The Sounds of "Brace up!" Translating the Music of Chekhov

Abstract

In June 1989 Ron Vawter called; he said the Wooster Group was thinking of staging Chekhov's Three Sisters. They were comparing translations of the play, weren't very satisfied with what they'd found, and would I be willing to do one for them? As it happened, I had a draft of a translation I had been working on for some time. On 23 June I sat down with the company at the Performing Garage to read my translation through, and they decided to use it. A few months later they decided to use me, as an actor; Elizabeth LeCompte asked if I'd be willing to play the part of Chebutykin. I said yes, and joined rehearsals in February I990. The Group had already done considerable work on the piece, which was to be called Brace Up!, and which had evolved out of their interest in a documentary film about a provincial Japanese theatre troupe, strolling musical players called Geinin. The concept, as far as I could gather, was that this troupe might perform Chekhov's play, and what would that look like? We have been playing Brace Up! for two years now, all across this country and Europe, and I still cannot tell you what it looks like. The blocking for my character was finally reduced to sitting in a chair in the extreme upstage-left comer of the stage, facing the back wall and a video camera. All I see is a lens and the wall. Throughout the play the audience sees my face in a constant close-up on a video monitor set downstage at the footlights, but I never see them. I do move onstage for the dance in Act II, and I cross onstage for my brief scene in Act III, but that's it. My view of Brace Up!? All I can tell you is what Brace Up! sounds like. But that, I have come to understand, was the main point of the Wooster Group's work-create a sound structure that articulates the music of Chekhov's play. I had known about Chekhov's musicality conventionally, in an abstract sort of way, but my experience with Brace Up! made me aware of the complexity of what Chekhov is up to, and the difficulty of performing it. It is commonly observed of Chekhov's plays that the lines alone do not carry the emotional texture of the piece, but that emotion is conveyed in pauses, stillness, and sound effects; that the emotional effect, in other words, is a product of these elements juxtaposed, and not simply something conveyed in the actors' speeches. This technique Chekhov developed