Mikhail Baryshnikov portrays a dying Anton Chekhov in interactive online theater/gaming hybrid ChekhovOS
Select days, May 23 – June 24, free with advance RSVP (donations welcome)
www.arlekinplayers.com
www.zerogravity.art
In a June 2020 review I wrote, “The future of online productions might be best represented so far by Arlekin Players Theatre’s State vs. Natasha Banina. The forty-five-minute solo work gets right in your face, literally and figuratively, as Darya Denisova, portraying Natasha Banina, speaks directly to the audience, which serves as a jury, as she describes what led her to commit a heinous act.”
Through its Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab, which was created during the pandemic as a portal for cutting-edge online presentations, Arlekin has taken it to the next level with the ingenious chekhovOS /an experimental game/. The show combines prerecorded and live elements, featuring scenes from a Chekhov drama, voting, and spirited live chatting, all set in a fantastical virtual world designed by theater and gaming professionals, followed by an interactive postshow Q&A. It’s a work-in-progress with eight performances scheduled through June 24, though more might be added, and they would be extremely welcome. Conceived and directed by Arlekin founder and head Igor Golyak using the Soft Layer technology developed by game engine and interaction designer Will Brierly of Snowrunner Productions and taking place on Zoom and the internet, chekhovOS is a brilliant foray into what’s to come in online entertainment.
Denisova stars as the emcee of the evening, Natasha Prozorov, the initially awkward young woman from Chekhov’s Three Sisters, who explains that the Russian playwright’s characters are sick and tired of being stuck in their stories, which always end the same way; they want to be freed to live their own lives and make their own choices. Natasha is joined by a computer known as Charlotta (voiced by Anna Bortnick), the quirky governess from The Cherry Orchard. The audience is asked to vote on which play they want to see — The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, or The Cherry Orchard — after which they choose specific scenes, with the help of a spinning wheel, a website, and Olga the fish, named for Chekhov’s actress wife, Olga Knipper.
My audience chose The Cherry Orchard in a runaway, leading to a series of tragicomic scenes from the play starring Tony nominee Jessica Hecht as Madame Ranevskaya, Anna Baryshnikov as Varya, Jeffrey Hayenga as Fiers, Melanie Moore as Anya, Mark Nelson as Gaev, and Nael Nacer as Lopakhin. Following Covid-19 protocols, the actors perform in the same physical space but are placed into wildly fabulous virtual environments (designed by Anna Fedorova) inside the Chekhov Operating System in which they seem to be floating on air, surrounded by falling cherry blossoms, and glorying in a black-and-white expressionistic landscape. Mikhail Baryshnikov appears as Chekhov himself, reading from letters and dreams as the playwright struggles to complete The Cherry Orchard while facing serious illness; he died of tuberculosis in 1904, six months after the show opened.
Jessica Hecht plays Madame Ranevskaya in ChekhovOS
In a twi-ny talk with real-life partners Golyak and Denisova, the former said, “I want to have a discussion with the audience about subject matter, not a lesson plan, but pose a question around a point of pain in me and the collaborators.” And that’s just where the chat plays a pivotal role in chekhovOS. We’re not supposed to even whisper during live theater in dark venues, and many virtual productions disable the chat function so viewers can concentrate on the show itself. But chekhovOS not only encourages the chat but depends on it. It is monitored closely by several people involved with the work (narrative writer Tom Abernathy, coproducer Sara Stackhouse), who quickly respond to questions while also leaving plenty of mystery. On opening night, there was a big debate over whether we really picked The Cherry Orchard or the decision was preordained. It is most likely that Arlekin only filmed scenes from that play, so things would fall apart if the audience had voted for a different Chekhov classic; in fact, numerous chatters, primarily from the gaming community, were determined to attend again and steer the choice to something else.
Hosted on ZeroGravity.ART, the workshop performances are being copresented with ArtsEmerson, Boston Fig, UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Cherry Orchard Festival Foundation, International Online Theatre Festival/Theatre Times, ShowOne Productions, and Snowrunner, with charity screenings for Gift of Life in the UK and Podari.Life in the US. Each show will be followed by a talkback with members of the cast and crew, moderated by Stackhouse, ArenaNet’s Abernathy, Theatre Times editor-in-chief Magda Romanska, ArtsEmerson founder Rob Orchard, or Emmy-winning critic Joyce Kulhawik, each taking a different focus. The creative team also includes virtual performance technical director Vladimir Gusev, cinematographer Guillermo Cameo, sound designer Sebastian Holst, and music composer Jakov Jakoulov. It’s a communal effort that leads to a warm sense of community among the actors, designers, makers, and audience, an innovative and masterful approach to the myriad possibilities of live, hybrid theater in a postpandemic world. “Life, in this house, is finished now,” Lopakhin says. But according to Arlekin, it’s only beginning.