The Persians

We had the performance of The Persians yesterday. The day also included a speed-through, a tech run, and an open dress rehearsal, so that meant we went through it four times; that's a long, exhausting day.

Over the course of the rehearsal process the production seemed to get bigger and bigger and bigger, with more and more musicians and instrumental interludes and spoken interludes in Italian--and ancient Greek--and so forth. I think none of us really knew until yesterday afternoon what the whole thing was going to be like. To our relief, it turned out to be be beautiful.

Playing Atossa turned out to be sort of a combination of choreography and classical text and and something resembling Butoh--heightened, stylized, not always comfortable. The nearest experience I've had is probably Prospero in the circus Tempest. But even that was not like this.

There's a long sequence--longer in this production because of a Shostakovich string quintet--in which Atossa mourns silently at Darius's tomb while the chorus is summoning the king's ghost. There is really nothing for it but to sit there and grieve. I've lost several people I loved in the past couple of years, and I mourned for them all on stage. Kevin said that at one point he was sure the mask was crying. If it's the point I think he was talking about, then there were a few tears under the mask as well. I'm really happy to have achieved, however briefly, something I admired so much in the Flöz show. I'm also glad to have grieved, and to have put those emotions into the service of something beautiful. One doesn't always get to.

I don't, in point of fact, know how anyone deals with grief without some sort of artistic outlet. But maybe that's part of why we make art--to help others come to terms with the senseless fact of their own death, and the eventual disappearance of everything and everyone they love.

It's getting cold here now, although Tuscany tends to the foggy and wet rather than the leaden cold I associate with Chicago at this time of year.

This is our last week of classes. It doesn't seem possible. Without a constant barrage of Santa Claus kitsch, Christmas still feels remote. Italy has Babbo Natale, but it's just not the sort of country that goes in for giant inflatable lawn ornaments. It's funny what you wind up being homesick for.

This afternoon, we started the clown intensive. Eli Simon, from the U.C. Irvine theater program, is teaching. There are a few slight differences from what I've done before, but we're starting with entrance work and status and all those good things, and so far I can't say much beyond YES. CLOWN. LIKE.