Tag Archives: Anna Fedorova

THE ORCHARD

Arlekin Players Theatre presents a hybrid multimedia adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (photo by Maria Baranova)

THE ORCHARD
Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jerome Robbins Theater
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 3, $39-$125 in person, $29 virtual
646-731-3200
bacnyc.org
www.theorchardoffbroadway.com

During the pandemic lockdown, Arlekin Players Theatre reinvented what online theater could be. The Needham, Massachusetts–based company presented three works that offered people sheltering in place the opportunity to experience and participate in live productions incorporating videogame technology: State vs. Natasha Banina, a one-woman Zoom play in which the audience votes on the ultimate verdict; Witness, which takes viewers on board the MS St. Louis, the German ship carrying nearly a thousand Jewish refugees in May 1939 escaping the approaching Holocaust; and chekhovOS /an experimental game/, a virtual, interactive reimagining of scenes from The Cherry Orchard, a combination of live and prerecorded segments and an integral live chat, with Tony nominee Jessica Hecht as Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya and Mikhail Baryshnikov as Anton Chekhov.

Arlekin founding artistic director Igor Golyak has steered full steam ahead with The Orchard, a bumpy two-hour intermissionless adaptation of Chekhov’s tragicomedy that can be seen live and in person through July 3 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center’s Jerome Robbins Theater and/or livestreamed with interactive elements. The best way to experience The Orchard is to first go to the theater, then follow it up virtually, as the two iterations feed off each other, filling in gaps that can form if you see only one of the formats. Yes, it’s a four-hour commitment, but seeing both brings it all together; viewing only the in-person version is likely to leave you impressed but scratching your head too much.

Hecht is phenomenal as Ranevskaya, a lost soul who has returned from Paris to try to save her beloved cherry orchard and estate, which is being put up for auction because the family is in debt. Also back from chekhovOS are Mark Nelson as Gaev, Ranevskaya’s brother, who, like his sister, doesn’t seem to understand the situation they’re in, and Nael Nacer as Lopakhin, whose father and grandfather were serfs toiling for the siblings’ ancestors and who is now trying to convince these faded nobles that their only option is to cut down the orchard and sell off plots for summer vacation homes, which will make them rich again.

But Ranevskaya and Gaev are like children, stuck in the past, refusing to acknowledge reality. They play with balls and spinning tops, marvel at governess Charlotta’s (Darya Denisova) magic shows, and pretend they’re playing billiards. The estate itself is represented by a tiny model of a house, as if everyone is living inside a toy. Ranevskaya is hoping that her teenage daughter, Anya (Juliet Brett), will marry perpetual student and tutor Trofimov (John McGinty) and that her adopted daughter, Varya (Elise Kibler), who manages the estate, will become betrothed to Lopakhin, who is actually in love with Ranevskaya herself. Meanwhile, the aging, ever-more-feeble servant Firs (Baryshnikov) putters about, mumbling to himself and attempting to carry out his longtime duties.

Firs (Mikhail Baryshnikov) and Madame Ranevskaya (Jessica Hecht) watch over the family estate in The Orchard (photo by Maria Baranova)

Carol Rocamora’s translation has eliminated landowner Boris Borisovich Simeonov-Pishchik, estate clerk Yepikhodov, maid Dunyasha, servant Yasha, and other minor characters to focus on the main figures as Chekhov explores the changing sociopolitical times that are going to leave the family behind. Meanwhile, the homeless passerby has been turned into a tough-talking soldier who threatens the others in Russian, evoking the current war in Ukraine. (Earlier references to Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Kyiv also remind the audience of the invasion; Golyak was born in Ukraine and has done charitable work with the company to help the people in his native country.)

But Golyak, who has also established the Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab, has added two key “characters”: a robot dog that sticks around Charlotta and, just off center, a large white Clicbot robot, resembling some kind of newfangled medical machine, that serves as a tree, a bookcase, and a mobile camera. It is big and bulky and sometimes gets in the way of the story, but it also is a kind of omniscient narrator, disruptor, and even safe haven. When the soldier confronts the others, they huddle on the robot’s platform, as if that will protect them. (Tom Sepe is the robotics designer.)

Once the auction is over, the family still won’t face the truth as the end of their legacy approaches.

Anna Fedorova’s set consists of robin’s-egg-blue benches and thousands of blue cherry blossoms scattered across the floor. The backdrop is reminiscent of thin, interconnected tree roots reconfigured as lightning strikes. Words and images are projected onto a front translucent screen, but they are often unnecessary, repeating what we are already seeing or confusingly blurry. (The projections are by Alex Basco Koch, with dramatic lighting by Yuki Nakase Link, fine period costumes by Oana Botez, music by Jakov Jakoulov, and sound by Tei Blow.)

Family and friends huddle as the end approaches in hybrid world premiere at BAC and online (photo by Pavel Antonov)

Several scenes feel extraneous, but their inclusion becomes clearer when you watch the livestream, which kicks off with a virtual tour of BAC rechristened as the Orchard and up for sale; a Zillow page shares the details of the property, which you can navigate through as a 360-degree environment. Amid rain and thunder, a prerecorded Chekhov, portrayed by the seventy-four-year-old Baryshnikov, enters the building. You move through hallways and enter various doors, behind which are six rooms, three of which you should have time to wander in: The Operation Room allows you to remove items from Chekhov’s body as he suffers from tuberculosis; peepholes let you see inside the Orchard Room, where Chekhov and his wife, Olga Knipper (Hecht), converse, in text from actual letters; and the Labyrinth Room is a kind of maze with numerous Chekhovs speaking in different videos. There are also the Winter Fishing Room, the Train Room, and the Space Room, where Chekhov/Baryshnikov cheekily notes, “I am tired as a ballet dancer after five acts and eight tableaux.” (Chekhov completed The Cherry Orchard while facing serious illness; he died of TB in 1904, six months after the show opened.)

Soon the stream links up with the live action occurring in the theater, which is shown through multiple static cameras as well as the soldier’s helmet cam, Charlotta’s handheld camera, and, mostly, the robotcam positioned at the end of the robot’s head. During these moments, you can choose which camera to watch through, offering varying perspectives of what’s happening onstage, with differing levels of visual quality. (Adam Paikowsky is the designer of emerging technologies, Alexander Huh the interactivity designer, Athomas Goldberg the technical designer, Alexey Prosvirnin the virtual sound designer, Daniel Cormino the 3D environment artist, and Yu-Jun Yeh the Unreal technical artist.)

In the scene in which Varya asks Trofimov to tell everyone about the stars and the planets, images are visible on the scrim, but online the effect is far more dynamic, as if the characters are surrounded by these colorful orbs and constellations. While Charlotta performs magic tricks onstage, which feels superfluous, it is relegated to the backdrop of the stream, where Ranevskaya, in real time, is responding to bidders’ questions about the estate and cherries.

This Orchard is very much about communication and connection, particularly at the intersection of major technological advances. In three successive scenes, the in-person audience is left at least partially in the dark as Lopakhin converses in untranslated French, the soldier speaks in untranslated Russian, and Trofimov, portrayed by the deaf McGinty, uses sign language that might not be interpreted perfectly by Anya. Ranevskaya gets a series of letters from Paris but chooses to rip them up instead of reading them. Meanwhile, throughout the play, Firs often speaks in non sequiturs, not always making sense although occasionally sharing the wisdom of a life long-lived.

Shortly after returning from Paris, Raneveskaya says, “Thank you, Firs, thank you, my darling old man. I’m so glad you’re still alive.” Firs responds, “The day before yesterday.” Gaev explains, “He’s hard of hearing.” But when Charlotta asks, “Who I am, and where I’m from — I don’t know . . . Who were my parents, were they ever married — I don’t know that, either. I don’t know anything,” Firs says, “You know more than you think you know.”

The deep dive into how we communicate is an issue that emerged during the coronavirus crisis as people used Zoom, social media, and other platforms to stay in touch when actual touch was either not allowed or too risky. Golyak and Arlekin came up with unique ways to stay connected with audiences by employing and expanding on cutting-edge technology to present interactive productions to a population starving for live entertainment. In trying to walk the fine hybrid line, The Orchard has its stumbles, particularly in its ambitious in-person staging, but the virtual aspect prepares us for what might come — and don’t forget to scan that final barcode for an AR bonus.

WITNESS

Lauren Elias, Anna Gottlieb, Gene Ravvin, and Nathan Malin discuss antisemitism while on board the virtual MS St. Louis in Witness

WITNESS
Arlekin Players Theatre
Livestreamed select days through January 23, $25
www.arlekinplayers.com/witness

It’s been three quarters of a century since the Holocaust ended, so there are fewer and fewer survivors and witnesses alive to tell the true stories of what happened in the camps of Eastern Europe during WWII. Meanwhile, antisemitism continues to surge around the world amid Holocaust deniers and politicians who misuse and abuse the horror for soundbites and social media memes. Arlekin Players Theatre investigates these issues in its latest interactive online show, Witness. An immersive work that explores antisemitism and desperate migration, the play relates the fate of the MS St. Louis, the German ship that carried more than nine hundred Jewish refugees in May 1939, to the problems of today.

The luxury liner was transporting men, women, and children fleeing the approaching Holocaust, but the ship was turned away by Cuba, Canada, and the United States. Conceived and directed by Arlekin founder and Russian Jewish immigrant Igor Golyak and written by Moscow-based Nana Grinstein with Blair Cadden and Golyak, Witness puts the audience on board the St. Louis, where it begins with a talent show that is based on actual events.

The emcee (Gene Ravvin) believes he is in the present, in a green-screen studio, as he introduces the parade of performers: Liesl Joseph (Esther Golyak) and Gisela Klepl (Elizabeth Sarytchev), who perform “Skating on Glass!” as older versions of themselves (Rimma Gluzman and Polina Vikova) recall Kristallnacht in voice-over; Fritz Buff (Alex Petetsky), who constructs a house of cards and anticipates “joyful days” ahead; Fira (Julia Shikh), who boils a book banned in the USSR; a magician named Marik (Misha Tyutyunik) and his assistant (Jenya Brodskaia); and superheroes Anna (Anna Furman), Olga (Olga Aronova), and Vika (Vika Kovalenko), who call themselves the Elusive Avengers. The audience at home votes on each performance and gains points as they participate.

During each skit, the audience can click on pop-ups to learn more about the contestants, all of whom were real, as well as the actors portraying them. Short biographical sketches include their immigration status and, in the case of the passengers, their fate after the ship was refused entry to America. News crawls onscreen range from the 1930s to the 1990s, which initially confuse the emcee until he figures out what is going on. “The good news is that not only those Jews who left Hamburg in 1939 are sailing with us but also all the Jews that left anywhere are also here,” he explains. “First wave, second wave, third wave. A whole ocean of waves. From USSR, from Germany, from Spain, from Hungary. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and always. We are all together, ladies and gentlemen. We’re all together. If there is a place to leave, the Jews will find a way.”

After the talent show, the emcee walks through a long, narrow hallway on the ship, encountering people discussing antisemitism, assimilation, the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, dual loyalty, and Israel’s right to exist and defend itself as well as frightening vignettes occurring in some of the cabins. Every word of dialogue is based on interviews Golyak conducted with nearly a hundred people; the narrative is smartly organized to avoid clichés, stereotypical rhetoric, and didactic moralizing.

“So basically what they are is Jews who think if we just bend over a little more, if we just assimilate a little bit better than we did in Germany, that somehow miraculously everything will be different than it was in Germany,” Leah (Lauren Elias) says. “And it’s not going to be. I mean, come on. It feels like the only acceptable party line for Israeli people and Jewish people right now is like, ‘Oh my god. We’re sorry we didn’t all die in World War Two. We know that would have been so much easier for you. We are so sorry for the inconvenience.’”

Joseph (Nathan Malin), talking with Leah and Rachel (Anne Gottlieb) about the public reaction to the real-life stabbing of an Orthodox rabbi in Brighton, admits, “Unless you want to tar yourself as unwanted and as a bad person, you keep your mouth shut and you just duck your head, you know?”

Camera operator Austin de Besche films some of the cast during the making of Witness

Lady Liberty (Darya Denisova) occasionally appears to share her thoughts as the emcee repeats, “This can’t happen here. This can’t happen here!” Leah responds, “No, no, no, it can. And it does.”

Arlekin, which has previously dazzled viewers with the one-woman State vs. Natasha Banina and the daring hybrid chekhovOS /an experimental game/ (featuring Jessica Hecht and Mikhail Baryshnikov), a pair of livestreamed interactive shows that pushed the boundaries of online productions, again breaks new ground through its Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab with Witness. Set designer and costumer Anna Fedorova, virtual designer Daniel Cormino, sound designer Viktor Semenov, and director of photography and editor Anton Nikolaev make it feel like it’s all taking place on board the St. Louis, with rolling waves and flying birds outside as the ocean liner heads toward its supposed destination.

During the talent show, the audience on the ship looks like ghosts, which in essence is what they are today. At one point, the screen goes dark for several minutes as binaural recordings play through your headphones, as if you’re a passenger, not knowing what’s coming next, or from where. It sent chills through my bones.

As always with Arlekin’s works, each presentation is followed by a talkback in which members of the cast and crew delve into the making of the work, although Golyak is careful not to give away too many secrets. Some of the discussions include experts on antisemitism and the Holocaust, and the audience is encouraged to share experiences in the lively chat. The night I saw Witness, numerous people (including me) described instances of antisemitism they have encountered. At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, it is noted, “Bearing witness, so they will know, until the last generation.” A compelling and necessary piece of sociopolitical documentary theater, Witness reminds us all just how important that is.

ARLEKIN PLAYERS THEATRE: WITNESS

Lauren Elias, Anna Gottlieb, Nathan Malin, and Gene Ravvin on board the virtual MS St. Louis in Witness

Who: Arlekin Players Theatre
What: Interactive livestreamed show
Where: Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab
When: December 10 – January 23, $25
Why: Perhaps no other theater company has taken to virtual, interactive productions like Arlekin Players Theatre. The Boston-based troupe first presented the powerful solo show State vs. Natasha Banina, followed by chekhovOS /an experimental game/, which featured Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jessica Hecht, and Darya Denisova, who had played Natasha Banina. Next up for the innovative, forward-thinking company, which incorporates aspects of gaming into its work, is Witness, conceived and directed by Arlekin founder Igor Golyak. The livestreamed, interactive show, developed through Arlekin’s Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab, was inspired by the true story of the MS St. Louis, the German ship carrying nearly a thousand Jewish refugees in May 1939 escaping the approaching Holocaust, only to be turned away by Cuba, Canada, and the United States.

Camera operator Austin de Besche films some of the cast during the making of Witness

Golyak was born in Kiev, but his family moved to Boston when he was eleven to get away from rampant anti-Semitism. He later returned to Russia to study theater. Witness is written by Nana Grinstein with Blair Cadden and Golyak, with scenic design and costumes by Anna Fedorova, virtual design by Daniel Camino, and a live and filmed cast that includes Denisova as Lady Liberty, Gene Ravvin as the emcee, Lauren Elias as Leah, Anne Gottlieb as Rachel, Nathan Malin as Joseph, Polina Vikova as Gisela Klepl, Alex Petetsky as Fritz Buff, and others, along with voice actors. “Where do unwanted people go?” the play asks. It’s a question that is still critical today, given the ongoing immigration crisis. The interactive drama runs December 10 through January 23, with every performance followed by a talkback with members of the cast and creative team and/or experts on Jewish migration. Tickets are $25; several performances are already sold out, so get your tickets now to see the company I’ve called “The future of online productions.”

chekhovOS /an experimental game/

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.