Sharpening My Knives ...

Anatoly Meronovich has a sophisticated office on the third floor of the MXT studio. Drenched in olive and hunter green, and accented with cherry wood, its sleek lines are the heirs to the nouveau/moderne tracery of MXT theatre. Nestled within these sleek and weightless angles are heavy bookshelves, meticulously filled with an almost infinite number of books. Coves and nooks reveal couches and magnificent hand-made clocks; on the walls hang intricate costume sketches in black and gold; a set model crafted from a honey-brown oak hovers in their midst, magically fastened to the wall.

It is the office of an artist.

There is a long table in Anatoly Meronovich's office. It is made out of gorgeously crafted wood and has a deep hunter's green leather top. Gold leaf adorns the table's plush hide. It is at this elegant table that we four pupils sit with our master, once a week, for an hour. We sit and we talk; we talk and we sit. What plays have we seen? What plays should we write about? What plays do we want to see? Plays, plays, and more plays; theatre, theatre, and more theatre.

"Kisenia ..." Anatoly began, and then drifted into a conversation about the Lower Depths. The course of his train of thought may not have been clear, but it was on track: I cannot write about Kisenia. Check that - I cannot write a review about Kisenia. Why? A variety of reasons, but one that stood out -- and the reason for this electronic journal -- is that "some reviews can say everything in a few sentences - so why fill a page?"

Welcome to my first few sentences.

As Anatoly's rejection of my Kisenia paper came to rest after its circuitious lingual journey, another point was made clear: Anatoly would like a daily journal of our lives together. A way of documenting out lives, our experiences, our first impressions. "It's like a knife in the back. There's no warm-up; it's unfiltered and individual. Plus, you can make a statement and then refute that statement after you've had time to think about it."

Unfiltered statements are things that I am rather infamous for -- and not for good reasons.

For the next few weeks, I shall attempt to keep a daily journal of what I do, see, and live here in Moscow. Unlike my papers, where thesis statements and organizational flow plague me, and correct word use and spelling taunt me, this will be my circuitous conversation that eventually arrives at a point. A knife's point.