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.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
13 October 2009
Dear Sir,
I thought you might like to read this quote from Katie Mitchell from an interview with her when she was working on the play:
"You’ll notice in the play there's a lot pre-occupation from Chekhov about timepieces. One of the main events in the play is when an old buffer who hangs about in the house (and) he rents a room where the three sisters live. He drops a priceless clock on the floor and then in Act 4 everyone seems to spend all the time looking at watches. And I suppose the man who was writing it - Anton Chekhov - was also thinking a lot about time because he was dying, and he was living in Yalta with tuberculosis. He was very aware of every second that he had available to live. So the play is fantastic because it's both full of the despair of the man who knows he's dying, and the absolutely joy and delight of a man who knows that (fact) and so is full of excitement about every second that he's alive."
I thought you might like to read this quote from Katie Mitchell from an interview with her when she was working on the play:
"You’ll notice in the play there's a lot pre-occupation from Chekhov about timepieces. One of the main events in the play is when an old buffer who hangs about in the house (and) he rents a room where the three sisters live. He drops a priceless clock on the floor and then in Act 4 everyone seems to spend all the time looking at watches. And I suppose the man who was writing it - Anton Chekhov - was also thinking a lot about time because he was dying, and he was living in Yalta with tuberculosis. He was very aware of every second that he had available to live. So the play is fantastic because it's both full of the despair of the man who knows he's dying, and the absolutely joy and delight of a man who knows that (fact) and so is full of excitement about every second that he's alive."
Thursday, October 1, 2009
1 October, 2009
My dear Sir,
My research into your play keeps mounting, and the sheer amount of material for me to sift through is a daunting task. The dining table at my house is covered in stacks of books and printouts more than a foot high. I'm currently focusing on discovering just what life was like in rural Russia in the lat 19th Century, but most of what I can find is about peasant life. This has been remarkably interesting, particularly in regards to Natasha's background (though she wasn't really a peasant, was she), but what about bourgeois day to day activities? I've new perspective on the "sending away of the mummers" in Act II, though. Apparently, the towns and small cities swelled at Shrovetide, as young peasants swarmed to town for the festivities. But these weren't necessarily the happy carnivals I imagined. The "carolers" often included young hooligans, and their songs were comprised of veiled and not-so veiled threats of what would happen should the homeowners not give them money. Real violence could occur, and street-brawls were not uncommon during the festival period. So when Natasha tells them not to come, there's a threat there of outside attack that I hadn't considered before.
I'm finding it difficult to find ways to explore your use of time theatrically. I printed up a timeline of events mentioned in the play, beginning with the founding of higher education in Moscow, since there is the argument over how many universities are in the city. It begins in 1682 and runs through 2198. I placed the action of the first act in 1894, based on the year it was written and the actual calendar, which I was able to do based on Shrovetide Thursday in relation to Easter and other events mentioned. The timeline is fifteen pages long, all taped together like a scroll. Since some years contain many more events than others, if each year took up the same amount of page space, it would be well over 258 pages! I've found it to be an extremely useful visual reference for the way the people of the play relate to time themselves. What's waiting a few months versus 258 pages of blank space?
This week, we conducted an experiment with time and voice that yielded some interesting results. Taking three different translations of Irina's "I want to work" speech in Act I, each of three actresses read the speech concurrently, taking care to pace themselves so they were in generally the same thought pattern at the same time. They spaced themselves around the space, and the experience was quite exciting. While individual words and sentences could not be discerned, the meaning of the speech remained intact. The thought patterns and individual beats within the speech were still immediately accessible, though many of the words themselves were lost. Time seem expanded and circular and ultimately vacant. The effect was similar to what is called "bullet time" in film, when the camera moves into extreme slow motion and pans around an object in motion, as in The Matrix films. I think today we'll do some exploration on waiting. What does it mean to wait? How do we experience it?
Thank you for not sending me a cease and desist letter, or for telling me that my experiment is one of which you disapprove. I was afraid you'd tell me to stop, or at the very least not to write to you anymore. I assume in your silence that I have your support. The path ahead is wild, and exciting, and unknown, and I'm more than a little scared. Your implied appreciation and interest is a great solace for me.
Yours,
Curtis Young
My research into your play keeps mounting, and the sheer amount of material for me to sift through is a daunting task. The dining table at my house is covered in stacks of books and printouts more than a foot high. I'm currently focusing on discovering just what life was like in rural Russia in the lat 19th Century, but most of what I can find is about peasant life. This has been remarkably interesting, particularly in regards to Natasha's background (though she wasn't really a peasant, was she), but what about bourgeois day to day activities? I've new perspective on the "sending away of the mummers" in Act II, though. Apparently, the towns and small cities swelled at Shrovetide, as young peasants swarmed to town for the festivities. But these weren't necessarily the happy carnivals I imagined. The "carolers" often included young hooligans, and their songs were comprised of veiled and not-so veiled threats of what would happen should the homeowners not give them money. Real violence could occur, and street-brawls were not uncommon during the festival period. So when Natasha tells them not to come, there's a threat there of outside attack that I hadn't considered before.
I'm finding it difficult to find ways to explore your use of time theatrically. I printed up a timeline of events mentioned in the play, beginning with the founding of higher education in Moscow, since there is the argument over how many universities are in the city. It begins in 1682 and runs through 2198. I placed the action of the first act in 1894, based on the year it was written and the actual calendar, which I was able to do based on Shrovetide Thursday in relation to Easter and other events mentioned. The timeline is fifteen pages long, all taped together like a scroll. Since some years contain many more events than others, if each year took up the same amount of page space, it would be well over 258 pages! I've found it to be an extremely useful visual reference for the way the people of the play relate to time themselves. What's waiting a few months versus 258 pages of blank space?
This week, we conducted an experiment with time and voice that yielded some interesting results. Taking three different translations of Irina's "I want to work" speech in Act I, each of three actresses read the speech concurrently, taking care to pace themselves so they were in generally the same thought pattern at the same time. They spaced themselves around the space, and the experience was quite exciting. While individual words and sentences could not be discerned, the meaning of the speech remained intact. The thought patterns and individual beats within the speech were still immediately accessible, though many of the words themselves were lost. Time seem expanded and circular and ultimately vacant. The effect was similar to what is called "bullet time" in film, when the camera moves into extreme slow motion and pans around an object in motion, as in The Matrix films. I think today we'll do some exploration on waiting. What does it mean to wait? How do we experience it?
Thank you for not sending me a cease and desist letter, or for telling me that my experiment is one of which you disapprove. I was afraid you'd tell me to stop, or at the very least not to write to you anymore. I assume in your silence that I have your support. The path ahead is wild, and exciting, and unknown, and I'm more than a little scared. Your implied appreciation and interest is a great solace for me.
Yours,
Curtis Young
24 September, 2009
My dear Sir,
I should like to introduce myself as a graduate student working with your plays. I study directing for the theatre, a notion that though new in your time has since become an accepted and important discipline over the past century. I hope you don’t mind receiving the occasional letter from me. Feel free to throw them away, or burn them, though I hope you might be willing to share your ideas with me and help me to critique my own.
My project concerns your play Three Sisters. I’m afraid I’ll be doing all sorts of things to it that you might not approve of, though since you’re dead that doesn’t concern me too much. I know you felt that Stanislavsky’s realism didn’t do the play justice, and I think you’ll find my own approach somewhat less bothersome in that way. I hope that you would find my work at least an interesting investigation into the text, though we won’t actually be playing it as you wrote it. In fact, I am using your words as a “jumping off point,” and I really have no idea where the investigation will lead.
In my initial research, there are a number of questions I’m having difficulty answering. Just how rural is this town? Vershinin mentions 100,000 people, but is that some conjectural town or the one they’re actually in? If you’ve based the location on Perm, well, Perm had nowhere near 100,000 people at the time. I know the house is in town, or close to it, since Irina is able to walk home from her job, and the fire brigade need to go through the garden to get to the river for water to put out the fire. And what is the layout of this house? If Chebutykin lives downstairs, just how does that work? I ordered a book on Russian architecture, but it turned out to be a coffee table book and not much help. It does help with some details, but I was hoping to find a large home in a small town, not apartments in St. Petersburg. How far is your home in Yalta from the town itself? Could you walk to the market?
All these people talk a lot about time, don’t they. Time time time. That’s what I’m going to be looking at. You break a clock right in the middle of the script, and it’s sort of glossed over. That’s pretty important, isn’t it? I think we may begin with that- don’t be angry. We’re playing with your play; I think you might like that idea.
At rehearsal this week, we’ve been reading the play out loud. I’ve got four women and two men, and they’re taking turns reading each part. I’m so glad to find that they’re laughing at most of the things I laugh at. They especially enjoy moments when multiple conversations are going on, but are arranged to comment on each other. We’ve had a few moments of “I can’t believe she SAID that!” All the different timelines happening at once on a sort of micro-level. They whirl around each other, combine and converge. The actors especially loved the little fit Masha throws when Vershinin goes home to deal with his wife’s latest suicide attempt.
And we have another one of your doctors, as different from Astrov as can be, but with another dead patient. I wonder, did you have a patient who died during treatment that obsessed you? Maybe one of the biographies will tell me. I’ve amassed a great pile of books on my kitchen table, and sifting through them is a daunting task. And I’ve still got to read Turgenev and Gogol. Find some folk songs or popular songs of the day.
I believe I may have taken up enough of your time today. I’ll write again in a few days when I’ve finished the reading I’m doing on rural Russia. We’re quite removed from that society here in 21st Century America, and I know I’ll have some more questions for you.
Gratefully yours,
Curtis Young
I should like to introduce myself as a graduate student working with your plays. I study directing for the theatre, a notion that though new in your time has since become an accepted and important discipline over the past century. I hope you don’t mind receiving the occasional letter from me. Feel free to throw them away, or burn them, though I hope you might be willing to share your ideas with me and help me to critique my own.
My project concerns your play Three Sisters. I’m afraid I’ll be doing all sorts of things to it that you might not approve of, though since you’re dead that doesn’t concern me too much. I know you felt that Stanislavsky’s realism didn’t do the play justice, and I think you’ll find my own approach somewhat less bothersome in that way. I hope that you would find my work at least an interesting investigation into the text, though we won’t actually be playing it as you wrote it. In fact, I am using your words as a “jumping off point,” and I really have no idea where the investigation will lead.
In my initial research, there are a number of questions I’m having difficulty answering. Just how rural is this town? Vershinin mentions 100,000 people, but is that some conjectural town or the one they’re actually in? If you’ve based the location on Perm, well, Perm had nowhere near 100,000 people at the time. I know the house is in town, or close to it, since Irina is able to walk home from her job, and the fire brigade need to go through the garden to get to the river for water to put out the fire. And what is the layout of this house? If Chebutykin lives downstairs, just how does that work? I ordered a book on Russian architecture, but it turned out to be a coffee table book and not much help. It does help with some details, but I was hoping to find a large home in a small town, not apartments in St. Petersburg. How far is your home in Yalta from the town itself? Could you walk to the market?
All these people talk a lot about time, don’t they. Time time time. That’s what I’m going to be looking at. You break a clock right in the middle of the script, and it’s sort of glossed over. That’s pretty important, isn’t it? I think we may begin with that- don’t be angry. We’re playing with your play; I think you might like that idea.
At rehearsal this week, we’ve been reading the play out loud. I’ve got four women and two men, and they’re taking turns reading each part. I’m so glad to find that they’re laughing at most of the things I laugh at. They especially enjoy moments when multiple conversations are going on, but are arranged to comment on each other. We’ve had a few moments of “I can’t believe she SAID that!” All the different timelines happening at once on a sort of micro-level. They whirl around each other, combine and converge. The actors especially loved the little fit Masha throws when Vershinin goes home to deal with his wife’s latest suicide attempt.
And we have another one of your doctors, as different from Astrov as can be, but with another dead patient. I wonder, did you have a patient who died during treatment that obsessed you? Maybe one of the biographies will tell me. I’ve amassed a great pile of books on my kitchen table, and sifting through them is a daunting task. And I’ve still got to read Turgenev and Gogol. Find some folk songs or popular songs of the day.
I believe I may have taken up enough of your time today. I’ll write again in a few days when I’ve finished the reading I’m doing on rural Russia. We’re quite removed from that society here in 21st Century America, and I know I’ll have some more questions for you.
Gratefully yours,
Curtis Young
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