Discussing the film with everyone was great, and helped me to get a bit clearer on what exactly it was about the film and those actors that brought Chekhov's writing to life in a way that I haven't seen before. For me, the biggest thing was in the way the actors approached or treated the text: in English speaking Chekhov performances I've seen ("Euuuurgh! I hate when British do Chekhov - they all have sticks up their bum") the actors treat the text with reverence, as though it's sacred, and there is a real tendency to make every moment and every line deep and meaningful. We try to find the substance and hidden depths in every line - and I think it really is a cultural thing, because it's written for Russians, and they clearly are just not like that. What the actors in the film brought to their performances was the ability to let a line mean absolutely nothing - to let the text be just as silly as it can often seem to be - and it brings an irreverence and joy and life to the text that so very frequently is squashed. To let the text simply be text is to let everything else - relationship, situation, life - come to the fore. And that's why Chekhov is the master of subtext, that's what subtext is.
It was interesting for me to listen to the way the American students talked about and analysed the performance. I found that so often they only described what they saw and what effect it had on the audience but very infrequently did they take the next step and think about then how that can be made into something useful for their own acting. Analysing the effect of something rather than what the actor is doing to make that happen. And again, it's a skill that we practise at Toi Whakaari so regularly that it starts to become second nature, and I've begun to take for granted. Because while they were all making astute observations, I was sitting there going to myself "ok, so then how do you make that work for you? What can you do when you're acting to achieve the same thing?" It's a subtle difference that I'm only really starting to appreciate but it moves the abstract into the tangible - something that we actors should always be trying to do.
The discussion of Chekhov's life was also really interesting for me. The other guys had all been researching over their five week break and so were pretty well prepared, whereas I had remembered this morning so had a read about Anton Chekhov on Wikipedia while I ate my Cheerios. However, I was still able to keep up and contribute which was encouraging. And after this discussion I want to know more about him. Because when you start to find out about who the man was and the circumstances and time in which he lived, you look at the texts and suddenly you start to hear a voice and see these patterns and realise what he's actually going on about. This guy was first and foremost a doctor (who provided medical care to the poor for free in awful conditions in 19th Century Russia), who happened to be good at writing and so initially did it to make money to sustain his medical career. Bonkers. He was a real humanitarian, a listener, so giving and aware and so far ahead of his time it's unbelievable. Svetlana said of him: "He's my favourite writer because he's my favourite human being."
And then the pronunciation of names. Wow. I mean, I'll admit that they were initially a little bit difficult (until you figure out the sort of linguistic logic of it), and Svetlana moved pretty fast through it and was absolutely unforgiving of errors, but most of the class was just abominable at it - they just couldn't get their heads around the words at all. I was the only one who pronounced all the names I was asked to repeat right first time - some couldn't get them at all. And I suppose part of it (or a lot, I don't know) is down to the American accent, and the fact that there are a lot of Russian vowel sounds that Americans just don't use. But in a lot of cases it was like they'd never even heard these sounds, and like they couldn't read or make sense of the letters in front of them. It was really bizarre. And Svetlana got really cross with them - which probably didn't help because it put a lot of pressure on. She kept saying "It's not that hard!", and I tended to be on her side, but it was incredible how hard a time so many people had with it.
So I was meant to go this afternoon to observe the graduate actors working with Svetlana, but when I asked her about it she said that she would be doing exactly the same class with them so it wouldn't really be worth it - so I'm taking the afternoon to prepare for my first rehearsal of my scene from the Seagull this evening. But I think that next week or maybe the week after - depending on how fast we move along - I will go and sit in and observe the graduate actors at least once with Svetlana, just to see the difference in the level of work between them and the Senior class.
Right, off to prepare. And then the weekend! A whole day at Disneyland tomorrow followed by a Sunday of rehearsal and reading Chekhov is just what the doctor ordered.
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