October 29 - Day 42

Sometimes I think the best you can hope for in a given day are the little victories that let you know your strife isn’t all for not and somewhere someone is listening to the worries you hide in the deepest part of your heart. Today I felt like for once I won one – within myself, for myself, for the beliefs I hold dear. I have been having a difficult time with our acting program lately and it has slowly chipped away at my motivation and joy for the work. The Russians have very strong personalities and even stronger opinions, and while this wasn’t really a surprise it has been very hard to reconcile in terms of the approach to the art and the thoughts I have about myself. The difficulty with this work is that it hits so very close to home. It is not Shakespeare. It is not grandiose ideas about love and honor. Chekhov writes real people, with real issues, who’s conflicts are as prevalent today as they were a hundred years ago. I feel such a deep connection with these people, with these women and I have such empathy for the trials that they face. My professors are less sympathetic. The difference between the sexes is obvious here but for the most part it has stayed out of the classroom. Suddenly everywhere I turn there is another Russian eviscerating a female character’s character and to a certain extent I feel like they are condemning mine. We are not so different, these ladies and me, and I feel so often like the choices they are facing were based on my life. So…last week one of my professors, who I absolutely adore, went on this tirade about how Nina is a bad person (this, after we had already established that Chekhov doesn’t write black and white characters) and it really really upset me. I know he was talking about The Seagull but in my head I didn’t hear ‘Nina is a bad person’ – I heard ‘you are a bad person.’ And it is impossible to argue with them. They know these stories in and out. They have lived them for decades and their vehemence broke my heart. I spent the last few days with a cloud hanging in the back of my mind, causing me to dread the work for the first time. In this time I tried to formulate my rebuttal, trying to think of any way to defend her, to defend myself that he couldn’t immediately slam down. Today I got my shot and while he tried to hear what I had to say the limits of translation wouldn’t allow my point to be clear. Luckily for me someone else I felt my plight and my typically far more misogynistic professor let him have it. It was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen; two grown men, losing it in a full on bitch fight about the integrity of a fictional character. They were both so passionate, debating with such conviction, knowing clearly that what they were arguing about was far more than a play but an entire point of view on love. To me it was just a sign of hope - that there is always opportunity to see things from another angle, that no situation is ever really black and white and most importantly, that even though we all mistakes, everyone deserves a chance a forgiveness, a little compassion and human understanding.