A Week of Play (going)

It was after the particularly bad production of A Month in the Country, part of the Golden Mask, that Tolya made quite the clever and funny observation. As the head of the jury this year, he said they don’t even know what’s been invited to the festival. So it’s like, “They invite you to dinner, and you say, ‘Okay, what are we having?’ and they say, ‘I don’t know, just eat it!!!’”

I feel like this sums up my own theatre experience over the past week fairly well.

But I’m mad at myself for letting myself go without recording my thoughts on productions. So let’s fix this:

Opus 7 on 3/31: Directed by Dimitri Krimov, I had heard a lot of hype both about this show and this director. Luckily, it basically lived up. He works in this “theater of painters” concept he developed; basically, he works with set designers and actors to create shows. Opus 7’s two parts are completely different and have completely different sets. The first half was about the Holocaust; the second was about the Russian composer Shostakovich. Since I can’t really go into detail, I’ll describe my favorite moment. After individually splashing black paint in a row onto the white cardboard wall spanning the length of the space, the actors then took cut-outs and string, making each one look like a Hasidic man. Someone behind each of these seven-men then cut around the tops so the heads could bend back and forth, looking like they were davening as live music played. Suddenly, the light changed and from behind the spaces of cardboard heads a huge gust of cut-up paper confetti came flying out onto the stage and into the audience for a long time (we were on the same level, no real separation other than the line of where we sat and they performed). It was unexpected, powerful, and really brought us into the piece without forcing or overwhelming us.

Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day on 4/1: Originally we were told this was a Belgian ballet. Haha…oh man. It was a Belgian choreographer’s experimental piece that was NOT GOOD. As Tanya said, she sat down before the show began and figured out everything that was going to happen. A woman read a letter, danced around very repetitively/boringly, went topless and covered herself in ashes, knocked all of the hanging birdcages together (with live birds)…need I go on? I know with all of that it may sound interesting, but it was not. It was very much so a cliché experimental piece and thank goodness I didn’t pay money for a ticket it was only an hour of my life.

A Month in the Country on 4/2: If nothing else, I’m glad that seeing this production forced me to finally read Ivan Turgenev’s play from 1850. Other than one very funny (but also very short compared to the 3.5 hours total) scene, it was a fairly abysmal production. Boring. Little movement. Not the best acting. Stupid design. I’m being very articulate now, I know. But life is too short to dwell on boring, bad theatre, so moving on…

Boris Eifman Ballet’s Onegin on 4/3: Had high expectations and was a tad concerned, but it was AMAZING! Well, to be completely honest the non-Tchaikovsky music choices and some of the design were a bit 80s-tastic-cheesy, but the choreography and dancers were unbelievable. I heard about Eifman from Jenny and Jane, when they were chatting in the kitchen one day while I was there and were gushing about how amazing his work is. His shows were completely sold out for their Moscow run, but I asked Tolya and low and behold, we had tickets 3rd row center! It was wonderful. His company is based in St. Petersburg and was here as part of the Golden Mask Festival, but they tour to the US a lot, so if you like contemporary ballet you should go! The dancers are classically trained, but the choreography is like a blend of modern, contemporary, and ballet. He has a great eye for stage pictures, and unlike a lot of ballet, the arms are involved in really interesting ways.

Carmen Etudes on 4/4: The graduating MXAT class of 2007 put this show on and it’s been in rep at the school’s studio theater ever since. Choreographed by Alla Segalova (who also choreographed Office), it’s really more of a dance show, but very simple: black costumes, minimal set of benches and few props. Really well done, one of the better things I’ve seen here actually.

Woe from Wit on 4/5: Joe and I thought we were seeing Hamlet the comedy opera that night (Hamlet comedy opera, you say? I know). But it turned out we were going to see Woe from Wit, the Russian word-play classic, instead. Apparently about 60% of the script has become a Russian proverb. But sadly, we were unable to find a synopsis in the two hours between learning that we were going and the start of the show. Instead, we were rather confused by the overbearing set, large cast, dance number, French songs, huge rolling ball, and the real car that drove across the stage at the end (which was actually kind of little compared to everything preceding it). No clue what it all meant given our sparse knowledge of the plot/content…but at least it was entertaining to watch.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg on 4/6: Apparently Shakespeare just wasn’t in the cards for me this week. I was supposed to see Macbeth that night but wound up going to see this stage adaptation of the French film from 1960. The plot is kind of cheesy but easy to follow. The film is entirely sung, with one song that everyone knows (you would recognize it if I could hum over my blog). But apparently the film is really revered for being a visual delight. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the stage production was similar: cheesy, but eye candy. The set design was really cool, I made a crude sketch because I’m not sure I can do it justice. But basically there were two large circles within a proscenium frame, the one in front was an orangey-red and the one behind it was yellow. They had squares and rectangles of varying sizes cut out in them, and the circles would swing back and forth in between scenes, forming new rooms and spaces. Just watching how the set worked and the novelty of how it set up scenes was delightful.

July on 4/7: Another one of the legendary shows talked up to me by former students, July is basically a one-woman show that’s been playing at Praktika for four years and won a bunch of awards. I was a little nervous because I heard the show was really just her talking the whole time, and wasn’t sure how effective that would be for me given my practically nonexistent language skills. But her acting really was incredible: powerful, precise, beautiful to watch. She tells gives the monologue of a man who is basically a Hannibal Lecter type. The rate and rhythm of her voice, her specificity in vocal production and movement, and the simple yet effective design choices in this tiny black box theater all helped me understand that while what she was saying might be horrific, there was a kind of lyricism and poetry to the language too. There was barely anything on the stage, but at one point a row of track lights facing directly down lit up. The woman smoked a cigarette and blew the smoke into the beams of light, creating her own eerie prison cell. It was so beautiful that it took me awhile to break my reverie and write it down in my notebook. After the flash and effects of shows earlier in the week, it was nice to be reminded that sometimes simplicity can have the most stunning effect.