Chekhov's Yelena

Inquiry: 

I have an audition coming up for the Annie Baker Uncle Vanya, this time for Yelena. Just wondering if there would be some time to chat with you about it, it's just a great review to go over Chekhov with you.  

Response: 

My sense of Chekhov's Yelena (and who knows? it may not be Baker's--I haven't read Baker's translation/adaptation) and what you would most want to work on to create her is the woman of privilege who has never really had to do anything for herself (as opposed to Sonia, who spends her life doing for others what must be done). "Studying piano at the conservatory" is something that a few of the women in Chekhov’s stories have in common and it's always an indication that they lack purpose, grounding, sometimes even substance. (As you know, he's really pretty big on "We must work" as a key to a worthwhile life.)

Yelena has never truly had the depths of her being engaged or assaulted or uplifted or…or…or.... She sees/experiences Sonia's direct, deep engagement with Vanya, with Astrov, with the Professor (Sonia’s father and Yelena’s husband) and it's as if she recognizes that there are strings deep inside her that have never been played or even touched, or--something she doesn’t confront--that may not even exist. So she kind of wills herself to experience the passions she sees. "I'm going to play the piano and I'm going to cry." "Oh, now I’m crying, too" -- that sort of thing.

The caution here is to be sure not to judge her needlessly or to minimize her. She just hasn't had to live deeply or elementally to any extreme--and she may not have the capacity to. (We're all fully human, but some of us have more depths than others; some of us greater or lesser capacities for certain kinds of experience, etc. I think it's destructive to interpretive creativity in the name of "agency" to give every character the capacity for every kind of human response.) Yelena senses this reality when she says "I live like an ornament" or some translations say something like "I'm a minor character." Note: she doesn't envy Sonia or resent Sonia’s emotional capacities; she views them more with awe and wonderment—the way we view those youtube videos of things like artists creating portraits out of string or dancers doing lyrical acrobatic moves inside those huge DaVinci-like hoops—and then takes a further step of trusting that after she sees Sonia in action, she can jumpstart herself into the kind of engaged passion she observes in Sonia. She’s like one of the many young women with little experience and lots of “good upbringing” who read Wuthering Heights or just about any Brontë novel and want so very much to run on the moor in the rain and to experience the depths and breadth of Cathy's passions; or who want to fling themselves at Mr. Rochester as they walk along a garden path. (“I think I could fall for the doctor myself.”) Or even any of Jane Austen's women who maintain the social graces while still revealing the passionate heart beneath the conservative dress.

But she doesn’t. Why? She says it’s because of morals, ethics, duty. What does Vanya mean when he says her philosophy is lazy, shallow?

One of the things about you that will always come to your rescue in life is the Sonia part of you--the grounded down-to-earth workhorse part of you that will just roll up your sleeves and do what has to be done in order to get on with it.

That's the part you have to put aside when you create your Yelena.

There is a Yelena in you--surely the capacity to become a Yelena. Find ways to allow her to come out and play. Lift your spine (hers is a spine that has worn beautiful clothes all its life) and choose a dress of uncluttered lines that reveals your lovely figure. Let yourself do some classical ballet moves that emphasize balance, grace, flow. Then try a sweeping waltz. Enjoy the feel of heavy fabric moving about your ankles. Maybe walk with a book on your head until you can climb stairs or stroll in the garden or sit on the garden swing with ease, with grace, and with no sense of stress about the book balancing on your head. (Paris Hilton said you learn to walk as if you're always wearing a tiara. Eliminate the vulgarity of Hilton from this and it's a good image to add to your Elena.) 

Let yourself sit relaxed and erect at the piano and let your hands be lovely, delicate, manicured hands that play the piano with grace, with precision even—but not with much depth and little emotional understanding. Play until you tire of it, until it bores you. (Something that shouldn’t take too long—why?)

Then let her go to the door of Vanya’s room and hear Sonia’s voice pleading with him to shake off his depression and to get back to simple, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other work; perhaps she sneaks a peak and sees Sonia standing behind Vanya, leaning with her face next to his, her arms crossed over his chest. Let Yelena see, absorb this until her heart wants to be able to feel that deeply about something.

Note: If the production has a contemporary setting, the realities still apply--you just adapt them to contemporary dress. Since I do not know Baker's translation, I rely on your good judgment to take these ideas and let them help you where they can. 

Why do Vanya and Astrov bring their lives to a halt for Yelena? When Yelena comes into their world, what exactly comes in that makes these two men fall in love with her? To answer this it will help to widen your view a bit and take a look at Vanya's and Astrov's lives, worlds. What is it that is utterly lacking and that Yelena brings into it in full human embodiment? (Imagine you were going to get an acting class to create the world that Astrov and Vanya live in. Come up with a few illustrations of the daily realities of their lives and then they improvise them--At the end of a long day Astrov rides in the mud to a peasant hut and on the kitchen table (there are pigs snorting in the corner) lies an unwashed little girl whose appendix has burst; Vanya exhausts himself helping to bale hay in the hot sun and one of the peasants punches his adolescent son with his fists; at home in the evening Astrov starts to read a favorite Pushkin poem, there's a knock at the door, there's been an accident in the village, he downs a shot of vodka, maybe two, before he leaves; Vanya sits at his desk at night entering the week's receipts into the estate log book; he looks up into the mirror and sees what? etc. etc. You devise more; let the play guide you)--until the class experiences the great lack/need/emptiness/longing at the heart of it all. And then Yelena steps into that dreariness. And they respond. The irony is: What they fall in love with is the very stuff that Yelena wants to escape from.)

When Sonia asks Yelena why she doesn't get off her butt and do something--like go into the village and teach--her response is "People do that sort of thing in novels but not in real life." If she had the capacity to roll up her sleeves and do something worthwhile for others...ah well, but she doesn't.

Yelenas live among us. They live up in the Hollywood hills or maybe in Malibu colony and when we think of them—though who can blame us for not thinking of them what with “The Real Housewives of…“ distracting us—when we think of them we think they must live full, glamorous lives. (I always thought there was a Yelena in Princess Diana--only it was a Yelena who decided that dammit, she was going to have a meaningful life, so she made herself go to Africa and visit with AIDS patients. But even there--"It must be hot in Africa"--she was still Yelena.)

Anyway, enough. Lucky you, to get to work on Chekhov--for whatever reason!

Letters from Alvina Krause: Spring 1976

Context
I spent the summer of 1976 in Bloomsburg with mostly Northwestern graduates mostly from the first class I had taught the full three-year acting course. This is a letter I got in the spring anticipating their arrival.

Letter
David, could you have copies made of the enclosed material and distribute copies to people who are coming. I feared if I sent it to some member of the group it might seem preferential treatment. I don't want to waste any time getting started. No one tells me the date when they will all assemble here. Can you initiate a response? These are people who are coming:
[A list of seven people -- DD]
I know you are busy, I hate to trouble you, but ----

Lucy insisted I go to NY for one day with a friend who was driving up -- I went, saw two of the Norman Conquests plays [by Alan Ayckborn -- DD] and had dinner with Paula and Dick [Prentiss and Benjamin -- DD] and their wonderful two year old son -- Fabulous!
I find myself in a panic about the summer. On the one hand I welcome the opportunity to work but seven new people and only eight weeks, sixteen sessions, thirty two hours ----- madness! What can be achieved? In the middle of the night a stern voice says "Cancel it! There's still time!"
I wonder about your work, but think of no suggestions. Do teach with joy!
A.K.

****

Enclosed Material
In order to lose no time of our brief summer session come prepared to start work on the first day of our meeting on "Cherry Orchard". Prepare one of the following passages from the play. Avoid making it a finished production; keep it in the work-rehearsal stage. Work alone, or with others.
Trofimov-Anya: end of Act II
Anya-Varya: Act I dialogue
Trofimov-Lopahin: Act IV
Lopahin -- Opening of Act I
Lubov -- Act II "Oh my sins! I have thrown away money -----
Gaev -- Act I, the bookcase
The key to Chekhov is the essential of all true acting: truthfulness of response, of total response (Words spoken are only the vocalized part of the response). To arrive at these responses create the world of the drama, respond to the people of that world, respond to the significant elements of the environment. Bring to the moment the essential associations which are heightened, intensified by the moment of the drama (homecoming, departure, imminence of change).
Through responses to environment, to people, motivate the thought behind lines, overflowing lines, never spoken, more important than the vocalized thought. This unspoken thought, response, carries the drama to its final moment: the sound of the ax.
Every moment must reveal the inner action of the Chekhov drama: a great orchard has become unproductive; the owners of the Cherry Orchard have become unproductive. What happens to their world? To Russia? What similarity do you find in your world (school, theatre). Find life studies from, in, your world (Bring to all drama a concern -- the concern that motivates Chekov.)
The play is a comedy. The dramatist views his world, his people, his Russia from a distance. He loves his people, his country; but from a distance he sees incongruities which are comic. Not farce comedy, not belly-laugh comedy but thoughtful comedy based on love and understanding and concern for the world in which we live. You love your mother but she can't balance a check book; your father is a great guy but putting up storm windows he falls off the ladder, or breaks the glass. Lopahin is a fine man, a highly competent merchant but he can't say "Varya, marry me". Lubov is a lovely person, everyone loves her, but money slips through her fingers, as does life, love, happiness.
These are comments to start your creative minds going in the right direction. Focus on truth. Chekhov drama is realism, but in its high selectivity it becomes poetic realism. Think about it, read about it.

****

Postscript
In this group were the first of those who, two years later, created The Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble which continues successfully today. The BTE is preparing to celebrate its Thirty-Fifth Anniversary.

Anton Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard

Question:

I am writing to see if you have anything on your blog about "The Cherry Orchard?" I have a directing proposal coming up on that play and since you are and always will be the Chekhov expert, I thought I'd go right to the source to brush up a little.

The area that springs to mind is remembering that this play is a comedy and treating it as such - without diminishing what is a tragedy (or at least a melodrama) for those who are loosing their way of life. The moments when things break. When the characters are facing true crises - how to balance that with the comedy (and hopefully creating truly revelatory moments; good god I sound like a director).

I remember you saying in acting class that we didn't know how lucky we were to having the time to work on plays as we did - so I tried to take it all the more seriously. Then I got out of college and found out how true it was... then I got over it but not I'm starting to slip back into a yearning for more time to deeply delve into all these great stories.

I'm grateful for the chance to spend with this script again.

Response:

When I was directing Three Sisters at NU, a visiting scholar watched a rehearsal and afterwards said to me, "Oh, you're going for melodrama. May I suggest comedy? For example, Vershinin could have oversized epaulets and big shiny medals--so we'd know he’s a fool. Go for the farce. Chekhov would love it."

I was pretty sure that Chekhov wouldn't love it. (Though I'm pretty sure he would have loved the character of the visiting scholar.)

Chekhov's comedy comes from a juxtaposition of what characters are capable of--or at least passionate about--and something opposite in their makeup: Commanding the classroom or the theatre, Alvina Krause was Yoda and Gandalf and Mad Madam Mim; standing in front of the salad bar at a local restaurant, empty plate in hand, she was a perplexed and overwhelmed child.

Lopakhin the peasant who has become a wealthy businessman buys a new suit to wear for Lubov's return—How does it fit? What color is it? What's the comedy?

Gaev makes an impassioned speech to the bookcase and then, blushing, pops a piece of hardtack into his mouth--or mimes a really great billiards shot. (When my father found himself in such a moment of public embarrassment, he would mime a putt with his imaginary golf club and then walk out of the room.)

Fiers is so old he can barely stand upright, but he's going to walk all the way out to the Act II spot just to make sure that Gaev is wearing his coat and scarf.
And how old is Gaev? As Fiers makes him put on his overcoat, what does Gaev do that says "child"? What's the comedy?

Gaev and Lubov escape into their childhood—but productions that put huge lollipops in their hands miss the comic point, and the source of the comedy. Not to mention the drama.

Yes, there are farcical moments. Dunyasha mimics a young lady's (Anya's?) mannerisms—but when Yasha kisses her earlobe, she shrieks and drops a coffee cup.

And poor Epihodoff--no matter what he does, it leads to disaster. (He sits down. An arrest as he realizes there was a puddle of spilled coffee on the chair. Beat. Slow turn of the head right to his audience. A look that says 'Awful things always happen to me'.)  And in preparation for the moment when he can no longer face life, he carries a revolver.

Always ask: What is the source of the comedy? What is the human behavior source of the comedy?

What’s the source of the comedy in the scene with Trofimov and Anya that ends Act II? It’s a moonlight night. The two young people are left alone on the stage. What would happen in any other play?

Why is it funny that Gaev says he might get a job in a bank? What does he do as he says this that shows the incongruity and points up the comedy?

What's the comedy of the dance party atmosphere of Act III? Be specific.

Behind it all is an entire class of people who have squandered family wealth their generation didn't earn; who are heading for the cliff and who are unwilling and perhaps unable to take any practical action to prevent themselves from going over.

It's funny and heartbreaking at the same time.

More Nina and Treplev

In response to my earlier posts about Nina and Treplev, I got the following email (in italics). I responded while I was reading (in boldface):

The Nina/Act IV question was particularly interesting. It makes me wonder what Konstantine has gone through over the course of the play (especially given the Seagull question you fielded). What happens to him in the three years between Act III and IV?

Does he stay, perfectly crystalized in that environment, shut up in the room, writing away? And so, when Nina comes back, maybe that's part of what's so interesting about it. He's another relic of her former life that she comes across.

Look at the moment when she first comes in and says to him, “Let me look at you.” In that moment, what does each of them see? Literally, what? In contrast to the young person each of them was (Describe those in detail too). The audience will be remembering that Nina and that Kostya of the first three acts too.

I think it must be more interesting than that, because that would make the gunshot a forgone conclusion. Him not changing at all is also impossible, because he's getting older.

And what does the play say happens to the seagull within us as we get older? Sorin is a Treplev who didn't actually kill himself, but what happened to his dreams?

I wonder if he could both be changed and stay the same, like, what would happen if she showed up and he was still wearing the same suit. (Or, if some clever costumer could make him an identical suit that was slightly smaller and shabbier.) "You've found your way..." something about Konstantine's stagnation is killing him. I wonder so much about what he sees in her, and how that's totally different from what she sees in herself. Every character has a way of explaining the world to themselves (I think you used to say this), and Chekhov puts them in situations outside of their vocabulary. I need to read the play again, but I think Act IV must be in some part about this.

[just FYI, at this point in the email, I started trying to figure out what I was talking about while I was writing it, so it might not track too cleanly...]

What happens to Kostya in the three years between Act III and IV? He becomes successful. He's getting published. He wears a new suit in Act IV. But what's happening to him? What's happening to the artist within him? Nina has discovered: “What's important is to endure.” To pick yourself up and get on with it. To compromise.
Nina will make it.
Konstantin won't. Why?

What is the seagull? Isn't it that passion within young people, that desire to soar, to reach for stars, to believe in possibility, that is youth? At the end of the play it's stuffed and sitting on a shelf. At the end of the play Nina has grown out of/abandons her dreams. She’s not a seagull, she’s an actress. (What's the mordant irony here?)
She’s found her way.
In seeing her now, Kostya finally utterly realizes he won't.

Look at who are the successful adults in the play. By Act IV Trigorin’s voice is even flatter and shallower than it ever was. Dr. Dorn just smiles and smokes his cigar and watches with detached amusement the human drama happening around him (and he's a doctor!). And Arkadina wins at lotto and at life as she always will. Why? What is the play saying about growing up? about succeeding? making it?

I wonder about the Hamlet reference in the play. I don't think Chekhov would ever give his characters the self-knowledge that Hamlet approaches... or, I don't think that knowledge would ever become as important to the drama of the story, because Nina has her own self-knowledge, is a Hamlet is her own right. There's something so unusual about Chekhov's work, something highlighted by the irony of the Hamlet reference. Konstantine is a "real-life" Hamlet. Something about seeing NOT the play that Konstantine writes, but the people who are putting on the play. I always imagine Chekhov's characters running around in a world too big for them, trying to make everything work out. Some of his humor must come from a paradox: "They're scared of ghosts, but they're language doesn't have the word "ghost" in it."

What is Hamlet's tragedy? He's a gifted creative passionate young man who simply cannot/will not adjust to the world of corruption, vice, hypocrisy, changing allegiances, spying, lying--All the things you have to do to survive and thrive in the world. (And the two women in his life simply do not get it either.) Where's the tragedy?

Ah yes. That's it. It's that Chekhov writes characters that have no way to talk about spirits. That's what Konstantine is doing in Act I: talking about spirits, and everyone thinks it's ridiculous.

Chekhov is parodying the Decadent Theatre of the time; e.g., Maeterlink’s plays. Kostya’s play isn’t very good. And Nina has no idea what she’s saying when she recites the lines in Act I. The contrast between how she says the lines then and how she says them with meaning and understanding in Act IV after life has done its job on her is part of the great grief of the play.

Nina comes in, a ghost from the past. I've always felt like Chekhov is laughing at people for having no idea what really governs their lives, like deeper fears and passions, but he brilliantly wrote it all in their everyday language and situations. Konstantine and Nina are then marvelous partly because they come closest to expressing more of their humanity than anyone around them. Partly what's tricky about playing Treplev must be that he doesn't know how to express himself. He's talking about his love for her, and all he can say is "I killed this seagull." Or, all he can say is to kill a seagull.

"I've hit bottom. I can't go any lower. And today I shot this seagull. I lay it at your feet". That offering of the dead seagull is his last despairing attempt to get across to her how much he is suffering in his frustration at trying to find his way into the adult world of art/commerce and even the woman who should understand him the most seems to be completely blind and deaf to his pain and fears and utter hopelessness.
(Why does Hamlet go postal with Ophelia? It's not just because he loves her and she wants to return his remembrances.)

The audience should be weeping through the last scene, but not sentimental tears. Not just for young love lost. There is deep loss, great grief. What should your audience be recognizing in their own lives? What has each of them had to give up, abandon, stuff and put on a shelf, in order to make their way in the world and through life?
Kostya slowly tears up all his writing and walks out of the room. The stage is empty.
The rest is silence.

Konstantine is a "real-life" Hamlet, which is a Hamlet without a ghost, without a crown, without revenge, without a Claudius... Konstantine is the drama of someone who is a Hamlet, in real life.

Anyway. Thank you for starting your blog. I think these thoughts may bode well for a future production of the Seagull.

Treplev

Question:
I was hoping you could send me a quick sentence or two about Konstantin in The Seagull, when he comes in and lays the seagull at Nina's feet. I am working on it and am running into a trap. I want her to save me...to hug me and apologize for her behavior and promise me everything will be fine and that Trigorin is a cheesy bastard etc. What I find is that I end up going to anger (at the world and myself) when that is not the response. That seems quite "conclusionary" to me, it doesn't go anywhere. Any thoughts or suggestions?
I am just trying to concentrate on the basics of acting again. I feel like I really need it...because otherwise it's just no fun.


Response:
Why does he shoot the seagull?
What exactly does he want her do do when he lays it at her feet?

This isn't just about their love relationship-- it's about something a lot deeper than that.
Remember:  he wants to be an artist. (Why does Act I take place where and when it does?) What does that mean he wants to do? How does an artist know he has succeeded? (Note that all his mother wants is to be center stage and to hear applause.) His relationship with Nina and his relationship with his mother are both connected deeply with his great driving need to create art, to communicate with/to the world, to matter.   What happens to him during his play in Act I?

What's his greatest fear? He refers to it when he's talking with Sorin before everyone arrives to see his play.  And Arkadina cuts him off at the knees with it when they have their fight in Act III.  (Find, in your own experience, this great need and the great fear that comes with it. That's what you're going to bring to the dead seagull scene.)

He is eventually going to put the barrel of  the rifle in his own mouth and pull the trigger. He succeeds at the end of the play. He tries to do it sometime shortly after this scene in Act II.

What does he need?  to be understood, to know that he matters, that he has something to say to the world and that the world hears it, gets  it.  (Activate this in your own soul. I saw it all the time when you were in school--and I'll bet it's still there.)
What does he need from her at this very moment?  "I lay it at your feet".  What does he want to see in her eyes? What could she do that would say "I get it.  I understand."?
If someone, anyone, could let him know that they get it, that they realize where his torment is coming from, they would save his life.

Yes, he's angry. Mostly at himself for not being able to...what? What is an artist's deepest driving force?

If Trigorin weren't a successful writer, even if Nina was attracted to him but she knew he was a commercial hack, what difference would that make to what happens here?

Go beneath the love triangle to the real acid eating at his soul.  That's what makes him shoot the seagull and that is what will make him kill himself.

Where's the Treplev in your "I feel like I really need it...because otherwise it's just no fun"?

The Seagull: The Final Scene

Question:
In the final scene of The Seagull, what is Nina DOING?


Response:

Nina is returning to the last place where her life had some center and she's trying to rediscover how to hold herself together.

She searches through that whole scene. And she finds what she needs. And gradually she becomes whole.

When she enters she is utterly exhausted. By Life (Devise improvisations to get an actress to discover what "life" has been for her the last year or so. Lead to total exhaustion, near complete physical/emotional collapse. Not, however, mental breakdown.)
She leans against a bookcase. Ah! I remember this bookcase...Kostya read Pushkin love poems to me. My fourteenth birthday. He took the book from this shelf. Must get away from that memory. Oh, here's his desk. Didn't it used to be in the other room? Look at all the papers--yes, he's a writer now. Oh God, I want to sink into this chair and rest rest. No mustn't give in. Ah! there's the scratch on the floor--Yakov dropped the brass astrolabe--long ago--I was thirteen--visiting. Mustn't cry mustn't cry....I'm so tired, maybe if I just rest my head on my arms here on the sideboard---no! I'm a seagull (spine lifts and wants to soar...) No, I'm not. (no, spine can't lift anymore, it sinks) I'm an actress.

She's like someone who has survived a final awful drug overdose and fevered breakdown. She's coming out of it. She's reorienting herself. He watches. [And so do we.] He reaches. He pulls back to let her try to stand. She searches: for that girl she was who used to soar around the lake, for the exhilarating dream of opening nights and applause, for her baby, for.... Images, memories, tumble through her brain, her muscles. She cries. Treplev says "I love you" and she turns away. He wants to touch her, but he must give her her space. He reaches, he withdraws. He holds her, he releases her.

Through it all she becomes whole again. Step by step. Recovered image by image. She will survive. But at what price? What goes out of her irrevocably during the course of this scene? What is the sea gull?

And what does he see, sense, realize as he perceives her going through this process? that leads to "You have found your way. And I never will." Remember: this whole scene is leading to that gunshot.

Why does he shoot himself? What does he realize? What is the sea gull?