November 13 – Day 57

The blizzard must have begun sometime in the late afternoon because although the ground was clear when I returned to school after lunch, there was nothing but white to be seen when we left acting class tonight. It was a surreal sight but as promised the city truly sparkles in the winter. I had had no indication of the downpour to come when I left for class this morning sporting my worn out canvas sneakers I hadn’t brought out in weeks. Perhaps they were the reason for my thrilling morning since they were what I was wearing in movement when I did the SPLITS for the first time in my entire life. I literally started screaming. It was by far the most excited I have been in Moscow. (In fact, the promise of the splits was one of the things that first intrigued me about this program.) Apparently, Natasha was also very proud of me because she told her other American class how exciting it was. I was on such a high that I did all my cartwheels one handed and almost launched into an aerial. These are things I never ever thought my body would be able to do despite the fact that I spent most of my childhood dreaming I could be like all of my graceful, acrobatic cousins. It was so thrilling I spent all morning bouncing about and ended up bouncing down (well I guess up, then down but it is kind of hard to explain) the marble stare case at MXAT. I bit it HARD right in front of the landing were a group of Russian women spend most of the day smoking and scowling. They were all present for my wipe out although not one of them made a single motion to see if I was alright. I did, however, her one of them snicker as I burst into tears from the throbbing pain which temporarily lead me to believe that I had shattered my kneecap. My high was unfortunately halted but not indefinitely. I finished my acting class and made my way out into the storm determined to just get home and attempt to sleep but my guilt settled in at the thought of missing an opportunity to see potentially great theatre when we only have a few weeks left. So I lugged all my bags back to the building and pawned a few off on some unsuspecting guys who were heading back to the door and joined the group going to see Ionesco’s absurdist piece Macbett. Absurd it was, but soooo brilliant and no joke, it rained fire! My favorite part was when Macbett brought out this massive sword that reminded me of Excalibur only instead of just being a badass sword it was also a flame thrower. As he dissected the air a stream of flame would burst outward in its wake and the other actors would jump or roll to avoid their deaths. It was so beautiful and expertly choreographed. And I am pretty sure I know what I want for Christmas now. I know that it is redundant but every time I see a show here I am blown away by the mise en scene. I have also started to pay particular attention to the lighting design here because its nuance is so superior to anything I have seen in the States. There is an attention to detail and an awareness to its significance which vividly alters the entire mood of the piece. In retrospect I think that the few shows I have seen that I really disliked all under/over utilized their lighting – inconsequential but one of those things here I continually find interesting to note. When the play finished I was thoroughly glad that I chose to schlep through the snow but my knee was less excited. It was coming down hard as we left the theatre and my pride was hurting as much as my knee. I get a lot of crap here for being “old” (funny since I feel like I am twelve in my life at home) and as much as every part of my body ached from movement class, I really did not want to admit that I was just in too much pain to walk for 40 minutes to a metro and then spend another twenty on a train but everyone was frolicking in the snow so I really didn’t have much of a choice. At one point I decided try this whole cab thing again (I had had a slightly terrifying cab experience with Katiya earlier in the week) to no avail, so I tried my best to suck up the tears and hobbled back with two of my classmates who were nice wait in the storm for me. I felt like such an idiot getting upset that I kept apologizing over and over so much so that I didn’t notice the giant patch of ice on the metro ramp and went soaring through the air like Daniel Stern trying to break into the basement in Home Alone. Luckily for me, my classmate Daniel was quick to catch my fall and the entire scenario looked like a slapstick gag. It tied up the day nicely, bring it back to the hilarity of realizing that at twenty five, even if you can do things for the first time like pulling your limbs in opposite directions, or flipping through the air, it isn’t necessarily wise.