MacBett you can't guess what we saw tonight

The answer is MacBett. Congratulations if you got it right...shame if you got it wrong. We saw the show at the famed Satyricon theatre, which is nice to see after hearing so much about it from Flynn...who wouldn't shut up about it this whole last year...

She was pretty right on about how fabulous this theatre really is. The actors play with such ease and it looks so effortless...which is one of the main themes of russian theatre. Some truly remarkable scenes too...I've never seen anything else that's comparable.

Theatre going is slightly different from the United States. After the show, the audience all claps in unison to some sort of crazy Eastern European carnival music while the actors dance around about do about five different bows. The other oddity is that random spurts of clapter (I just randomly typed that and I like it....no they're not laughing and clapping, just clapping, but this new type of weird clapping needs a name of it's own and apparantely it gets clapter) are made by the audience before the show as a sign that they want the show to start. It's so random that I prodded Justin into starting off the next round of clapter, thinking that several others would join in with agreement.

Niet. They did not join in. In fact, there was only one other person that joined in with Justin. That person was me. Not even the people we knew that were sitting RIGHT NEXT TO US joined in. So there we are, just the two of us clapping...it felt like everyone at once became silent and looked at us. We quickly stopped and heard flutters of laughter around us that I'm sure translated to "Silly Americans" or "Who brought them?". We laughed too.

Classes are still rockin'. Vladamir got us for the second day in a row for Movement. I think we were all excited but still apprehensive because our muscles had been freshly shredded the day before. He mixed it up a bit today and we worked with partners. Lots of counter-balancing exercises where both partners are stretching the other person at the same time. Really good stuff. Ole Morty (Justin) and I got to balance eachother for one of them, which looks pretty sweet. The other picture from movement is of me and a few others trying to tuck our leg behind our heads...Vlad hopes we'll be able to do it before we leave....note the lack of progress after three class. Might not happen, Vlad!

Igor subbed for Sergie today in Acting and it was very enjoyable to have him there. The man is pretty big...probably 6'6"....and is perhaps the most cliche looking Russian I've seen so far. Thick eyebrows, deep, worn facial features, large stature...everything I want in a Russian Man (that's right I said it). He's also a brilliant comedic actor (never seen him do anything but I can safely assume he's brilliant)....but he gives very good insights about our work. The nice thing about the teachers here is that they're very supportive but they ALWAYS have a critique. Igor said today that, "Theatre is a profession of notes." Without notes, we don't grow. I think that's really important and something I wish we got more of back home. We need to be pushed. As Vladamir says, "Our bodies are lazy...all they want is couch....hamburger....very lazy."

We got out of acting early so we could travel by Metro and bus to the theatre, so Jason, Justin and I (hereon known as J-Crew) went and bought Metro passes during lunch. I was going to by one for Christina too and I was amazed that my broken-Russian and poor hand gesturing had yeilded my desired purchase of two five-ride Metro passes from the ticket lady. I walked away from the line and was shuffling my money and the tickets in my hands trying to get them into my wallet. I of course was doing this over a sewer grate and the misfortune of dropping one of the Metro passes. That baby floated right down and slid in between the cracks of the grate like a piece of bread into a toaster....fuck. So I bought another and wasted about $3.50.

Wow, what a shitty story.

Traveling to the theatre was pretty hectic. Here's a tip: Don't ever try to use the subway with 23 people...it just doesn't work. Miraculously we all made it out of the tunnel together and proceed to hop on the bus (apparantly bus can also mean moderately sized van in Russia). Contorting our bodies into the "bus", we managed to clown car it with 23 people and made it to the theatre. We had some time to spare despite our hurried trip there, so we decided to take a bunch of pictures.

Enjoy.