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    Theatre in Passing 2: Searching for New Amsterdam
    Theatre in Passing 2: Searching for New Amsterdam
    Theatre in Passing 2: Searching for New Amsterdam
    Ebook171 pages1 hour

    Theatre in Passing 2: Searching for New Amsterdam

    By Elena Siemens

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    About this ebook

    This book discusses spaces of performance from formal opera houses to parks and graffiti around the world and is a companion to Theatre in Passing: A Moscow Photo-Diary. Drawing once again on Michel de Certeau’s notion of a 'second poetic geography', this new volume examines prominent theatrical destinations – New York, London, and Paris – along with others that are often overlooked, including Canada, Mexico and Turkey. In addition to indoor theatres, the book covers a variety of outdoor theatrical spaces, as well as street theatre. Like its predecessor, Theatre in Passing 2 is richly illustrated with photographs by the author and provides fascinating insights on the intersection of performing arts, visual culture and photography.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIntellect Books
    Release dateFeb 1, 2012
    ISBN9781783203871
    Theatre in Passing 2: Searching for New Amsterdam

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      Book preview

      Theatre in Passing 2 - Elena Siemens

      Café Uncle Vanya Manhattan

      New York City, 2006. I came to Broadway in search of the New Amsterdam Theatre that served as the setting of Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), a cinematic adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya (1897). Directed by the innovative team of Louis Malle and Andre Gregory, the film was shot in the then-abandoned New Amsterdam, with the actors performing in street clothes. The original Uncle Vanya takes place at a provincial country estate in pre-revolutionary Russia. Seeing it staged in the contemporary setting of a rundown Manhattan theatre was a complete surprise and it left a lasting impression on me.

      Looking for the New Amsterdam, I at once ruled out the glittering Times Square, and instead went to a quiet side street lined with old-fashioned venues resembling more closely the film’s understated milieu. I was used to calling it Vanya, and did not remember the rest of the title, which contained crucial information about the address. Isolated passers-by were understandably at a loss when I asked about an esoteric Chekhov film from the 1990s and the venue in which it was shot. Months later, sorting out my photographs, I came across a cluttered picture of Times Square, featuring a fragmented view of the New Amsterdam, its façade decorated with prominent billboards for The Lion King (1994). Looking for some explanation of this metamorphosis, I learned that, soon after the film had been completed, the theatre was leased to The Walt Disney Company and restored to its original 1903 splendour, when it was home to the legendary Ziegfeld Follies.

      On my next trip to New York, I photographed Central Park with its Delacorte Theatre, and Café Uncle Vanya, which I discovered by accident in Midtown. I considered my search for the New Amsterdam to be more or less complete. The outcome was not exactly what I had hoped for, but not finding the old New Amsterdam was also a blessing. In my memory this theatre will always remain the setting of Uncle Vanya, and a small slice of Russia in the middle of Manhattan.

      The statue of George M. Cohan appears inconsequential against Times Square’s giant billboards. As with the Pushkin statue in Moscow, also dwarfed by its surroundings, I photographed Cohan from the bottom up, an avant-garde perspective advocated by the famous Rodchenko.

      Old-fashioned theatres on West 45th Street. Except for the ubiquitous yellow taxicabs, this quiet street, located just off Times Square, resembles the setting of a Hollywood costume drama.

      Café Uncle Vanya, West 54th Street Manhattan.

      In Act Four of Chekhov's play, Uncle Vanya (Ivan Petrovich Voynitsky) still hopes to start over. He appeals to Doctor Astrov:

      VOYNITSKY: […]. I’m forty-seven years old. Let’s say I live to be sixty, that leaves me thirteen more years. That’s a long time. How can I get through those thirteen years? What will I do? What can I fill them up with? Oh, you can understand … [Fervently squeezes ASTROV’s arm] you can understand what it would mean to live the rest of your life in some new way. If you could wake up one clear, quiet morning and feel that you’re beginning your life over again, that the entire past is forgotten, scattered to the winds like smoke. [Weeps] To begin a new life … Give me a hint, tell me how to begin … what to begin with …

      ASTROV: [with annoyance] Oh, come on, now! What do you mean, a new life! Our situation, yours and mine, is hopeless.

      VOYNITSKY: Yes?

      ASTROV: I’m sure of it.

      VOYNITSKY: Then give me something at least … [Points to his heart] I’m burning up here.

      ASTROV: [shouts angrily] Stop it! [Mollified] Those who come after us, in the course of a hundred or two hundred years, and who will despise us for making our lives so stupid and so tasteless, perhaps they will find ways to be happy, but as for us… […].

      (Chekhov 1977: 90)

      Street Signs Paris

      Walking in Moscow and taking pictures of its theatres for my previous book, Theatre in Passing: A Moscow Photo-Diary (2011), was relatively easy. Although I now live and work in Canada, I still feel at home in Moscow. I see myself as a walker there, and not a voyeur. According to Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life (1988), the voyeur observes the city from some elevated perspective, such as the top of the Eiffel Tower, from which the terrain below unfolds like a map. By contrast, walkers remain on the street, taking full advantage of shortcuts and back alleys. Walkers do not read the city like a map; they write it (De Certeau 1988: 93).

      Taking pictures inevitably turns you into an observer, a close relative of the voyeur. I try to mitigate this by staying close to the ground, avoiding, whenever possible, panoramic shots. Capturing the Bolshoi Theatre, I followed the example of Alexander Rodchenko, a prominent avant-garde photographer, who insists that well-known landmarks must be shot from unusual points of view so as to defamiliarize their habitual perception. Rodchenko himself excluded the Bolshoi altogether from his 1930s photograph of Theatre Square. Instead, he took his picture from the roof of the landmark theatre.

      My new project, focusing on spaces of performance beyond Moscow, forced some significant changes to my approach. Navigating an unfamiliar territory, I was no longer a walker, who travels at will and subverts the city’s official geography. I now had to rely on street signs, maps, and tourist guides. My international cast of friends, as well as the occasional passers-by, also served as an invaluable source of information. Frequent challenges of geography and foreign culture notwithstanding, I still avoided climbing towers in search of all-encompassing views, continuing instead my usual practice of staying close to the ground and observing the world from the sidewalk.

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