Here's what I am doing.
1. Working a lot.
2. Cleaning.
3. Facing and catching up on finances.
Like straightening a crook in my spine.
4. Writing my theatre book.
I see everything dumbly through the lens of the book. How does this black dog with blue eyes relate to the book? How do purdah and Indra and peacocks and dust relate to the book? How does Jarlsberg cheese on a blue earthenware plate relate to the book? How does Chance's singing about his dead mother, with Sid on guitar, me on low harmony, the whole Cherry Orchard cast joyously joining the chorus, and Leonid, uncomprehending and exhausted, asleep in the next chair, relate to the book?
4. Assistant-directing Leonid's production of The Seagull.
Rehearsals are Jan-Feb, then a year of twice-weekly performances, starting in March. Lower Depths follows, March-May, then it joins Seagull in repertory for the year. Performances are home performances, in the big house on Capitol Hill where rehearsals are held.
5. Working with Lyon & Charlotte to help produce the year of performances.
6. Helping produce Leonid's Japanese company's tour in April.
They are coming from Tokyo to do three performances of a Chikamatsu play -- "the Japanese Shakespeare," says Paul -- and a collaborative rehearsal of Seagull, where the Tokyo actors speak Japanese and the Seattle actors speak English. Leonid has had this company of 70 actors for 5 years.
7. Looking forward to Bart's Richard III at the Intiman this summer.
It feels good to be weaving theatre again through my life. Like the silver thread in a sari, and like its green silks too.
Working with Lyon, writing my book, changing my habits -- this is the leading edge of my theatre work, somehow: inconclusive, erratic, weak, blind, true.
"My doves, he says," said Wes, laughing as he interpreted Leonid's first words. "My doves." Wes laughed again.
Jennifer Lavy was given one of the Polish Laboratory Theatre's incredibly rare
Akropolis posters. Black woodcut printing on light brown paper, nearly 50 years old. It lay on their grand piano, as quiet and full of power as its twin which hangs at the Odin.
Like Leonid said, when describing how he came to Seattle the first time:
It is Fate. Like all acts of Fate, it is not a coincidence.