Day 15...a little break would be nice...

I have a chance to actually write by posting early today. We didn’t have a show on our schedule tonight and we couldn’t get tickets to the one we wanted to go see because it was already sold out. So Pegi, Alli, and I decided to make dinner and stay in tonight because we are exhausted. We did go with a couple of other folks after class to a large food market where we picked up some fresh veggies for dinner. Then we came back, cooked it up, and had a delicious meal. It was a large penne pasta with a tomato sauce that we added fresh sautéed garlic, onions, peppers, and carrots along with a few left over tomatoes from a previous meal that we diced up and added to the mix. Alli made some garlic bread with fresh chopped garlic and I made a variation of eggplant parmesan. I didn’t have parmesan so I used an unknown cheese that I had purchased for sandwich but I don’t read Russian so I have no idea what kind it was. All in all, it was a good meal and we even had leftovers.

Our first class this morning was Movement class at 11am…physically demanding but I’m learning a lot. Principally, the Russians have a theory about movement on stage where every action needs to be a conscious decision so it doesn’t become just aimless movement. For instance, we do several exercises where we start with a simple motion and build to the point where we are leaping into the air. When we are merely going through the motions, by time we get to the leaping, it just sounds like twenty one people pounding on the ground. However, when we are making the choice to try to stay in the air and only lightly touch the ground as we return to the air, the sound goes from heavy thumps to a light pattering of feet as we float in the air. Plus, personally speaking, you feel more in control of the motion, you feel lighter, and it becomes an easier motion of action. The exercised we do are all about controlling the body and becoming aware of focused motion where you are totally in tune with what you are physically doing, where you are on stage, and your relation to everybody and everything on stage. It’s amazingly cool stuff…

Then, for the afternoon, we had our second Stage Composition class with Victor. All we did was talk about our plays that we are going to be doing a “design” for in the class. We only got to three of the five plays but I learned a bunch about things I could be thinking about while reading the play. Peter went first talking about The Cherry Orchard, I was second talking about Three Sisters, and Cara finished up the class talking about Ivanov. First we would talk about the show and things that we thought were important (like there needs to be a piano in the drawing room for Tusenbach to play) for each act and things like the time of day, time of year, and location of the play. Then Victor would ask us prying questions about why we included some things or about something that we may have missed then follow it up with “Why?” Essentially, he made me think about things in my play that I hadn’t thought about, which I guess is kind of the point for the class. Well, next class we are to start bringing in drawings and choices about color. I think we are all looking forward to it.

I didn't take to many pictures today but these were a couple of cool looking buildings that we passed while on our market shopping trip...and I just couldn't get Peter (the actor) and Carollette out of the frame, oh well...