This story includes a scene from the play Uncle Vanya, by Anton Chekhov, translation by Paul Schmidt, with some injections from me as well. Full credit to a wonderful translation!
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In college I took an acting class. We studied some classic playwrights like Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, and Miller to name a few.
The class was mostly theatre majors with a few folks who were looking to get out of their comfort zone and had an interest in the text from a literary perspective. I was one of the latter. Theatre was something I enjoyed, but hadn't been involved in much.
When you think of a theatre major, you might think of a more hipster crowd, a little out there. Well, you'd be right. I was pretty much a hipster at the time. There was, however, one girl in the class you'd call preppy. Actually, just straight up WASPy. She was very thin, carried herself with poise, gave off rich-girl vibes, and was very pretty. Usually, this didn't translate to good acting. Actors tend to be less about being proper and more about being raw, honest, uninhibited. So when I met Kelsey, I figured she'd be a little too stuck up to let loose in a scene.
I was wrong. She was super talented. And she used her poise to great effect while acting. Where most hipster girls in the class couldn't pull off prim and proper, she could.
I was lucky enough to get paired with Kelsey for a scene from Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. I was playing Dr. Astrov, a jaded drunk with crazy predictions that one day, the planet's weather might be effected by all of the trees we are cutting down. (Chekhov predicted global warming in the late 1800's with this, by the way.) Astrov is considered a handsome love interest to Yelena, the wife of an old, sick professor with a bad temper. Their love is considered unfulfilled by most. They don't "wind up together" as it were. But they do share a final scene together before Yelena moves away with the professor. Astrov tries to convince Yelena to stay, as he has fallen for her, but she remains resolved to leave. While they have this brief moment of privacy, Astrov kisses her on the cheek goodbye. Yelena responds, "I wish you all the best. (Looks around.) At least once in my life...Why not? (Embraces his violently; then they both move away from each other.) Time to go."
It seemed pretty cut and dry to me; she, in a moment of inhibition, gives his a mere hug and then she leaves.
But this is Chekhov. And we are reading a translation with stage directions that may be up for interpretation, our teacher explains. Our professor suggests that while rehearsing, each actor take moments of stage direction in our own interpretation, without explaining to our scene partner first. This way, an organic moment might present itself in the scene.
After we received the scenes, Kelsey approached me.
"Hey, David. When do you want to rehearse?"
"Well...maybe in a few days? I'd like to get off-book first."
"Me too. Let's meet Thursday afternoon then, yes?"
Thinking ahead to the rest of my week, I thought that sounded doable.
"Sure. Here, let me give you my number so we can talk about a time and a place."
We exchanged numbers and Kelsey went on her way. I watched as she grabbed big sunglasses out of her small leather clutch, slide them on, and walk away in her cotton Burberry dress.
Over the next few days, I agonized over every line, wanted to be prepared for the scene as well as I knew she would be. She was always line perfect in a scene. And since I wasn't an actor, I didn't want her to be disappointed.
We picked a place and time to meet on Thursday, and before I knew it, there we were. Our rehearsal space was a small black box studio with some chairs and boxes that we could move around as rudimentary scenery.
I was early, pacing a little nervously as Kelsey walked in, right on time. She had on a soft camel colored sweater that looked like cashmere or...alpaca or something. She looked slightly red in the cheeks from the fall chill that was beginning to overtake our campus. She was glowing, really. She put her bag (a rattan box clutch this time) down on a chair, slid off her light trench coat, and walked over to me, no script in hand.
"Hi, David. You ready?"
"Yeah, let's do this."
"Wait, are you totally off-book?" She asked, surprised I wasn't holding my script. She could see it was open on the chair behind me.
"I think so."
She looked approvingly at me and without missing a beat, fed me the first line, "I'm leaving."
She held out her hand and said, "Goodbye."
Taken aback by how abruptly she began, I paused for a brief moment before looking her in the eye and uttering my first line, "Already?"
She continued, "The carriage is here."
Me, not playing her little game, responded cooly, "Goodbye, then."
Kelsey was Yelena. All I had to do was respond to her.
Yelena, disappointed by how casually she was being dismissed, pivoted nervously to keep the conversation going, "You promised me earlier you'd stop coming here."
