How did she do that? The Akhmatova Project

I love it when I sit in the theatre and watch something and think “How did they do that?” I ask this after the show is over, of course, because while I’m watching it, I am too floored by it. Sometimes this question has a concrete answer, like the bat transformation in The Passion of Dracula (See my previous post on that.) But it’s most exciting when that question can’t really be answered.

The mythologist Joseph Campbell talked about the power of mythic images and what he called “the impact.” This concept is that there are profound things that we can’t explain or describe and so we use myth to do that. For example, the mythic idea of The Witch, which appears in all cultures and at all times. (I could use a lot of examples: the world tree, the serpent, the cosmic mountain, but I’ll use this one.) You can’t describe what The Witch means - even though there are articles and books about it. There is the thing that The Witch stands in for that can never be articulated. And that “thing” is what Campbell calls the “impact.” We feel it. We recognize it. We dream about it. But it can never be put into words. If you can put it into words, it’s not an impact.

Now hang on to that thought.

Anna Akhmatova

The Akhmatova Project is a movement performance piece which director Nancy Keystone created and workshopped over a couple of years with her company, Critical Mass Performance Group. It is about Russia from 1910 to the 1940s as seen through the lens of famed poet Anna Akhmatova and her contemporaries who lived and died during that turbulent period.

Am I interested in Russian history? No.

Do I have a special affinity for poetry? Not exactly.

How about Russian literature? Not really.

Politics? Nope.

Did I know who all the characters were or what was going on at every given moment in this play, even though I saw it three times? Umm, no.

Then why did I like this production so much? Why is it on my short list of one of the best things I’ve ever seen?

I liked it because it made an impact on me. (In the Joseph Campbell sense of the word.)

With all of these “noes” and yet with my profound reaction to the piece, I am left with my original question: “How on earth did Keystone do that?”

L to R: Miranda Viscoli ,Valerie Spencer, Joseph Grimm, (Erin Douglass--mostly hidden), John Prosky, Kathryn Miller Kelley / Photo by Nancy Keystone

This is a play about poets and is set during a time and culture when poetry meant something. Poetry animated the daily lives of poets and non-poets. And people literally lived and died over poetry. 

Although this is not in the play, I am reminded of the circumstances of the death of Vsevolod Meyerhold, the great Russian director. (one of the greatest directors of the twentieth century – along with Stanislavski, Brecht, Grotowski and Brook.) Meyerhold was a lifelong communist, but he was still tortured and shot by Stalin’s operatives in 1940. He was assassinated not because of his politics, but because of his aesthetic. Just think about that for a moment. You couldn’t have someone representing Russian theatre who was a formalist, and not a social realist. That’s how important and dangerous Art was at the time. This is one of the specters that Keystone’s play conjures up so well.

I guess I should say something about the plot. Just so you have a narrative hook to hang your ushanka on. After the Russian revolution of 1917 the poets and artists of Russia are persecuted as being relics “from the old decadent culture.” Some are executed, some tortured, and some commit suicide. All while trying to survive and hang on to their ideals. Anna Akhmatova was “doomed to survive” (as they say in the play) and died in 1966.

L to R: Natasha Basley, Christopher Kelley, Eric Marx, Joe Palmiotti, Russell Edge, Valerie Spencer, Joseph Grimm, Erin Douglass, John Prosky, Kathryn Miller Kelley / Photo by Nancy Keystone

Keystone’s play is full of poetry. Actual poetry is recited. And I imagine (although I don’t know) that some actual poetry functions as dialogue. And the rest of it, written by Keystone or her company is just poetic. But the power of the piece is not in the written word at all, which is ironic, given the subject matter. For me, as with all great theatre, the beating heart of the piece is in the rhythm and the staging.

Others may disagree about what they liked most, but that’s what makes horse races, as Mark Alan Gordon used to say. For me, the staging of this piece was breathtaking and its raison d'etre.

And here is where it becomes difficult to write about. Because to me, the only things worth writing about with regard to theatre are the things that can’t be put into words.

Although dealing with literal events, Keystone does not stage her piece in a literal way. She depicts something literal without being literal. That’s a rabbit out of a hat right there. And although the events conspicuously move forward in time. Keystone bends time, using repetitions, theatrical layering, and by the sheer force of her creative will.

L. to R. Joseph Grimm, John Prosky, Christopher Kelley, Candace Reid, Eric Marx, Joe Palmiotti / Photo by Nancy Keystone

What also captivated me about this show is that elusive bell, (which I set out to ring every time I direct a play, but only occasionally do), and that is expressing the play’s primal rhythm. Ms. Keystone, on the other hand, has no trouble with that bell.

Keystone writes in her rehearsal journal from that time: “Don’t worry about information gotten through the brain, this will be about information absorbed and expressed through the body.”

The entire Akhmatova Project is a dance. But it’s a dance which stirs you in your marrow, because it’s tied to a compelling story which swirls above theatre like a ghost - summoned onto the stage again and again. Keystone takes movement, text, staging elements, vocalizations, and props and combines them in such a thrilling, beautiful way. But it is also a way which defies direct understanding. And that is the secret of its gravitational pull.

Back row: Candace Reid, Christopher Kelley
Middle row: Valerie Spencer, Miranda Viscoli, Kathryn Miller Kelley
Front row: Joseph Grimm, John Prosky / Photo by Nancy Keystone

Keystone said this about her creative process:

“The writing of the piece happens in 3-dimensions. I create exercises which form the foundation of our explorations. Based on those exercises, prompts, and pieces of writing we devise movement sequences, spoken text, accumulation of images, and soundscape. Design elements are part of the development process, so we are able to sketch ideas and experiment with them to see how they might work. The explorations and development become more complex with each workshop—actors will take on specific characters, I’ll bring in more concrete writing, we’ll create more narrative sequences. We don’t work from A-to-B-to-C, but rather, as John Coltrane so aptly put it: we ‘start in the middle…and move both directions at once.’”

And in case I haven’t made this point enough, that so much easier said than done.

Back row L to R: Christopher Kelley, Russell Edge, Eric Marx, Joe Palmiotti, Natasha Basley, Erin Douglass, John Prosky, Kathryn Miller Kelley
Front row L to R: Sarah Gossage, Joseph Grimm, Miranda Viscoli
Photo by Nancy Keystone

I’ve seen a fair amount of theatre which tries to do this - tries to combine disparate theatrical elements into a cohesive whole. And by-and-large those pieces are really weak. They’re weak because it’s so unbelievably hard to do. And takes such great artistic acumen to pull it off. Those unsuccessful attempts tend to be muddled, confusing, unfocused at their worst, and at their best - just plain dull. Creating just one scene like this, let alone a whole play, is a monumental task. And for Keystone to weave her scenes all together into a coherent 100-minute piece which not only has its own beautiful arc but seeps into your subconscious, just seems virtuosic.

Once again, I feel like I’ve done nothing here but try to put shadows in a bottle. Another great poet once said that theatre is only shadows and dreams, anyway. But I think I’ll let Anna Akhmatova have the last word:

When I’m embraced by airy inspiration,
I am a bridge between the sky and earth.
Of all what heart high-values in creation
I am a king, when breathing with a verse!

Just if my soul wishes it, my fairy,
I shall give you the peaceful coast band,
Where, with a hum, the pinky sea is carrying
The dreaming tide to reach the dreaming land. 

The Akhmatova Project

Created and directed by Nancy Keystone
in collaboration with the company 

Original music & sound design by Randy Tico

Lighting design by Daniel Ionazzi

Costume design by Lee Kartis

Set design by Nancy Keystone

ENSEMBLE: Natasha Basley, Russell Edge, Sarah Gossage, Joseph Grimm, Christopher Kelley, Eric Marx, Kathryn Miller Kelley, Joe Palmiotti, Candace Reid, John Prosky, Valerie Spencer, Miranda Viscoli