Day 115…
Last spring, I was invited by an organization that is roughly the Russian equivalent of our Tony awards, to speak to a group of stage managers in Moscow.
This invitation came at the time when we were already deep into the investigation and discussion about what the Russians may or may not have done to influence our 2016 elections. All of that, of course, following the entire Cold War period between the US and Russia which I was born into and grew up with until 1991.
President Reagan famously referred to the USSR as the “Evil Empire” in a 1983 speech to the National Association of Evangelicals. In that same speech, he also said that they were, “the focus of evil in the modern world”.
Our relationship with Russia had improved during much of the decade following the coup that dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991. Following the NATO bombing of Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, though, it got worse again. The Yugoslavs were perpetrating a genocide against Albanians which was driving the victims of it into neighboring countries and destabilizing the entire region. Intervention by the United Nations was opposed by China and Russia so, NATO went ahead with airstrikes without their approval. The US referred to the action as “Operation Noble Anvil”. The Russians condemned our participation in the retaliation.
The antagonism between our two countries further intensified when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and then even more during their intervention in the Syrian Civil War.
My mother and father had lived in Moscow for a short time before I was born. My father’s job with a Chemical Engineering magazine had seen him posted in different places all over Europe. He and my mother had met in London when my Dad hired her as a temporary secretary in their UK office. They ended up living in a variety of different places, Russia being one of them.
So, this invitation came for me to speak and I said yes.
They only wanted me to come over for two nights, but I went for a week beforehand, instead, and spent three days in St. Petersburg before heading to Moscow. The process of getting a visa was extremely involved and took a very long time - over a month. The application was 15-20 pages long and required an endless amount of very detailed information about places I had visited and jobs that I had had.
My visit was sponsored, and my expenses largely covered by the US Embassy in Moscow as part of a cultural exchange program. I paid for the extension into St. Petersburg myself. My payment from them for doing all of this was a small honorarium, but a truly unforgettable experience.
So, what was it like being in “enemy” territory? It wasn’t like being in enemy territory at all. Russians live their lives the same way that we do. They take the impositions and rules handed down by their government and figure out their daily lives around them - the same as we do.
In the week before my lecture, I visited some of the most spectacular museums on the planet - The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and Peterhof, the palace of Peter the Great. In Moscow I visited the Kremlin and saw Lenin’s entombed body and St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square. Every night that I was in Russia I saw a different performance piece. These ranged from a strange abstract multimedia piece in a basement somewhere to the Bolshoi Ballet in the spectacular Bolshoi theatre. Some of it was breathtaking some of it was, well, not all that great. Just like here.
My lecture was given in a large non-descript classroom in a large non-descript building to about 40 Russian stage managers. I spoke for three straight hours without a break via an interpreter. I had prepared a basic outline of what I thought would be interesting but after spending a week there, I realized that I needed to adjust it. The way our two theatres work is pretty radically different.
There are, something like 200 theatres in Moscow, and they are all state funded and state sponsored. Things don’t “run” in Russia, almost all the theatres I saw operated under a repertory system. So, one play would be performed on Tuesday and then a different one with a different cast on Wednesday and then maybe a musical on Thursday and Friday and a dance piece on Saturday.
I started my address by talking about how we do theatre here - the difference between profit and non-profit theatre - how a stage manager’s job differs between Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatres and cruise ships. Aside from one guy who fell dead asleep after about 20 minutes (and I mean DEAD asleep), they were very attentive and asked amazing questions.
They were just people figuring out how to be stage managers - just like me.
We didn’t discuss our Presidents and only discussed our governments in indirect ways in terms of how they influenced our work in the theatre. I think if we had ended up in a bar afterwards that a political discussion may have arisen, but I don’t know. There was some healthy skepticism of how their government dealt with the arts sometimes and they were amazed (and maybe a bit jealous) that ours stays out of it.
Despite being under government control, there was a much greater variety in the kinds of pieces being performed in Moscow compared to what we have available to us in New York. Some of what I saw, even in just a week, seemed to criticize things in a way that surprised me.
We are not our government, I don’t think, any more than they are theirs.
I enjoyed meeting all of them and talking with them. I remain friends with several of them on Facebook and so we can watch each other navigate through our lives. I did not feel like I was sneaking around behind enemy lines in Russia any more than I did when I was in Malaysia or Abu Dhabi which operate under monarchies.
People in all of these places are just living their lives as best they can. I am not at all saying that we should allow their government to interfere in our government. All I am saying is that if we are unwilling to let the actions of our current President define us, then it’s not really fair to define the Russians by theirs.
It’s our birthday, today. It’s July 4th, the day that we celebrate the remarkable document that founded our country.
Looking around, some of the ideals extolled in that document are definitely not being lived up to. With every passing day, we are coming to realize that the men who created it were flawed. They weren’t gods, they were just human men.
Michael and I are spending this weekend with a friend of ours who definitely leans to the right. I would say that politics might be the elephant in the room but given that we are the outsiders in the house, maybe it’s Michael and me who are the donkeys in the room.
There was some somewhat uncomfortable discussion last night and I am sure that there will be some more today. I don’t expect that either of us will change our minds about anything this weekend no matter what happens.
One of the things that makes our system of government fairly unique is our legal right to express ourselves under the first Amendment to the Constitution.
Michael and I are not here to lecture our friend nor are, we in turn, being lectured. We will… discuss. I would like to try and see what “they” see, because it seems so crystal clear to me that it is wrong.
That we can still discuss this, is one of the things, as we all look at the chaos around us, that still makes this country great.
The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, with all of their flaws, are truly unique and spectacular pieces of parchment. Next time you are in Washington D.C. you should go to the National Archives building and have a look at them and marvel at their creation.
They need our protection.
Have a safe and happy July 4th.
thank you for bridging the gaps
filling in the spaces called questions
regarding
going to another country
we maybe “ in opposition” with
to learn
“we” are not the government
any more than “they” are theirs
we
the
people
all over the world
....how courageous to be visiting friends who think differently than you
how open minded and vast
how
hopeful and expansive
Letting in another universe
...I don’t know why I want to say what Marie Antionette said
“let them eat cake”
maybe because I a Italian
and whenever there was a fight at the table
we would eat
💕💕❤️