donka: a letter to chekhov - 2011 - Perth International Arts Festival

at the stage of the Young Spectators' Theater in Ekaterinburg. The play is based on the plots ofChekov's works and diaries.Press QuotesI am the collector of moments, small details and subtle nuances. My theatre is the theatre of imagesthat form layers upon layers and not always line up one after another. More often than not they callup specific objects, drop hints and we pretend to believe that all this is happening in real life. I likesilence, pauses, the moments of waiting, probably because all these years I have been striving toachieve the sense of lightness on stage. In much the same fashion I approached Chekhov. I was tryingto fathom some subtle details and nuances both in the story of his life and in the pages of his works.But this is not all.I wished to give shape to the silence contained in his diaries, to create images on the basis of hisnotes.My theatre speaks in the language of clowns and jugglers; it embraces the delicate and magicalworld of acrobats. With their help I shall invoke the reminiscences about Chekhov and for thispurpose I shall keep the company of the artists I have worked with for many years. We share notonly the same sense of beauty and the notion of theatre. We share the passionate desire to protect therealm of our imagination. This play will consist of tragically fragile objects that will be meltingslowly like ice in the sun, like wax. Our performers will be keeping their balance in a dangerousdance. There will be clowns, poetic and decadent, yet always unfailingly elegant. There will be livemusic, played on various instruments, a symphony orchestra and a beautiful choir. There will beplenty of white, probably slightly tinted with light blue. There will be tiny and barely visible drops ofblood as symptoms of the ailment that was devouring the writer and tormenting him with fits ofcoughing. There will be beds in a country clinic, ravens and other birds. There will be the sound ofthe wind stirring the branches. There will be a child, its chest being burned by fever. There will besounds of the church bells, patients under bed sheets, actors playing actors... Maybe there will befire... and loneliness... the orchard, the lake and the tiny bell, its jingling implying that the fish has atlast swallowed the bait.There is fish that dwells in deep water. You can’t catch it with ordinary fishing rod and a float. Whatyou need is a weighted line for bottom fishing. In Russian they are called “donkas”. That was how wecame up with the name for our production – an instrument that Chekhov used when he needed tomull things over.Daniele Finzi PascaI decided to discover Chekhov looking for particulars and details, both in his life and in the pages ofhis writings, and not only that. I thought of giving shape to the silences contained in the notes of his