37

The theater is the opiate of the people, or so Comrade Lenin believed. What we learned today in our theatre history lecture was that as Lenin closed the churches throughout his newly constituted Soviet Union, he established theatres. Icons wrought from wood were replaced by icons wrought from make-up and good lighting; the ethereal was replaced with the real; epistles were replaced with propaganda.

Tonight the ballet began at 7 and few people were there to watch. The solace and peace of Chekhov's CHAIKA, transfigured into ballet, was lost on one-half of the house -- because one-half of the house was not there. Tonight, the people stayed home to count their blessings. What these multitudes missed was not a polemic on society; not a treatise on human dignity or bourgeois excess; not a homily on capitalist evils. Tonight the ballet began at 7, as scheduled, and presented an elegant exploration of Chekhov's characters. Tonight was an accidental escape.

As Anatoly Meronovich continued his lecture on Lenin and his relationship with the Moscow Art Theatre, he gave a nod to society's progress. Well, it was more of a shrug: Russians are beginning to view theatre as theater. 95% or so of Ruskis hold views similiar to those of Americans: you go to the theater to see pretty things, not to think. The theatre exists to entertain.

CHAIKA was a beautiful expansion of Chekhov's psychological nuance. It created new scenes, inspired by the play, that showed the humiliation and pain of Chekhov's beautifully flawed characters. A short but stunning duet between Masha and Medvedenko -- a woman "settling" for the also-ran of her heart -- stole the show (in my opinion). It was simple but complicated, it was plain but inspired, it was painted in gray but conveyed a spectrum of ache, love, and longing.

Sitting in the plush seats of the Moscow Musical Theater in honor of Stanislavski & Nemerovich-Danchenko, the world outside evaporated. The emotional beauty of Neumeier's explorations erased, for a moment, the stress of some. I'd venture to guess that Nastya, our Angel for the evening and our outstanding daily administrator, was someone who was releived. Her shoulders were raised and her voice quivered as we walked briskly towards the theater building. The stories tumbling from her lips had everything to do with alarm and worry -- like many of the stories we shared in DC or NYC after 9/11. The magnituted of injury was far less today, but the magnitude of vulnerability was equal: Nastya was shaken, but we were not; her country was attacked, but ours was not.

Today 37 people got onto the Moscow Metro but never got off. We didn't think about them as we left the theater. We talked about the humor and wit of the "Swan Lake" parody; we talked about the ache of the Masha-Medvedenko duet -- a duet never really seen in Chekhov. Tonight we did not talk about the two unseen women and their thirty-five faceless victims. Tonight we escaped.