November 7 – Day 51

Today I got to live out scenes from one of my favorite movies of all time. With Natasha gone for the week to Egypt for a Yoga retreat our usual movement class was replaced with FENCING. I have to say I am in love. It is now my favorite sport. I felt like such a bad-ass catching swords as they flew through the air and sparing with a partner after only a few minutes of technique training. It is physically exhausting but it is so much fun. This particular training is designed specifically for the stage so rather than simply learning the basics we were taught how to fight from the perspective of the actor. I have done stage combat before but it paled in comparison to the mental and physical stamina this conjured. I left class feeling tougher than Indigo Montoya and ready to choose a new life’s passion. We also had a guest speaker today in our Theatre History class. His name is Constantine Bolganov and he is THE hot new director in Russian theatre. I saw his production of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ a week ago and it was so terrible I left at intermission. It was one of the most ridiculous examples of self indulgent visualism I have seen on stage by a non-amateur and it made the thought of sitting through his two hour lecture a little painful. For the most part it was basically what I expected. (I mean he defended making Beatrice, one of the strongest women in all of Shakespeare, a pathetic sex kitten by saying, ‘Why not? She is beautiful. She is attractive. So why not.” It made my skin crawl a little.) But he did say one thing that I found particularly relevant. He said that every performance is an achievement and every performance is a mistake. It is such a fascinating and liberating way to approach life as well as art – without a condemnation of failure, without a constant obsession for perfection. It is one aspect of the Russian artist mentality that I hope I am able to carry with me when I return. It is a much more grounded perspective of reality and it makes the idea of taking risks much less petrifying. The best things in life are scary – they don’t say you never know unless you try for no reason. I feel like being here has allowed me to discover parts of myself I never knew existed, try things I never thought I would enjoy and explore in ways I never knew were possible. I am starting to feel free, like a great woman I always wanted to be.

November 6 – Day 50

Droznine is the foremost Movement instructor/methodologist in all of Russia. He almost single handedly recreated the way movement was done on the post-revolution stage. (The main reason for this was that Stalin had almost all innovators of movement technique executed during his reign because of any threat they might pose to the Social Realist ideal. Theatre after that was limited primarily to talking.) Natasha is a scholar of Droznine and because she was away this week, she asked him to speak with us. He is such a captivating presence although not at all what I expected. He looks more like Pee-Wee Herman than the Adonis I expected to be responsible for why I am being bent into strange and terrible positions on a daily basis. He had so many insightful theories on humanity and the human form but more so on the spiritual relationship we have with our being. He talked about the pragmatism of his American students and I guess I had never thought of it but it is so very true. In American society we think of our bodies more like something that we own than an essential part of the body, mind, soul triphecta. We eat to get nourishment, to get it done and get on with it. We run because we feel that we need to maintain a certain form or look at our shape from the periphery, as an object to be controlled for public perception or utilization. What I found so intriguing was that he discussed the idea of ritual as a way to maintain daily awareness of your being and as a way to become more present in your world. Being present is something I struggle with and even here, surrounded by these great thinkers with so much knowledge to share, it is hard not to stray to thoughts about what in the hell I am going to do next. The irony didn’t phase me tonight when I read the trades for the first time since I left Los Angeles. I had no idea what was going in the business and really didn’t care but suddenly the writers are on strike and life it seems as well as the business has moved forward in my absence. There was a split second when I thought that maybe this was a make or break situation, like somehow my reaction to this information would be an indication of where I should go next but I am fairly sure life is not that easy. So I panicked for about a second, and then became engrossed, reveling in the idea of thinking for a minute about the actual business - not theories of art but the reality of how to get it done. It was exciting feeling connected again for a second but I quickly realized that there is absolutely no one here I can share this with and no one I can really talk to about it at home, or in LA I should say. Regardless the day was full of insight and exciting new things to ponder about the world although it seems grand revelations about the future will have to wait for another day. For now I just have to deal with the task of being present.

November 5 – Day 49

I had just finished having a conversation about how this was the first day in Moscow that I had absolutely nothing to write about when life once again set out to disprove me. It had been a blissfully uneventful day. I did a little laundry, cleaned my dorm room, even listened to the Patriots/Colts game downloaded from the internet. It was bitterly cold and snowy outside and my pajamas were so comfy I could not bring myself to venture outside. I spent the entire day relaxing and reading with few interesting anecdotes as a result. But then Nick came in to rehearse. We were given our scenes for the final presentation on Saturday and at first I was sort of bummed not to get a scene from Chekhov. Instead I received a scene from Ostrovsky’s ‘The Diary of a Scoundrel.” I am not a huge Ostrovsky fan and at first read this play seemed particularly trivial and ridiculous. I wondered what exactly my professors viewed me as when they were choosing this piece but then I read through it with Nick. It is FUNNY! Actually funny and slightly raunchy (as much as was possible a hundred years ago) and the best part is that the character I am playing is irreverent, sexy and most importantly strong. She is an older woman who has seen and done a few things in her days to male counter-parts blush in unexpected ways. I spent the majority of my college lamenting over playing the weak, girlish victim and then discovered after I graduated that long before I was old enough to drink I appeared too old to play a my age. Since then it has been broken women on the brink of disaster and I have to say it can get to be a downer. It seems I only needed to cross a few continents to be perceived as strong and funny. It is a type of character I have always longed to play and the type of woman I always hope to be. Okay I am not 21 anymore (as my classmates constantly remind me) but that’s okay – I don’t think I was ever that good at it anyway but maybe the best is yet to come. It all seems to be getting better with age.

November 4 - Day 48

I love Moscow. I love that I love Moscow. It has been a rough two weeks but I finally feel like the hard part is over and I am getting back to the appreciation I had for this city when I first got here. I am finally becoming self-sufficient and capable in traversing the convoluted system that makes up Moscow. It took a month and a half but I am finally starting to get the language, I FINALLY understand the Metro and was able for the first time today to plan my day completely on my own. I made a date with myself today and no one else was invited. I took my time and was for once able to move at my own pace, with no one to wait for or to wait on me. I got up early and enjoyed several cups of coffee in our new kitchen (YAY! IT IS FINALLY FINISHED!) before getting ready to visit the Pushkin Fine Art Museum to see the Chanel Exhibit: The World of Art. The trip required several metro transfers and negotiating a labyrinth of perihotes but suddenly all the signs made sense. I could understand what I was reading and how I needed to navigate the tunnels. What I have missed most about having time alone is the self-sufficiency it requires. During the last few months I was in Los Angeles I got used to constantly doing something, being with people. I forgot how to enjoy the quiet. Here I have been desperate for it and the small amount I have been able to enjoy has reminded me how much value I get from being able to survive on my own. I felt so empowered all day and so much more open to the world around me. I met these hilarious Russian girls and hung out with them while waiting for hours in the queue outside the Museum. They asked me about my experiences here and my honest opinions about Moscow and the veil of discontent that has hung over the last few weeks felt completely non-existent. I knew that there would be point in this trip when things would be difficult and I would be unhappy but it is so nice to finally feel like the hard part is over and I can spend the next month enjoying myself to the fullest. After I left the exhibit, which was one of the most beautifully curated things I have ever seen – it was so ingenious, incorporating touch, smell and sound - I strolled along River reveling in the falling snow, listening to the sounds of Moscovites enjoying the beginning of winter. It was the perfect day. Despite the hard times, I have fallen in love with Russia in its complexity and magnificence. I have no idea how I am going to leave this place.

November 3 – Day 47

Tonight I was a grown up. For the first time in 47 days (perhaps much longer) I got to be an adult. I have been desperately craving the company of people who are old enough to remember the Gulf War, New Kids on the Block or the importance of Saved by the Bell to an adolescent mind. Five years never seemed like much before but somewhere along the way I realized that I was a college freshman when most of these kids were in middle school and the gap has since seemed insurmountable. A few days ago on my lovely stroll through northern Moscow I met a young British man named Nathaniel at a coffee shop and shared a fantastic conversation while waiting not to be served. We decided to meet up tonight for drinks and I am a little embarrassed to admit how out of my element I felt. First of all it has been a good long while since I have been on a date and even longer since I have had the kind of formal, thoughtful date I had tonight. I felt like at any minute I might get ushered away by the management and sent out to find the kiddy table. Nathaniel is a brilliant young lawyer from London who just relocated to Moscow to work at the largest corporate law firm in the world. He took me to an incredibly chi-chi club on Tverskaiya near his flat were we sipped decadent mojitos and sparkling water and discussed life and art and political correctness. He told me about the year he spent volunteering at an orphanage in Africa and how he took two years off university to build a house in New Zealand with his bare hands. Somehow we bypassed all the idle chit-chat that normally accompanies get-to-know you evenings and went straight to the real stuff. Somewhere in the midst of his insightful soliloquy about the unacceptable objectification of women in Russia, I started to feel like it was all way too much and for a split second I felt far closer to the twenty-year olds I live with than the thirty year old sitting across from me. It was, however a beautiful evening and we migrated from on lovely club to the next in the falling snow in an attempt to escape the smothering cloud of smoke that is an unavoidable presence in Russian establishments. We were just leaving the second lounge on our way to the Ritz-Carlton bar, to hear the ‘swanky’ (it sounds far less pretentious when said with an accent) string quartet that plays there in the evenings when I realized the time. It was 12:45 pm and I had to tell my incredibly generous date that I had to go back to my DORM because I had CURFEW. He was horrified and I was humiliated. I have never had a curfew in my life and even at twenty-five I felt more like twelve. The trip home was rather quiet with the exception of his musings on how he had never walked a ‘girl’ to a dormitory before, and it only became more uncomfortable with the incessant phone calls from the guys I live with who were going ballistic because I wasn’t home yet. My cheeks are still red just thinking about it. All in all it was a very nice way to spend an evening but it made me see how far I am from that place in my life. It was all too much, to perfect, to polite and part of me spent the entire night laughing at how ridiculous I felt in the situation, like when you try out your mom’s clothes for the first time or try to sneak into a bar when you are clearly only steps past puberty. On a certain level, I have spent the last few week worrying that I have regressed, become more and more emotionally immature and losing touch with my adult reality but after tonight I am starting to see with new appreciation the effect of my younger classmates. I have spent my entire life in a rush, bolting towards the next phase rather than enjoying the here and now. I am twenty-five and while that is no longer nineteen it isn’t yet thirty and I think it is okay to just want to enjoy the fun for a while. I am twenty-five. I have no plan for the future. I have no idea what is next. I have no concrete place I want to call home. But for the first time in twenty-five years that is alright. I am happy. I like my life. And I am really really enjoying the here and now.

November 2 – Day 46

I have had a difficult time writing this week. I keep putting it off. Life has been far too real for me to postulate on some vague impressions of the day. We talk and talk here about our theories of art and love and life, and in the end that is all it is - theory. Because while we are talking life happens and eventually we will all have to deal. This morning David left to go home and deal with his father’s impending death and in a few hours Andy will fly back to Los Angeles to bury the only parent he had left. We spend all this time forming hypotheses on the future of art perhaps so that we won’t have to deal with the actuality of the present, but it is here and it is unavoidable. At this moment I feel terribly fortunate and terribly spoiled. I have spent so much time thinking about what is missing I have missed what is right in front of me. I have so many amazing people in my life who love me unconditionally despite my best attempts to push them away. Before I left to come to Moscow I spent two weeks in Missouri, which were two of the hardest and yet most joyous weeks I have ever had in the place I never really wanted to call home. At one point in my stay, my father and I were driving though the country and he said to me, “Your friends are the family you choose. Your family is where you go when you have no where else to turn.” I have more family than one human being deserves, more love and more support. And I am an ungrateful brat who has taken it for granted for far too long. Tonight I talked online to a friend from LA who I didn’t realize how much I missed. We talked about some of our friendships that have come and gone, and I told him that for the first time I see that things are exactly as they are meant to be. You can choose your friends but your family, blood or not, they choose you. They are there, selflessly, instinctually, when you have not the strength to ask. Sometimes all you need is a reminder that someone somewhere believes that you are of value; someone somewhere wants you to know that you are loved. I hope with all my heart that wherever Andy is right now he knows that he is valued and that he is loved.

November 1 – Day 45

There are so many things about myself I wish I could change and while it is easy to dwell on this list there are moments which make me believe that we are built the way we are for a reason. Andy is the only person in this program older than me. He is quiet, he is private, and for the most part he is a wall – solitary, sturdy and strong. Last night he fell apart and he had no one here to lean on. It was Halloween and everyone was beyond drunk by the time he got the news. I hadn’t gone to the party because given all the circumstances it just didn’t feel right. When we found out I knew there was nothing to say to help the situation so I did the only thing I knew how. I tried to fix things - I tried to fix what I could. I helped him make calls and argued with airlines to figure out a way to get him home. It was stupid and insignificant but he needed to be taken care of and it was the only way I knew to help. We are built as we are for a reason. I think sometimes are biggest flaws are necessary. They can be our biggest assets. They can be what makes us strong.

October 31 - Day 44

Last night late into the evening we were all called into a meeting. David, one of the students in the other group who is very sweet and who I unfortunately haven’t really gotten the chance to know, found out that his father has only several weeks to live and has return to the states. Today, Will one of the guys who came with me from NIU told our small group that due to a virus he has, which killing thousands in the US right now, he might have to return home to receive treatment unavailable here because he is legitimately afraid if he stays he might die. Tonight, Andy another NIU student found out that his father died, and while he knew it was coming he had been planning to return in a few days and had been praying he would have a chance to say goodbye. These guys are friends. In this crazy place they are our family. There is a lot to process and any thoughts I have at this point just seem trivial. Discontent just seems so ridiculous now.

October 30 - Day 43

In Russia they say, ‘Nothing is allowed and everything is possible.’ It is the best expression I have found to date to describe the bizarre dichotomy that is the reality of living here. Everything is a contradiction and nothing makes sense. ­­­At 6:30 this morning I was startled out of my sleep by the sound of someone violently trying to break into my room. It scared me to death but for some reason my instinct was to bolt, half asleep, to the door to track down the intruder. The culprit was a sketchy looking construction worker who just shrugged and smirked at me when I tried to ask through broken English/Russian and heated hand gestures as to what in the hell he thought he was doing. In Russian they literally have no word or expression to define personal privacy. It is a concept completely foreign to them and as such I have become quite familiar with these types of violations. We have absolutely no space that is sacred and people come and go through our personal areas at their leisure. This was only one in a series of incidents in the past few days (others included Jenna having money stolen from her room while she was at class and Will being walked in on while he was showering in a locked bathroom by a construction worker who was clearly expecting to find a woman on the other side of the door) and I was left to begin my day on edge with an intense feeling of loathing towards the general populous that makes up this city. It has been a difficult few weeks in terms of the cultural differences and the hardest part is not feeling safe because I have yet to feel like I understand how to negotiate the city. It was an aggravating morning so I decided use my extra long break as an opportunity to explore areas of Moscow I had never visited. I started to walk and the further away from the center I got, the more the people started resemble real human beings rather than fashion models and the more the edges of the city’s atmosphere began to soften. My breathing became easier, deeper and my gaze began to open. I realized people on the streets were actually making eye contact with me, even smiling. One man passed me on the street and said ‘Hello. How are you?’ in English, then giggled and kept on walking. I was so startled it took me a second to recognize how American I clearly looked. I walked for hours, stopping to eat lunch in a park and watched mothers with their little children play on the massive clown statues that lined the boulevard. On my way back I got completely lost but I didn’t even think to panic. Somehow the Russian knowledge I had buried deep within my brain made its way to the surface and I was able to ask a Militia for directions entirely in Russian. There was something overwhelmingly empowering about being entirely self-reliant and I could clearly feel how much I have missed my independence. It was strange but during my walk I began to feel for the first time like this was a kind of home rather than a tourist destination. I had missed the interactions with real people just trying to live their lives rather than the polished façade of the Tverskaiya regulars. It was such a beautiful afternoon, so peaceful, so invigorating that all but dissolved my morning’s animosity and left me believing once again that in Russia, as in life, despite what you know or understand, anything is possible.

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.

October 28 - Day 41 - Photos

October 28 - Day 41

Today I think I left Moscow or maybe Moscow left me. The sun shone so brightly this morning that it’s warmth rather than the sound of violent construction was what first woke me from my sleep. Stephanie and I decided enjoy the beautiful weather by venturing to Gorky Park. Our first thought when we made it outside the dorm was that this world could not possibly be Moscow. It was too sunny, too happy, with too many cheerful families strolling down the streets. The air actually felt fresh and for once I didn’t have the grating taste of dirt lining my throat. As we approached the park from the North however, we could the feel the early sensation that accompanies abandoned carnivals in cheesy horror movies. We walked through the golden gates to find an almost completely empty amusement park. There were unmanned game booths and rides that looked as though they hadn’t moved in years with the occasional family guiding their toddlers on a miniature pony or Big Wheel. Everything seemed to move along in rhythm to the random Christmas music blasting through hidden speakers stashed away along the avenues. It was all so very strange and we weren’t sure what to do or even if we should be there so we just tried to migrate through, drawing as little attention to ourselves as possible. But as we approached a glistening pond, the mist started to settle and the warm autumn sun lit up the park, illuminating its once triumphant glory. I could see, without too much imagination, a sea of giddy Moscovites mingling around the popcorn stands while their children squealed from the massive Ferris wheel or roaring roller coaster. Just then, two swans glided over to us and posed as we snapped dozens of photos. Suddenly everything was beautiful again - that is how fast things shift in Russia. We wandered through the private gardens that surround the park discussing all of the topics that girls love best and laughing at their ridiculous attempts to appeal to western tourists before ending up at the Tretyakov Sculpture Garden. It was enchanting and silly and heartbreaking all at once. I am developing such an intense love of sculpture being here because the work is so unlike anything I have ever seen. It all seems to defy my previous notions about both classic and contemporary sculpture and feels far more embedded in humanity then what I accustomed to seeing in the States. It was the most beautiful, unrushed day and we walked and walked until the brisk air turned bitter and ushered us towards the metro and then to our dorm for hot apple cider and a nice long nap.

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.

October 26 – Day 39

Sometimes stupidity is a necessary part of life; being completely ridiculous without a second’s hesitation about appropriateness or practicality. Tonight was by far the most fun I have had in Moscow. It was ridiculous and immature and a massive relief from the building tension of too much over-analytical, hyper-emotionally developed, introspection. It was… DORM OLYMPICS. It was childish, mildly destructive and a wee bit dangerous but I suppose the best things in life often are. My events of choice were Mattress War and the grand-slam Monkey in the Middle tournament. For better or worse most of the evening’s action was documented on video. From the delightful exhaustion I feel right now I'd say I need more stupidity in my life.

October 25 – Day 38

I can’t help but think how trite this all must sound. All this talking and pondering. Sometimes it seems so silly. I could say that it is just what we do here – what we are commanded to do but I think I would be like this no matter what I did. And all of this thinking is not painful, in some twisted way it is fun, but I wonder how ridiculous I must sound having some sort of revelation nearly everyday. None the less that is what happens. Today I got my first major ass kicking by my acting class. Somehow in coming to Russia, I developed this strange feeling that dressed itself as confidence but moved more like a sense of nothing to lose. It has been so liberating and for a while I struggled to remember the last time I felt this way. (I think maybe when I was little and sang in church every week with Meredith Leonard, and never knew to question whether or not I had any talent.) I suppose it is only natural that the longer I am here the more I will have invested and the more I will hate to fail, but I wasn’t prepared for it to hit this hard. We had been working on independent scenes from Chekhov and finally presented them today. My problem wasn’t that they ripped apart our scene or that I was upset by their critique, it was much smaller. They debated a choice we made and after all their prodding and explanation I still failed to agree with them. That was it. They are the best actors in the entire country and some of the best teachers in the world. They have decades of wisdom and experience on me and even now I think they are wrong. It is such as stupid little thing and I understand where they are coming from but I deeply feel like this can’t be the only way – I want the option to believe in another way. And thus I reach my daily revelation/conundrum. I have this tendency to put my teachers, my superiors, my elders – hell, even some of my friends, on some sort of pedestal and then I have this inner debate between a freethinking spirit and the mind of insolent child - is it ever possible to really agree to disagree? I left feeling disconnected, distanced from the minds of people I deeply respect, wondering if that is just a part of growing up. Is this the beauty of letting go – knowing what battles are worth fighting and when it is okay to be misunderstood? Can you maintain a connection if you fail to find common ground? In the end, is knowing your own truth more important than being heard?

October 24 – Day 37

I danced today. I danced all the way to school. I danced up and down and up again on the endless stairs at MXAT. I sang out loud and head-banged to the ridiculous chick rock blaring from my IPOD. I quickly discovered that despite a few odd looks from otherwise stone-faced Russians no one really cared and I deeply enjoyed the ludicrously of it all. After all, I am in Russia, who cares?!? It was the first day since the St. Petersburg trip that I didn’t feel heavy. I wrote and wrote until 4 in the morning about every piece of silliness bothering me and felt the tremendous freedom of letting it all go. It was such a fantastic day. It was finally a little warm and there was even a beam or two of sunlight. We spent the morning working on back bends and summersaults and I have to say I might be getting the hang of it. I had so much fun all day and could barely contain my anticipation for the evening’s performance of the opera Eugene Onegin based on the famous Pushkin novel in verse about the original superfluous man. It was so amazing. I cannot believe how spoiled I am to see all this phenomenal work. I could go to the theatre every night here and still not see everything the city has to offer. It was so gorgeous. I cannot get over the fluidity of the Russian stage picture. Every work I have seen, no matter the genre, moves with the rhythm of choreography without its limiting rigidity. The design of these shows takes live theatre to a different realm. Every element is so rich and such a decisive choice. Perhaps because it is rep and some of these shows have been running for over 20 years but there is a clarity and vision so distinct it astounds my mind. My favorite part of the mise en scene was in the final ball scene during the General’s aria, which was beyond heart-breaking, when they lowered a faux proscenium made of ornate crystal beading and golden thread woven so intricately it resembled a series of ornate necklaces like that of Catherine the Great. Sometimes when a piece of theatre is truly spectacular you can feel the breath of the audience moving in rhythm with the heartbeat of an actor. Typically it is spiritual subtlety. In Russia it is a reality, manifesting itself in thirty minute curtain calls where the audience creates rhythmic harmonies in their syncopated applause.

October 23 – Day 36

After the major stomping I got from Russia yesterday I had no energy to go to the disco and opted instead, for once, for a good night’s sleep. Luckily, I heard all about it this morning when I woke up. Jenna came into my room and crawled into bed, lamenting to me and Stephanie about the ‘bad decisions’ she made at the dance. It was the most eerie sense of déjà vu and suddenly I was transported back to a time and place when life was much less confusing, a brief window when Saturday mornings were spent nursing hang-overs and joking around with my sorority sisters about the ridiculous things we may or may not have recalled doing the night before. Somehow in all the laughter and teasing, all the crap I had been worrying about just didn’t seem that serious. Stephanie and I walked to school and had this incredible conversation about our life here, how it is something we will never be able to fully verbalize to those who are not experiencing it and how studying Chekhov in this place is the only way to fully understand our transformation. What was so bizarre, and it really shouldn’t be because it keeps happening, was that the exact conversation we had on our walk was practically repeated verbatim by our acting professor. I am beginning to think of this trip less as an acting excursion and more as a really expensive massive therapy session. Studying this work is like the guidebook to the complications of life. What I love about it is that Chekhov doesn’t try to sum it all up in a nice neat message. His characters have both vision and vises because he embraces the messiness of life. He got that life is complicated and as such his work should be. Just when you think you have it figured out you discover another layer to the situation and you see a person or conflict from an entirely different point of view. After class, I sat down to write about all this and discovered an email from an old friend. He had crossed my mind from time to time while I was walking around St. Petersburg, but it all feels so long ago; it is hard to believe that part of my life was real. At some point over the last few months I came to the conclusion that moving forward meant letting go of people and situations that have been chains to the past. It is a notion I have been struggling with on this trip. If I want to move forward, how can I possibly go back – to Los Angeles, to a life that wasn’t working, to relationships that were destructive? But then I got this email, which caught me completely off guard and reminded me why people never cease to be amazing. I really thought that walking away and starting from scratch was the only way to create a new direction but my old friend has once again challenged my preconceived notions and made me see that there is always more than one way to approach a crossroads. There is always room for second chances, and sometimes even thirds.

Pictures of St. Petersburg

October 22 – Day 35

Russia kicked my ass today – hard. St. Petersburg was a wonderful trip, filled with amazing experiences but it also opened an entire series of thoughts and worries I have been trying to put on hold; doubting the future, searching for a home, looking for any indication of what to do next. I sat on a bridge overlooking a canal of the Neva River just as the sun set, casting shadows of heartbreak on the face of St. Isaac’s Cathedral and I prayed to anyone who would listen for a sign. When I got back to Moscow this morning all I got was more confusion, one second I am overwhelmed by a flood of inspiration and the next I am baffled by the exasperating nature of man. We had the morning off after our six AM arrival and started the day with a stirring lecture by Professor Smelianski. We were talking about Chekhov’s play, Ivanov and how in all of his dramas there is the issue of spiritual disease. Chekhov was not a religious man but he often judges his characters on their ability to feel others pain and he constantly writes about intellectual creatures trying to deal with a void of heart – if you are truly alone in the world, unable to connect to the feelings of others and there is no higher power to help you, where do you find the inner strength to keep going. It was the most fascinating conversation and as has become a frequent occurrence, was a mirror to so many of the questions I have been having as of late. I have felt more and more isolated here, dealing with my thoughts beyond this place and the perspective I have within it. In the past few days I have felt so consumed with my inner turmoil, I have been unable to feel for the burdens of others – and this loss of empathy is something I find terribly disturbing. There is all so much to be processed right now and it feels as though at this point we are all in different stages of the process. The ensemble work has become more and more heated and aggravating to the unit as a whole and today it went so far that they were still bickering (I pretty much keep silent these days unless absolutely necessary) when our entire acting faculty, movement faculty and Russian professor, came in to announce that we would not be having class today or tomorrow morning because after the student show tonight, which we were to participate in, we were all invited to the student’s after-party disco ,which typically lasts until six AM. I think at that point a fuse switched off in my brain. It was sensory overload. My professors were telling me not to come to class because they wanted me to go out and drink and mess around with Russian boys. They asked me what I was thinking and all I could say was that this is a very bizarre country and it has been a bizarre few days that I am still trying to figure out. And with that they all left. We spent the rest of the day trying to rehearse with 35 screaming voices, no director and increasing agitation amongst those not willing to yell. I feel so cranky and all I want is have a second to get it out of my system but that is a luxury we don’t have. Stephanie, who is the sweetest girl had to leave after rehearsal to get a drink and calm down before the show. It didn’t really work but by the time started she was feeling no pain. And this is normal – cause it is Russia. The show was a confusing mess but we got on and off without too many catastrophese and the faculty seemed to like it. I was almost out of the theatre, making my dash for home but Jenna stopped me and gave me a surreal soliloquy. She said, “I know that everyday is a test of your patience and everyday is a test of your will but we are all in this together and we just have to remember that.” She went on from there but I was too stunned to process. I am not sure of her exact intent but it snapped me out of my self-indulgent reflection and it least put me back on the track of external awareness.

October 21 – Day 34 - Part Two

I sat on a park bench this morning, nursing my hang over and watching little children play on a swing-set. Moscow and LA are two very different places but in the moment I saw the fatal flaw in both. Not enough parks with elderly couples holding hands, families out for a Sunday stroll, and beautiful children screaming with delight. It was the beginning of a deeply beautiful day. Stephanie and I wandered around St. Petersburg, stopping for several hours to shop at the flea market, lunch a quasi-Parisian café, take pictures along the Neva canals and eventually make our way to the Hermitage. The Russians compared the Hermitage to the Louvre as it was the get away for Katherine the Great and while I understand the comparison the architecture was truly unique. The first room I entered was gilded entirely in gold and the setting sun made it glow so intensely it was difficult to see. We did not have as much time as I would have liked but what I love about art museums and why I will never tire of going is that every time I go I fall in love with someone knew and discover a thought or concept I had never imagined. Today I discovered the work of sculptor, Venanzo Crocetti. He is a living artist and so different from the work I conventionally imagine when I think of sculptors of the human form. It is so difficult to describe his pieces in words but the way he used curves and fullness to define the shape of a female model and the squared edges of the male sculptor was genius. I could have stayed there for hours but the gallery babushka scooted me out at closing. As I was leaving I walked through a sea of Monet and came to a realization. I don’t want a live in the palette of Monet. Yes, it is beautiful and lovely, tranquil and soft but I am not a Monet and no matter how hard I try my colors will always be a bit too bold, too messy, too harsh. This thought launched into a splendid conversation with Stephanie, as we killed time before our departing train, about defining yourself by an artist’s style. (We play a game in acting class where we have to ask such questions. If this person were a … what would they be? It is one of my favorite games.) And then are we what appeals to us, what we are drawn to, or is that a separate notion meaning we are individual of our tastes in others or the external. This is why I love Russia, why I love art and artists and the random conversations that happen when you have time to be with your thoughts.