The Unthinkable: Glissando Or The Art of Cruelty

SMB said, “On the grave of Noir you started working on a new play? You are a maniac.”

This is true (though I prefer “lunatic”). I started work on Chekhov the evening Noir premiered. Chekhov’s Three Sisters (via the Brontës), adapted to the realities (disappointments?) of the 21^st century. No explanations and no apologies.

I’ve been dancing around Chekhov for about 10 years now. Dancing around him, courting him, flirting with him, trying to make sense of him. What did this man really think of his weeping women (and why are they always weeping, and rushing off the stage to wipe away their tears in silence, in the quiet of their rooms?)

The crying attracts me, fascinates me: that unspeakable misery, that devastation…or its complete opposite – unbearable happiness. I did it once in The Happiness Machine. I staged a three minute crying scene during which the entire cast, having just listened to an Edith Piaf song, breaks down and sobs uncontrollably. Three whole minutes of tears, and wailing, and convulsive gasps. Made my day every time.

I’ve had trouble with the rhythm of this production. Emotional upheavals are followed by the desert of the real; passion is accompanied by restraint, framed by deprivation (sentimental, sexual); then undertones, implosions, small tragedies, unnoticed victories in rapid succession. The rhythm escapes me, goes up and down, fractures. Perhaps that’s the nature of the interaction between Chekhov and the women. Or perhaps things are vague because I’m working on this play a year in advance (production date: January 2015 at the ACA theatre). Even I feel ridiculous, but I can’t stop, and neither can anyone else (S, K, the women…) Noir left an empty space behind, and our collective need for a refuge is taking the shape of Glissando or The Art of Cruelty. Glissando: musical term. “A rapid slide through a series of consecutive tones.” The Art of Cruelty. Self-explanatory, I think. The business of everyday life. (You didn’t think I was going to call the play Three Sisters, did you? How obvious would that be?)

Together, the titles capture the jagged rhythm.  Every day I find songs that compliment this or that line, movement or scene. Things develop in my mind rapidly, an avalanche of unguarded, unexpected images suffocating one another. Then nothing. Stillness. Then movement again – a tango that begins like a polite but intense conversation between two people and evolves into a small emotional orgy: Chekhov and his three female characters moving as one body.

I’ve been unsure of the relationship between Chekhov and his wife until I got a book of their love letters and read in the introduction: “Temperamentally, no two people could have been more different. [Olga] was impetuous…the victim of her impulses and emotions, both as a person and as an artist…Chekhov was reserved, guarded, shying away from all direct expression of feeling, taking refuge in irony and banter.” My casting couldn’t have been more perfect. Emotional unavailability meets tumultuous needs on a stage set for three (additional) weeping women. Although my modern, (self-sufficient? Ha!) women won’t weep. They’ll shout, and demand, and throw imprudent parties, and desire, and take refuge in work, and drink, and impossible dreams of exotic travel. My women, Mr. Chekhov, not just yours. Three reflections of a single personality, honest to the point of stupidity, foolishly brave. So perhaps there will be crying, but out in the open, with public and a superb soundtrack: smoky, lounge-y, sensual, sad, manic, passionate, devastating.

This production needs to devastate more than any other production we’ve ever done. And it needs to amuse as well, because Chekhov thought he was writing comedies and I want to make him happy. So utter devastation has to follow colossal humor, slapstick in the funeral parlor, so to speak, as bosoms rise and fall with emotion and indignation.

“Night again, late again, and again I am writing to you my dearest darling. Thank you for not forgetting me, for writing often. Life is easier when you write.”