in Russia comes to a close, I would like to reflect on some feelings and experiences that hopefully can be shared with my classmates.
First, I had originally heard of this trip from my wonderful roommate, who is in fact a Russian major, and I thought it sounded super fun. I hadn't given it much serious thought, though, until I got an email probably four days before the deadline about it. It was at that time I decided to give it a shot and apply, even though for three and a half years prior I was determined, for whatever dumb reason, I wouldn't study abroad while I was at St. Olaf.
Now here we are. My first time out of the country and it's in Russia. Canada I would have believed, but never Russia. AND I get to see some wonderful theater, the number one reason I came, with some wonderful people. One could imagine a trip called "Theater in Russia" would probably be based around, hey, you guessed it, theater in Russia, and of course it is, but I had never imagined I would be left with my jaw on the floor after almost every show. And even those where my fave remained intact have been delightful, language barrier aside. These are the kinds of performances I have dreamed of doing my entire life, and here I get to watch them enviously every night. Who knows, I might just be back for school one day.
All of that being said, I am homesick. I miss my friends. I miss my grandparents. I miss my cat. I can't wait to sit at my table and devour some hash browns and toast with guacamole (it's good with an egg on top, 10/10 do recommend), not to mention sleep in my own bed. However I am so incredibly thankful to be here and to have the opportunity to watch people with such intense, focused training on stage in real life and be able to learn from them. Even the puppet theater here is miles ahead, in my opinion, of theater in America and that astounds me. It's just so beautiful. I look forward to what the rest of the month brings.
Now onward into the snowstorm.
Anyway as our first full week of being in Russia comes to a close, I would like to reflect on some feelings and experiences that hopefully can be shared with my classmates.
First, I had originally heard of this trip from my wonderful roommate, who is in fact a Russian major, and I thought it sounded super fun. I hadn't given it much serious thought, though, until I got an email probably four days before the deadline about it. It was at that time I decided to give it a shot and apply, even though for three and a half years prior I was determined, for whatever dumb reason, I wouldn't study abroad while I was at St. Olaf.
Now here we are. My first time out of the country and it's in Russia. Canada I would have believed, but never Russia. AND I get to see some wonderful theater, the number one reason I came, with some wonderful people. One could imagine a trip called "Theater in Russia" would probably be based around, hey, you guessed it, theater in Russia, and of course it is, but I had never imagined I would be left with my jaw on the floor after almost every show. And even those where my fave remained intact have been delightful, language barrier aside. These are the kinds of performances I have dreamed of doing my entire life, and here I get to watch them enviously every night. Who knows, I might just be back for school one day.
All of that being said, I am homesick. I miss my friends. I miss my grandparents. I miss my cat. I can't wait to sit at my table and devour some hash browns and toast with guacamole (it's good with an egg on top, 10/10 do recommend), not to mention sleep in my own bed. However I am so incredibly thankful to be here and to have the opportunity to watch people with such intense, focused training on stage in real life and be able to learn from them. Even the puppet theater here is miles ahead, in my opinion, of theater in America and that astounds me. It's just so beautiful. I look forward to what the rest of the month brings.
Now onward into the snowstorm.
When There is No Coat Check
My favorite part of theatre-going is always the anticipation. I love going to the theatre in a physical sense: stepping into the space, exchanging my coat for a bass tag, admiring the interior decor, scoping out the cafe (oh my gosh there's the gift shop!)This ritual just heightens my excitement for a show, which I see as a chance to be transported, to see something totally different than the space I'm surveying. Then I step into the theatre and apologize my way to my to my seat. All this leads to the moment when the house lights go black and I'm filled with such excitement I can barely contain myself when the stage alights and it looks like the director produced a new world just for this moment.
But last night's fantastic experience at Teatr.doc totally changed this narrative I've been so comfortably expecting for years of shows. There is no grand enterence at Doc. Political pressure has forced The company out of two locations in the past two years and their current home is a basement in a Moscow residential neighborhood. Stepping down some slippery steps you find yourself practically tumbling into the cloak room, a closet full of plastic hangers, and hanging your own coat for a change. Upon return to the foyer you take your copy paper ticket and wait to be ushered in the space. The foyer fills up fast with other guests. Not just hip, young Muscovites, but adults of all ages. They're here not because it's a grand show of status or because they've seen the show ten times over. They're here to see something new and exciting they can only find in this basement! We stand elbow to elbow and then rush into the theatre in the round, made by folding chairs. There is no moment of silence as house lights dim, because the actors are seated among and around us. They start the show when they want, stepping out onto the stage from a shared reality, not one separated by house and stage.
Teatr.doc lacked all the normal things I look forward to in my anticipative ritual but I loved it because I was forced to be a part of what had, up until now, been separate to me. I stopped craving the theatre/reality distinction just for a night to be part of something really special.
But last night's fantastic experience at Teatr.doc totally changed this narrative I've been so comfortably expecting for years of shows. There is no grand enterence at Doc. Political pressure has forced The company out of two locations in the past two years and their current home is a basement in a Moscow residential neighborhood. Stepping down some slippery steps you find yourself practically tumbling into the cloak room, a closet full of plastic hangers, and hanging your own coat for a change. Upon return to the foyer you take your copy paper ticket and wait to be ushered in the space. The foyer fills up fast with other guests. Not just hip, young Muscovites, but adults of all ages. They're here not because it's a grand show of status or because they've seen the show ten times over. They're here to see something new and exciting they can only find in this basement! We stand elbow to elbow and then rush into the theatre in the round, made by folding chairs. There is no moment of silence as house lights dim, because the actors are seated among and around us. They start the show when they want, stepping out onto the stage from a shared reality, not one separated by house and stage.
Teatr.doc lacked all the normal things I look forward to in my anticipative ritual but I loved it because I was forced to be a part of what had, up until now, been separate to me. I stopped craving the theatre/reality distinction just for a night to be part of something really special.
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