My dear Anton,
I'm halfway through reading your Ivanov. When I'm done with that, I will have read all your plays except The Wood Demon, which I hear you detested anyway.
I've really taken apart Three Sisters; my analysis is very thorough. I'm very close to understand exactly how Time works in the text, which is the main focus of all the foci I'm considering. Now I'm just not sure exactly what to DO with it. I believe if I were simply mounting your play as it is written, I could do a pretty good job of it. I know the events, I know the characters' spines and tactics. I know WHAT YOU MEAN very thoroughly- more thoroughly than I think I've known for any other script.
But now, as I want to experiment with how time works for these characters - and by extension for US today - I'm stuck. How can I theatricalize time? I have your words and your people, your places, your issues. What I don't have is a clear concept. What does it mean to wait? What does it mean to long for something that never comes, can never come, will never come? What does it mean to resign yourself to that, or not to? What does it mean to smash the clock, to not know what season it is, to live in the past, to be obsessed with the future, to seize the present? How long is now/forever/then?
And how can I explore that using bodies and words in space?
Tonight and for the next few days, I'll be reading more and more on devised and experimental techniques. I'm sure something will come from that.
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