Last week!

The central palace and fountain in Peterhof

(Day 43)

Hello for one of the last times! Today we had our second to last day of classes and tomorrow is our final “performance” of our Seagull scenes. This past week has been a whirlwind as we’ve been trying to cram all of our free time with the activities on our St Petersburg bucket list.

Last Sunday I went with my roommates to The Marble Palace. It is, in fact, made entirely out of marble, it’s extremely beautiful and very large. It’s also one of the smallest palaces I’ve visited in this city, so that’s saying something. Sunday night we had tickets to see our last play of the trip, Uncle Vanya, at the Maly Drama Theatre. This obviously goes without saying, but I’m gonna say it anyway: the Russians know how to do Chekhov. End of story. Although I disliked the actor who played Uncle Vanya, a few of the cast members blew us away.

Tuesday after classes we explored some parks near the academy—Petersburg is full of them and they’re all really lovely and full of sunbathers and ice cream carts. Wednesday we got tickets to see a ballet called The Fountain of Bakhchisarai in the world-famous Marinsky Theatre. As expected, it was spectacular—I love watching any type of dance performance but I rarely see anything professional so this was a treat. Thursday night was a friend’s surprise 21^st birthday party/dinner.

Roof hopping

On Friday we took a long tour of the Peterhof Palace and gardens. This might have been one of the most gorgeous places on the entire trip—multiples palaces, fountains, gardens, the Gulf of Finland…the list goes on and on. Friday night was spent with some Russian friends in a typical soviet cafe. It was interesting to watch “the regulars” although the neverending chain smoking was a bit excessive for me. After the cafe and some climbing skills we got to watch the sunset over the city from a friend’s roof. It was actually magical. And our night ended with a boat trip through the canals, where we noted the moon for the first time in over a month since the white nights are officially over now.

On Saturday we toured the Hermitage—again, it was so grand and spectacular. My photos don’t do it justice. After the Hermitage my roommate and I recuperated in a cafe and then took a train ride and a pleasant walk in the woods to a beach on the Gulf of Finland. The entire beach actually smelled like a toilet but that didn’t stop any of the locals from swimming. After we got past the smell, we had a really nice, relaxing afternoon and evening.

Sunday was spent in Pushkin and Pavlovsk. Pushkin is the park where Catherine the Great and Alexander had summer Palaces. Pavlovsk is another giant park with palaces that’s just a bus ride away. Pavlovsk deserved an entire day trip and picnic but sadly we had very little time to spend there.

Clearly we’ve been getting all our sightseeing done. Be sure to keep checking the Just Photos tab because I have way too many photos for my own good and I want to share them.

Our Long Week(s) + Professor #2: Elena Kuzina

(Day 33)

So I think it’s about time to update everyone on our whereabouts lately when we haven’t been in class. First off: Moscow…was an interesting city. We took a walking city tour with Josh Wilson (who knows everything about everything it seems), saw Lenin’s tomb, ate a Georgian meal with prolific Moscow theatre critic, John Freedman, explored the Kremlin grounds, toured the Kremlin Armory museum, went 18 floors below ground to see Stalin’s bunker, saw Chekhov and Stanislavski’s graves in the Novo Dievitchy cemetery…the list goes on and on. Clearly we packed a lot into one weekend. The soviet influence is a lot heavier in Moscow than in St Petersburg. Bottom line: Petersburg is better–and more beautiful. Moscow vs. St Petersburg is said to be the equivalent of New York vs. Boston and I clearly route for Boston in this scenario. Anyway, it was nice to explore another Russian city.

Since our return the weather in St P has been ping-ponging between pouring rain and extreme heat. According to some of our professors, St P usually has 1-4 days of this kind of heat, so practically no one has AC  installed. Heat like this lasting over 4 days has only begun happening in the past couple years. On Saturday we took a tour of the Russian Museum. It’s giant and brimming artwork. However, if I thought that was big I can only imagine what I’ll think of the Hermitage when we go next weekend. On Sunday I ventured over to some islands with my roommate. Our favorite was Krestovsky Ostrov, which has an amusement park as well as a large walking park with some ponds. We also went to Peter and Paul’s Fortress across the Neva River where some of our friends went swimming….that, however, is not recommended.

This week we’ve been working really hard with our final professor, Mikhail Ilyin, who I will describe in a future post once we complete our scene studies with him. This brings me to our second professor, Elena Kuzina. As I mentioned before our first few days working with Elena focused on Meyerhold’s method of Biomechanics. I have to warn you that in contrast to Alisa’s method, which I am more familiar with, we only grazed the surface of Kuzina’s methods so I cannot talk about it in such detail. Biomechanics was developed by Vsevolod Meyerhold as series of long and precise physical exercises. Meyerhold strongly believed that an actor’s physical condition deeply influenced his emotions, so these exercises are meant to open up the actor and allow him to explore emotions and meaning behind text. During class Elena had us execute our Biomechanical exercises while performing individual monologues from The Seagull. The result was really amazing and allowed us to get out of our heads and really approach the text in different ways. After Biomechanics we spend the rest of our time with Elena studying Michael Chekhov’s technique. We explored psychological gestures, impulses, the characteristics of the four elements. For a few days we played with sticks and used them while reciting monologues and dialogues. Elena drilled into us the idea of individual focus in addition to an acute awareness of the actors surrounding us. We also threw balls and sticks a lot so paying attention was critical. Meyerhold and Michael Chekhov were both new to me so I definitely have a lot more to learn, but I enjoyed what I got out of that week studying their techniques.

Each person has been working on a specific character from The Seagull for a few weeks now, so all of our exercises help us to delve deeper into that character. With Mikhail we are beginning to explore scenes with text and bringing an analytical aspect into our work.

Professor #1: Alisa Ivanova

(Day 24)

I’m sure you’ve been wondering what acting techniques in particular we’ve been studying…and if you haven’t, well I’m going to tell you anyway.

For the first week or so we studied acting with Alisa Ivanova. I know Alisa from when she came to AU to direct Three Sisters and teach an Acting Chekhov class last Fall, so her style of teaching wasn’t new to me. It focuses on Stanislavski’s etude method, which he developed later in his life after his widely known, Americanized “System” or “Method.” Stanislavski spent his life exploring acting techniques and, naturally, he ended up changing his mind and bagging his original system, which involves more structured steps and instead moved onto etudes—essentially structured improvisations. Alisa’s studio explores the etude method for four years…and we had one week…but we were able to have at least an overview of the process during that time.

The basic message of this method is to follow your impulses. Although that seems straightforward, we must realize that as a society we hardly ever follow our most basic and true impulses. It takes a while to become in tune and aware enough to hear a true impulse, and then even longer to follow it without thought. The etude method also works greatly off of personal experience, awareness of physical life and the 5 senses, physical life dictating emotional life, meticulous detail, the ability to be completely natural even in front of an audience, and above all: NO ACTING. The first etude exercise we worked on was the shower exercise. (Don’t worry, we wear leotards, tights, bathing suits, etc.) Essentially, we bring all of our shower products and towels, set up our shower area in the studio as accurately as possible, and then…yes, take a shower. Believe me, it’s harder than it sounds. The goal is to be completely natural and to really feel the shower. We are not supposed to rush or prepare any shower activities. If your typical shower lasts 30 minutes, it should last just as long in class. Alisa’s studio spends the entire first semester doing this one exercise.

Exercises such as this one are repeated again and again in order to increase our awareness. One day Alisa asked us to imagine eating an apple. Simple enough. How do we hold it? How does it feel? What does it smell like? How do we bite into it? 10 minutes later she gave us real apples and told us to eat them. Basically we all realized we sucked a pretending to eat an apple. Now her goal was not to teach us how to pantomime eating an apple onstage, for we all know a Russian actor would never do such a thing. Alisa’s goal was to encourage us to always be aware of even the simplest tasks and how we execute them. Once we can understand how we live in the real world, we can begin to live naturally on stage.

Soon to come: Professor #2

Off to Moscow!

(Day 19)

Hello All!

I’m about to leave to catch an overnight train to Moscow, but I thought I would quickly fill everyone in on our long week so I’m going to make this quick. We began working with a new professor, Elena Kuzina. She’s really awesome–and very patient with us considering her technique is something we’re all struggling to get used to. She focuses on Meyerhold’s Biomechanics technique along with Michael Chekhov’s method. She calls Biomechanics yoga for actors…I call it uncomfortable, but after our three-day master class we really did see our work paying off. We also got to watch The Taming of the Shrew at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. We are all familiar with the play, however, our group prognosis was that the play was almost unrecognizable. It was VERY avant-garde to say the least, but it was also spectacular. You should picture Shakespeare in Russian on acid. Seriously.

It’d like to go into details but I’m in a hurry so you can expect a detailed post on the techniques and the play to come.

White Nights

(Day 13)

I have to say that one of the best parts of being in St Petersburg during June and early July are the white nights. They are stunning. Yes, they throw me off a lot. My body hardly ever knows what time it is since it looks like 4 pm when it’s actually 10 or 11 pm, but beginning at about 1:30 am the drawbridges are raised for a few hours so the barges and cruise ships can pass. The whole thing is amazing to witness so take a look. Photo credit goes to Adi Stein since I forgot my camera the other night.

Sorry About the Ads…

It was recently pointed out to me that I have small, yet annoying ads throughout my blog. I want to apologize, I discovered that the ads show up only for those who aren’t logged into wordpress. Since I’m always logged in I’ve never seen them before. There’s nothing I can do about this unless I pay for an upgrade…so we’ll all have to deal. Thanks

The Studio System

(Day 12)

So for those of you who are just as confused about the organization of the State Theatre Arts Academy as I am (or was), let me break it down for you.

The academy was established in 1779 and has over 900 students. They have four departments– the Drama Department, the Puppetry Department, the Set Design and Stage Tech Department, and the Theatre Studies department. Within those departments there are several different “majors.” The acting majors are split up between about 9 different studios. Think of it as NYU Tisch with a much more personal touch. Every 4 years a studio holds auditions for its new batch of students. Rather than having a freshman class, sophomore class, etc., the professors raise this single group of students for 4 years and then set them free and get ready for a new group. The studios usually have between 15-25 students and 5 main professors. One can only imagine how close they become since they are together all day, every weekday for 4 years. The student’s ages range from 17-27 and some people come here after their university studies. Each studio is in a different year of schooling, for example only one studio is graduating their class this year so they are the only studio taking new students for the fall.

Each studio spends 4 years building up a repertoire of shows. I believe the aim is to have around 10 shows by graduation. This is something I never really thought about before—being able to take the time to work on a show for 2 years and then keeping it in your repertoire rather than saying goodbye to it after a few weekends of performing. It makes so much sense! Every year there are hundreds of student shows open to the public and if a show is good enough it is moved to a professional theater in St Pete or taken to festivals.

The audition process is actually taking place right now and it’s really extensive. It consists of several rounds and students are cut at each round until they are left with the small group they accept. People flock from all over Russia to audition here…and all over the world for that matter. The academy also offers semester-long programs, year-long programs, and obviously summer programs.

I hope that was all clear, and I think I got the details correct. It’s a very intense, but inspiring place to be.

Plays!

(Day 12 of the program)

Good news!—No one need worry about whether we have too much free time on our hands because they keep us extremely busy here. This past week was packed full of classes, walking, touring, and seeing shows. And of course when we do have a spare hour we explore the city, attempting (often successfully) to use our language skills from class and enjoying the breathtaking white nights. Haha tough life, eh?

We’ve had the opportunity to see a bunch of really impressive shows so far. Don Juan, The Elder Son, and Hamlet (The Beginning) were a few of my favorites.

Don Juan is a professional production that has been running for over 5 years with the same cast. (In fact, I learned that it’s typical for the best professional shows in Russia to run for 10-20 years. One of our program coordinators told us about a play that ran for 35 years or something like that…and it’s always with the same cast. Talk about living the life of your character.) The aesthetics of the play kept on bringing me back to a production of Candide I saw at the Shakespeare Theatre in DC last winter. Both shows were so visually stunning and managed to be creative, humorous, and symbolic without detracting from the believability of the production. Looking back, this play was probably my favorite…it was just really, really great all around. Also, the actor who plays Don Juan is considered to be the best in St Petersburg…and he really was.

The Elder Son is a professional production and the actors are graduates of the academy. I was more confused about the plot at times because I wasn’t familiar with the play, but it was obviously really well directed and acted. We struck up a conversation with a man sitting in front of us who could not stop raving about the playwright, Alexander Valentinovich Vampilov. He said Vampilov was the one of the best in Russia, second only to Chekhov of course.

There were far fewer deaths in the version of Hamlet we saw, but that certainly didn’t detract from the excitement. The order of the play was untraditional but the performances were so focused and specific, it’s safe to say that I understood what was happening almost all the time. I was also sitting on the floor at the edge of this black box-type stage and I felt like I was inside the action the entire time. It was amazing how natural the actors made the language sound—and shout out to the actor who played Hamlet, he was outstanding and such fun to watch. We got to speak with him after the performance and it turns out they’ve been working on the show for over 2 years and that the production we saw was his 37^th! That kicks our shows’ ass since we are lucky if we get two weekends worth of performances in college. Hamlet is one of the shows in the students’ repertoire and they took it to a theater festival in Amsterdam this week.  They performed on Friday, and I’m sure it was amazing.

I can now say that I’ve seen Tennessee Williams performed in Russian, and I’ll admit that even though I’ve read and performed scenes from A Streetcar Named Desire, I was still confused while watching it. Streetcar and Summer and Smoke were the two third-year, student-directed shows we got to watch. Both shows were abbreviated, which did not help my confusion. They were not among my favorites that we’ve seen so far but I still appreciated a lot of elements, especially the set of Summer and Smoke, and considering both were entirely student-directed, they were impressive.

Finally, a note about curtain calls in Russia. Rather than having the standard American curtain call, (individual bows, entire cast bows, acknowledging the crew, a final bow, then walk offstage…it’s all pretty robotic) Russians view curtain call as a mini celebration. Anyone who brought flowers is welcome to walk onstage and hand them to the actors. Sometimes flowers are even thrown from the audience, which I thought only happened in movies. Everyone in the audience stands, cheers, shouts, “Bravo!” while the cast bows many, MANY times. I don’t think I’ve been to a production yet where the cast has taken fewer than 10 bows. At Don Juan the cast bowed probably about 25+ times and the curtain just kept on being lowered and raised again. It’s a lot of fun and it seems to me like a much better way to show the actors that you truly want to thank them for their performance.

Very Busy…

(Day 8 of the program)

Привет!

I promise I’ll write a full update soon! Our schedule has been pretty packed here, plus we need to add on between 30 minutes to an hour of travel time every time we go somewhere. In the past 4 nights we have watched 5 shows, none of which have been shorter than 2 hours and all of which have been in Russian. It’s been a lot of fun—but also very confusing. Thankfully we get the next couple nights to rest after classes and catch up on things like blogging, laundry, and grocery shopping…which really needs to happen…sometime soon. Anyway, I’ve posted some new photos from our city tour we had on Sunday and I really do promise to give greater details soon.

до свидания

Hello St. Petersburg

St Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy classroom. This building used to be the apartment of the Prime Minister back in the day. A lot of the building is original and dates back to the beginning of the 19th century

(Day 3 of the program)

Ahh, where to begin? I’m now in St. Petersburg and I have the train ride, border crossing, unpacking, grocery shopping and the first day of classes under my belt. Why not start in the beginning, shall we? The train ride was lovely and quite fast actually. It took about 3.5 hours from Helsinki including all the border/custom formalities. There was a big difference in scenery after crossing the Russian border, specifically in the amount of barbed wire. I’m including some photos from the train so I won’t go into extensive detail about the houses and things I saw.

After crossing the Russian border

Customs agents enter the train

Pretty…

When I got off the train I was met by Maria (Masha), who works at the academy, and took to my apartment. Driving in St P, I have learned, is every man for himself. Cars line the streets…they even double line the streets. People park everywhere—literally, everywhere. Maria told me that people regularly double park and leave their mobile number for the trapped car so the driver can call when he needs to get out. I arrived at the apartment and was quickly whisked away by Sergei from SRAS, who showed us around the city, helped us exchange cash, and took us grocery shopping. We learned that Sergei is a natural speedwalker, winding in between families and dodging old ladies, but according to him he’s always in a rush to get somewhere. Anyway, it was at this point that my roommates and I discovered that our apartment is approx. a 45 minutes walk from the theatre academy. Apparently it’s the norm for St Petersburg…this is going to be fun.

View from outside our kitchen

Sergei and our professors have given us many safety tips, most importantly a) do not trust the police because they harass people, especially if they know you’re foreign, and b) beware of well dressed, well built, kind Russian men….they are thieves apparently.

Example of a good parking job, taken in front of the Academy's main theatre

Outside the academy

Today we began classes after orientation. Russian language was first, followed by lunch and then acting class. We ate a “business lunch” which is basically a fixed price for salad, soup, an entrée, and a drink. I tasted traditional borscht for the first time…it was alright, I’m not raving about it. I’m elated to report that our first acting professor is Alisa Ivanova, who I know from this past fall semester at school where she directed me and my peers in Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Alisa is a wonderful teacher and such a caring person, it was nice to be able to reconnect with her. We spent class getting to know each other through various Stanislavski exercises, most of which I’m familiar with because I took her class. Towards the end  we were able to do some etudes, which are basically structured improv scenes.

Borscht

We ended our day with a play performed by the fifth year (graduating) acting class of the academy.  (I have now reached the point in this extremely long blog post which I’ve been terribly regretting. I could most definitely write a 5 page paper on the show we watched tonight so I’m struggling with how to condense my descriptions and compliments. Here goes.) The play was loosely translated into English as Human’s/Man’s Cub. I was told it was the story of the jungle book…so I really didn’t know what to expect. What I got was amazing. Picture a real life Disney’s Tarzan on steroids + STOMP - the brooms – speaking. The language barrier was a non-issue because the play consisted of only music and animal noises. It was outstanding. The students were so physically fit, so cohesive and in tune with each other, the music—everything.  There were trees, lions, monkeys, snakes, fighting, sex, dancing, intense drumming circles—it even rained on stage as they jumped about in their all-black outfits, covered in dirt makeup. So as you can imagine, it was pretty intense. It’s a difficult experience to explain, but it brought my idea of physical theater to a whole new level. I’m still thinking about that show, and I’m envious of the actors. It seemed like it was a blast and they are so talented.

Well, that’s all for now but I’ll write more about the classes and such as time goes on. Until next time!