I should probably preface this with the fact that I speak, at max, six sentences worth of Russian. I can read a little more, but by read I really mean that I know what words written in the cyrillic alphabet should sound like but have no idea what they mean. All that said, I love Russian lit. Because of that, I thought it might be a good idea to head in to Brooklyn for the Maly Drama Theater's production of Chekov's Three Sisters. For those of you who clicked on the link to the company's website, you may have noticed that it is not in English. I saw a rather quintessential production of the Three Sisters if only because I actually saw it in Russian. There were English supertitles, but the actors were undeniably speaking Russian.
What was particularly interesting to me about the experience was the time difference of the audience's laughter. The play is questionably worth seeing because it's incredibly depressing (even for Chekov) and a little pedantic (more on that later), but an interesting part of the experience was that the performance was supertitled. Some projectionist had the thankless job of projecting the translation of the Russian words on screens on either side of the stage in time with the dialogue so that the non-Russian speakers in the audience could understand the action. Now of course this is not a perfect solution; some of the lines were up a little too long, some were not up for long enough, some of the translations were a little questionable, and - most importantly - the audience reactions were not in sync. The Russian speakers in the audience would, without fail, laugh/react first. Which is interesting to say the least. To me this begs an interesting linguistic question: can translation work? Are "I love you" and "te quiero" analogous or does the one loose something in the translation into the other? As I said before, I do not speak Russian, but I do get by in Spanish (at least I should given how long I've taken it) and I think the power of language is fascinating. I strive to be able to read things in the original spanish because I don't want to loose meaning in the translation. Of course I'd love to be able to read Chekov in the original Russian or Dumas in the original French, but I only have so much time in my day and I can't learn every language known to man. So we must often be satisfied with the translation, imperfect though it may be.
Additionally, I was intrigued by Chekov's focus in this play on happiness. Here's where the play gets a little pedantic. The characters, trapped in a provincial, Russian garrison town, turn regularly to philosophy to pass the time. More specifically, they talk of happiness and whether it is attainable. Vershinin (I think, the fact that it wasn't in English made me loose track of the characters a little) repeats the mantra that happiness will only be possible in the future once they have built (literally. Many of the characters are strong proponents of laboring to bring happiness to oneself.) the foundation for their descendants. The repetitiveness of the discussions renders the play a bit pedantic, but it's still an interesting thought. The argument (and it is a very specific one) centers on the idea that labor in this life will either bring you happiness or your descendants. I'm not sure I agree with their methods for bringing happiness, but the general question is certainly an interesting one: is happiness possible to attain?
So, that's a lot to think about. Comment away...
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