8

Another day of brilliant weather, supplemented with old guys out doing calisthenics in the park. Last night I forewent the concert, instead opting to see a performance put on by the theater students of Moscow University for the Performing Arts (or something to that effect--basically, the state art school). It's title was Black Square, or From Simple to Complex, and it was brilliant. Completely. Word repetition necessary. High school drama was enough to engender a run first, think later response to student theater, and I usually pale before artistic dance, but this was--well, very well done. For one thing, it was comic throughout, taking a clever and sophisticated approach to an SNL-style framework and using sound effects and music piped in over the black box's speakers very effectively. It was all in Russian, of course--except for one gratefully received scene parodying an English language class in high school--but a lot of it was slapstick and strange, modern dance, and I was glad to feel that I didn't miss too much. That's probably why I liked it so. An example: one short was a young man dressed up as a cockroach, in a brown tunic with feelers sprouting from his head, crawling about and underscoring the absurdity of an insect's path around a room, until the sound of a book comes smashing over the speakers and he wilts. Physical comedy, yes, but thoroughly pleasing physical comedy.