Honorary Seats

The last part of Three Sisters was performed on the porch and in the yard in front of the Lefferts Manor. On account of the weather on Friday I was in denial about the inevitability of this, even if I saw the seats under the tent as I walked in, I quickly dismissed them once comfortably seated in the warm kitchen of the old Dutch House, with hardly any yardage between the actors and the audience, making for a fairly intimate theater experience. Still, I was nearly ecstatic to be seeing this show in this venue, the old house in the amazing park, a park without its own indoor theater like the one Corona Park boasts.

When the maid ushered us out for the last act I awkwardly took my place at the front bench under the tent and soon began absorbing enough sleet to soak my coat, so I pulled the hot blanket I'd been handed up to my chin. Just like camping! The actors went on acting in the gloomy winter mix, even if it was especially hard to hear them when the sleet picked up. Those Rebellious Subjects actors are diehards, I kid you not, and inspiring. Talk about surrender and dedication, not to mention talent. Whenever Irina (Sutton Crawford), the vulnerable, optimistic, horror stricken, kitten-faced young sister sobbed, I sobbed too, even while envying the way she rocked her magenta lipstick.

It was especially moving to see how nature had given such daring stage direction to the Company, who seemed especially honored to deliver Chekov's references to trees or snow and direct their words to Prospect Park's astonishing trees around them, to the ground covered with white, and to surrender to the rain/hail/sleet/rain/sleet/hail that pelted them as they performed.

I found it interesting that romance seemed to have no part in Chekov's equation for happiness. So sober was he when it comes to love that even after a lengthy bachelorhood he agreed to marry only if his betrothed kept her residence in a far away city. If The Three Sisters is any indication of his philosophy, work and surrender have much more to do with contentment. I recognized in the play an equation I've been noticing everywhere these days: Mania (for Moscow or whatever) + Reality = Depression + Surrender = Tranquility, or as the Stoics called it, Aequanimitas. But let that old dog Aurelius add flesh to that idea.

Thou must be like a promontory of the sea, against which, though the waves beat continually, yet it both itself stands, and about it are those swelling waves stilled and quieted.

sigh...