October 27 – Day 40

There are reasons why we, as actors, do what we do. I could postulate until I am blue about the cultural and political significance of art or the transcendent experience of watching perfection in artistry but then there are performances that drain all the words from the universe and leave you with a feeling impossible to share with anyone who has not witnessed it himself. Tonight I saw Constantine Riken perform again, this time in Richard III. By the time I left the theatre I knew that this will be the last time I will ever see this play. I honestly believe nothing could come close to topping this production. All adaptations have issues, even ones of the utmost precision. In this case it was the loss of verse in translating Shakespeare into Russian but what the language missed the execution made up for ten fold. I wish I could describe Riken – his lightness and his strength, the boundless energy and endurance he carries through in each moment, the way I was at once repulsed and mesmerized by every move he made. In this production the value went far beyond the acting. Once again the mise en scene of Russian theatre was sensational and the atmosphere invoked images of ‘Edward Scissorhands’ meets ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’ It was a genius menagerie of spectacle yet it never diminished the cruelty and devastation of Richard’s tale. Stephanie wept the entire bus ride home and I couldn’t blame her; the tale is tragic. But by that point my mind had wandered elsewhere. In my life I have had a select group of relationships that allowed me to share my passion for art and as we stood there, clapping until I thought my hands might bleed, I started to wander who I would share this with when I return. Those conversations are something I miss tremendously and with each transformative experience I think how much I would have wanted to share it with people in my past. Being here all I want, all most of us want, is contact with the outside world, something to make it all a little less intense but at the same time we realize that when that time comes it will be hard to find words to say. For us, time has stopped so that we might submerse ourselves in a world that is entirely surreal – and uniquely ours. For everyone else life has kept on going and we aren’t sure where or how we will fit back in.