Embracing My Inner Russian

From December 28, 2009 to January 14, 2010, I was in Moscow, Russia, studying Stanislavsky and the works of Anton Chekhov at the Moscow Art Theatre School. I went with 18 other students from the Fordham Theatre department and 1 Fordham Theatre alumni as our mentor. Russia was intense experience, which I suppose is fitting for an intense country. Oddly enough, Russia didn't make me more intense, like I expected it to. Russia woke me up.

My life has not been kind to me over the past few years. I have not been healthy, physically or otherwise. My family has fallen victim to the recession. Last semester, it all felt like too much. I woke up in the morning and I didn't know why I bothered. I felt like I was sleepwalking, most of the time. Some days I felt nearly sixty years old. I felt mediocre. I couldn't remember what it was I loved so much about the theatre and acting. I decided that I wanted to go on this study abroad program and see if I could maybe try and remember.

All of my great-grandparents came from Russia, Lithuania, and Belarus, but mostly Russia and Lithuania. My great-grandfather Vladimir (yes, I'm that Russian), was from St. Petersburg. My father looks very Russian, and so do I. We both have very Russian temperaments. We're passionate, intense, and a little hot tempered. We're also fiercely loyal and we love very deeply. So, from the start, I was excited to go to Moscow and return to my roots. In some ways, I wanted to see if going to Russia could help me cope with some of my more Russian traits that I'm less proud of.

In a lot of ways, Russia was exactly what I expected it to be. It was brutally cold. It was mid-winter after all. By the end of the trip, we were dealing with highs of 4 degrees. Fahrenheit. Yes, the people are very intense and they have a longstanding love affair with vodka. This is a country where you can buy a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka for under 5 dollars, but a few apples and a box of cereal will cost you about 3 dollars more than that. Food is always short in Russia and politically, things are constantly shifting. The people there live hard because it's the only way they can survive. You would expect in all this darkness, that I’d get dragged down too. That I’d turn more towards my inner dark, which is essentially what I’ve been doing since this past summer when Mom got thyroid cancer. But no. In the midst of all the darkness and cold of Russia, I embraced my inner light. I found in all the classes I took and all the theatre I saw while in Moscow, that the Russians don’t take themselves too seriously. All of our teachers reminded us that we got into theatre because we thought it was fun, not because we probably won’t be hugely successful or because it’s one of the most difficult professions out there. Theatre artists in Russia seem to have embraced their inner ridiculous. All of the activities and exercises we did in classes were intended to bring out our inner child, to get us to play and use our imaginations. For years, I have been so bogged down in the intellectual side of acting that I forgot to play. And I think that’s what my acting has been lacking recently. I’ve played so many roles that are way out of my sphere of experience, but I’ve been able to pull them off because of my imagination and my willingness to play. I don’t know why I let myself forget that, but I’m thrilled that I’m beginning to remember.

For the past few years, I’ve been forced to accept adulthood and responsibility. I haven’t really had a chance to just be young. I haven't really had the chance to act my age. I don't have much of a social life because I'm working all time. I'm not really allowed to make mistakes or get bad grades because if I do, I'll be out of school in a flash. My parents have so much to worry about, I haven't really been allowed to be another worry. And I've consciously tried not to be a worry. All this responsibility makes me feel really heavy sometimes. Sometimes it's just too much for me to bear. But, when I was in Russia, I felt liberated of all my responsibility. I gave myself permission to make as many mistakes as I wanted (within reason) and it was so liberating. I felt like my own age for the first time in three years. And it’s funny, we never got enough sleep in Moscow, but I’ve never felt more awake.

I’m glad that I’m going to be spending this next year producing a play like Love’s Labour’s Lost. It’s such an emotionally honest play, so full of the exuberance of youth. I feel like after my time in Russia, I have the energy to attack this play with the full force of my imagination, sense of humor, and youth. There’s still so much to do, but I feel ready. I don’t feel daunted. Not at all.