Dear Charlotte,
What a week! This week has been amazingly eye opening for me as an actor and an artist. The week started off much like any other Moscow week, with a wonderfully painful movement class followed by a day full of knowledge and strenuous activities. It began to seem like the same old drudge of a week that would eventually have me in my bed on friday night, wishing my body wasn't collapsing in on itself like a dying star. However, things began to click. I had a great acting class this where I decided to rethink and redo an etude. I had done it before in class on a whim and this time I sat down and thought out every single moment through from the beginning to end and worked it like a dog. I threw it up in front of our class and our teacher acknowledged the improvements and told me that he was very pleased with the amount of work I'd had put into it. Then it clicked. I remembered everything from my two years at IC all in one moment. I was able to put all that info together and have found my way back on track, and just in time with 4 more weeks to go.
Today we took a two hour bus ride to Melikhovo, otherwise known as the estate owned by Anton Chekhov. Being outside of Moscow was a breath of fresh air in much different way than St. Petersburg was. The rural Russia you've seen in pictures is exactly as expansive and empty as it seems. Looking off into the distance made it seem like it was hundreds of miles to the next sign of civilization. Besides the not so perfect weather and the lack of anything exciting, Melikhovo was very nice. Seeing Chekhov's study was very neat and seeing the house in which he finished the Seagull was an experience. However, I didn't necessarily feel connected to seeing the kitchen house where the maids lived and worked. It seemed like Melikhovo was banking on the fact that the weather is nice when you are there, because it was dreary as hell.
On the bus ride home we stopped at a monastery on the outskirts of Moscow. This particular monastery, whose name escapes me at the moment, was described to as a place with a beautiful view and even more beautiful chapel. What also made this monastery notable was it's small pond located in the very middle of the enclosure. We had been told earlier in the week that this pond was a place for pilgrims and the monks who lived there to bath and cleanse their souls from sin and illness. It was a beautiful place, serene and stoic in nature. I was immediately brought back to the first time we walked on to the MXAT stage. The beauty of the space and the vastness of the theatre blew me away. It was hard not to be astounded by it.
I've come to realize a lot about Russian Theatre these past few weeks, what with St. Petersburg, Melikhovo and Class, that I really believe in and can't wait to bring back to the states. Firstly, that the Theater is a sacred space. Because of religious suppression during the Soviet Union the people went to the theatre to connect with people. It sound far fetched, I know, but Theatre here is a religion. You have sacred texts written by many different writers, Chekhov being the most dominant of Russian Playwrights. Actors are seen as civil servants who have given their lives to pursuing a hard life of serving the people through their talent, passion and art. Being at the monastery reminded me of that. The students of MXAT, much like the monks, have devoted their lives to an endless journey. They have decided to take a leap of faith and follow their hearts into the unknown life of hard work and toil that is being an actor.
I've learned from stories about my uncles, who were missionaries in Kenya, about how much they learned throughout their work and about how they continued learning about themselves and about their chosen life journey. As an actor you are constantly learning and experiencing different things, emotions, people, places and ways of looking at the world. It's hard life and basically it's a vow of poverty, but you have a gift that people need and crave, so you keep on pushing onwards and honing your beliefs and your crafts in order to more precisely experience the different beautiful things on this blue sphere we live on. You never stop working, and that's a beautiful thing. Norm Johnson, our movement teacher and BFA Acting Coordinator at school used to say that Acting is a muscle and if you don't use that muscle for a while, you lose it. Actors need to be constantly taking things in and experiencing them, honing their craft and working the muscle.
I'm sorry for the amount of religion used in this blog, it's just hard not to think about God while you're in Russia. It's full of churches and monasteries, all of which are amazingly beautiful. Anatoly Smeliansky, our amazing Russian Theatre History Professor...oh and he's also the Dean of the MXAT School Studio...no big deal. ANYWAY, Tolya, as we call him, said something very poetic about acting and theatre. He said, "Acting is connecting to the audience through a higher power." Through some kind of higher being that transports you and the audience far away from the hardships of life and from the harsh realities that are just a stones throw away from the box office. The one thing that I'm taking the most to heart in Russia is that it takes a lot to be an actor, a lot more than I initially thought. With that in mind however, I have never been more ready and willing to work and work and work in my entire life.
Eternally Yours,
Justin
P.S. Marcin is not kidding about the Metro. It's so cool and fascinating.
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