Show 'Em Whatcha Got

What a satisfying day I’ve had in Ekaterinburg.  I’ll work backwards, moving from the freshest memories to those already growing stale.

Just got home from the musical comedy theater where I saw Catherine the Great.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a musical comedy, even a rock opera, about the Romanov’s (arguably) kinkiest tsaritsa.  It was amazing!  Act 1 dealt mostly with Catherine’s personal character and rise to power, while Act 2 had more to do with Russian history of the time.  Two women played Catherine, younger and older, and when the two interacted, I cried like my mom during the overture of Fiddler on the Roof.  The songs were great, the actors and orchestra incredible, and the costumes were absolutely stunning.  Almost every song was a different genre, from jazz to rock to one questionable rap number, and most of them also had classical motifs.  The set blew my mind, and there was even a lot of multi-media effects.  All in all, I think theater is more alive in Russia than in America.  If our jerkwater town can do a production like this, with tickets for 250 rubles (about 10 bucks), imagine what’s going on at the Moscow Art Theater.  Also, the show is only about a year old, so in America it would still be on Broadway.  In fact, I spent half the show fantasizing about translating it into English (there was just barely too much dialogue for it to qualify as an opera), even going so far as dreaming up next year’s Fulbright proposal...

There is one area where American theaters have it over Russians: the curtain call.  At every show I’ve been to here, including in Petersburg, I’ve noticed two bizarre phenomena.  1) The actors stay in character and do a little dance or mini-skit at the curtain call.  This is weird because we’re clapping for the performers, not the characters.  2) The audience claps in unison.  How can you express your pleasure through forceful clapping when everyone’s beating out a rhythm?  It’s bizarre.

This afternoon I began in earnest my applications to graduate programs for Russian studies.  And yet, I’m already having second thoughts.  For all the applications I of course have to write an essay explaining why I want to continue my studies, and frankly, I don’t know.  In the back of my mind, I guess I’ve been thinking I’ll do more Russian now and eventually go to law school, since I’d rather work in the “real” world than in academics.  Well, now I’m starting to think that if it’s what I ultimately want, I ought to just go straight to law school.  I just really don’t want to come home and have nothing to do for a year, which will be the case if I have to wait to take the LSAT, whereas I could take the GRE and enter grad school right away.  But that’s no way to plan your future.  Right?!?

My day began with a conference at school on the methodology of teaching English.  Now I’m not sure what methodology means, but I was asked to speak, so I wrote a lecture on “The Student-Led Classroom.”  I was pretty nervous for a couple reasons.  First of all, to me, that style of teaching is second nature, so I didn’t think it warranted special attention at a conference.  Second, when I practiced, the speech only took at most 20 of my alloted 45 minutes.  But what can I say?  Baby girl knows how to work a crowd.  As it turns out, the educational system that I’m used to (ie, the student’s ideas are more important than the teacher’s) is very different from Russian tradition.  So for most of the attendees, these ideas were rather revolutionary.  Also, I got a lot of great feedback, not just about my speech, but about my public speaking.  Thanks high school speech teacher Sheila Heyman!  I think I won everyone over when I concluded with examples of educational methods in Anna Karenina.  Who’s the stupid American now?

All in all, a great Thursday.