Two Easters

On Easter Sunday we took a trip to Melikhovo to visit Anton Chekhov’s estate. Being on his land and in his house felt like being in the world of a Chekhov play. It was so cool to be able to experience that first hand--especially because in our acting class a lot of us are working on Chekhov scenes. I’m playing Astrov (the doctor in Uncle Vanya) so I was particularly excited to see Chekov’s doctor’s office. Seeing where the writer lived gave me quite a bit of insight to his work. (David, I completely agree with your take on his estate) His tastes seem to have been simple yet refined and VERY organized—everything having a specific place and purpose (perhaps because it is now kept as a historical sight, but I suspect he would have kept it that way in his time as well). I see all of these qualities in his work and certainly as valuable qualities to don when approaching his work as an artist. He was a fascinating man. Though I learned so much about Chekhov visiting his estate, I came away with so many more questions than I had before going.

The next Sunday was Eastern Orthodox Easter, so Rebecca, Laura and I went “cathedral hopping.” It was really cool, the churches here are like no churches I've seen before; they all have that Russian old school tear-drop dome kind of thing going on, and the inside is

usually full of a lot of fascinating art work (they walls are all basically murals w/ art work hung on them), and they smell like really awesome incense, and there are candles everywhere-- it's kind of overwhelming. In one cathedral

we caught the end of an afternoon Easter service-- there was a priest wearing elaborate traditional garb and

chanting and a choir singing this beautifully haunting music in Russian; it was really powerful. Unfortunately, my camera battery died at the first cathedral we visited, so I don't have many pictures.

Afterward we went to see the opera Carmen, which was also awesome-- a breath taking set and some of the most phenomenal singing I have ever heard.

So I seem to have been a poor blogger. In two of my “Three Months in Russia” I have posted only two entries--not a very good average. I will try post more frequently. My thanks to those who have been keeping me honest; great to know "I have an audience."

Soccer Game, Plays, and a Little Bit on Acting Class

Soccer Game:
Tim and I went to a Russian Premier League Soccer game last weekend to see a team from Moscow (Spartak) play their rivals from St. Petersburg (Zenit). I had never been to a soccer game like this before. What I found most interesting were the other spectators. I had heard about hooliganism at European soccer games, but this blew my expectations out of the water so much that I watched the stands almost more than I watched the game. As soon as we arrived, Zenit scored (we were sitting it their section) and their fans went insane. They shoot off fire works, lit flares and these things that I can only describe as fire balls, which they threw onto the field at which point one of the hundreds of police officers would grab the fireball with these long tongs and shove it into the snow on the sidelines. The celebration made so much smoke that we couldn’t see the game for a few minutes after. This type of thing happened every time something the least bit exciting occurred in the game. At one point the Zenit fans burnt a huge Spartak flag in the stands. Later they figured out how to remove the chairs from the stands and threw them at the Spartak fans, when the cops shuffled into the stands like military troops to break it up, they threw even more chairs at them. I went to the game planning to cheer for Spartak. I cheered for Zenit for fear of being pelted with chairs.

Plays:
We have been seeing some amazing theatre here. My favorites have been Push (a dance piece from London with former French prima ballerina Sylvie Guillem—I have never been more amazed by how a person used his or her body), Richard III, and Opus 7—a very out-there piece about WWII and the Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich involving music, movement, painting, and a gigantic puppet.
We have also seen:
The Hump Backed Horse
Movement/Object Etudes at the Shukin School
Oblomov
The Black Square (a movement based performance by the Russian 3rd year students)
Nothing has been disappointing.

A little bit on acting class:

We have started our acting class. So far, we haven’t gotten to the scene work. We have only been doing etudes (for you non-theatre folk, etudes are self-conceived little performance exercises used in acting training). So far, we have done objects, animals, and interesting people. We should find out how we are cast in scenes soon.

Week One

We arrived Sunday, March 1, and were given that afternoon to rest and get acquainted with the area around our dorm.
On Monday we took a bus tour of Moscow. We only got off the bus twice: once at the Kremlin and once at the Novodevichy Convent. Both sights were stunning; I want to go back to each of them and go inside when I have more time. After the bus tour we went to the American Studio at MXAT (that’s the abbreviation for the Moscow Art Theatre — everyone calls it “mhat”) where we toured the facilities and had an orientation session.


On Tuesday we started classes. Our first class was the perfect introduction to MXAT: we had drama history with the dean of the MXAT School, Anatoly Smeliansky, in a room full of portraits of Russian theatre practitioners. As Anatoly taught, on the wall behind him were Stanislavski, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Anton Chekhov, Gorki, and Tolstoy. Not only was the room full of portraits, but the entire floor was. Anatoly called it the Moscow Art Theatre Family and, with the exception of those who have come and gone from those walls due to their falling in and out of favor with political movements, every dead MXAT artist has his picture there. Semliansky told us stories about some of the pictures, saying that there were interesting stories in every one of them. Theatre here is so rich in history, so strongly linked with the history of the country, and so highly regarded as a great resource full of cultural value. It seems so different from the US.



Other classes I had this week were: ballet, voice, rhythm, movement, singing, fencing, and suzuki.

We had rehearsals every evening this week for Pushkin’s Little Tragedies which we open on Tuesday, March 11. We rehearsed it a lot in Cambridge, but now that we’re here in a new space there are a lot of adjustments to be made. Once the rehearsal period is over, we start our acting classes in which we will be doing Chekhov and Ovtrovsky scenes.

Outside of class and rehearsal there is not much to blog about—we don’t have much time out side of class and rehearsal. After one week I can already feel my Russian improving greatly. I get most of my practice ordering food (usually at the MXAT cafeteria, of which I am a big fan—so far my favorite food is borsch).

I think I’ll be writing every Sunday because that is our day off. So until next Sunday, dasvedanya!

1st Entry

Hello friends and family! I am creating this blog so that you can keep track of me while I'm in Russia for three months (February 28- May 31) studying at the Moscow Art Theatre School. Enjoy!