With Baltimore Connections, a New York address, and Moscow Art Theater training, Studio Six Theatre puts the Alpha back into Acting

This column is about Baltimore theater, and, admittedly, the connection between Studio Six (in New York City) and Baltimore is a little tenuous.

The director, Vaz Santosham has roots just outside of  Baltimore. But that doesn’t make him a Baltimorean. Studio Six performed their version of Dostoyevksii’s Possessed in Baltimore, and left a lot of Baltimoreans hoping they’d return. But that doesn’t make them a Baltimore theatre.

The play Winter gives the three actors a loose rein on a stage filled with white pillows. It is a loopy mix of existentialism and surrealism, post-Soviet Style. For those in Russia after (or during) the Collapse, it has some of the marks of Russian writers who were still blinking as they emerged from the cave of Socialist Realism. Alternatively endearing and occasionally noodley, the script riffs on the Snow-Maiden fairy tale, as witnessed through the eyes of two hapless Russian army recruits.

The story of the Snow Maiden goes like this. A Russian snow maiden falls in love with humanoids, but as soon as she falls in love, she melts. This piece of Russian folklore gets grafted into the story of two soldiers who try to avoid freezing to death during an overnight training exercise (or is it the real thing?) in the Siberian outback. Think of an arranged marriage between Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” and, maybe, a few tabs of acid.

In brief, it’s not an easy play to mount, especially in the U.S., where Russian surrealism tends to fall flat, for one basic reason: to Americans, everything about the Russians is surreal. Winking at old-school Soviet patriotism just isn’t going anywhere.

If there’s anything American to this production of Winter it’s in the fact that director Vaz Santosham, at least to my eye, stepped back, and the acting developed at its own pace. Years in conception and well over four months in rehearsal, this production throws the glove down. I’m not saying that this was a perfect production, but anyone who watches a lot of theatre realizes that there are a few moments here that don’t just get pulled out of the hat.

In the opening, the two soldiers (played by Matt Raines and Raphael Schklowsky) are sitting out there in the freezing cold wondering when they should light their blasting caps. One of them vaguely mentions that he wishes that he had a cigarette. The other has never smoked, but wonders what it’s like. In the five minute interlude, on a minimalist set, these two actors manage to dig to the depths of what one cigarette – and indeed, their relationship —  is all about. A similar thing happens later on, as the snow maiden herself (Nicole Kontolefa), in one of her many apparitions, morphs into a teenage flirt. Raines, as the soldier retreats in time to his teenage self. The two go through the dance of teenage courtship. It’s ensemble acting, by actors who’ve worked together for years. You know it when you see it.

There are plenty of great actors in NYC (and in DC, Synetic Theater is a strong testimony to Georgian-style training) but if you want to see what an acting ensemble looks like when they’ve gone through Moscow Art Theatre together, check out Winter.

How did they get there? Starting in 2001, the Moscow Art Theatre School took a chance on this ensemble of American actors from Wayne State University Theatre school in Michigan and Laguardia School for the Arts in New York City. . I’m assuming that it was partly out of self interest. An ensemble of unknown American actors just out of Flint Michigan can be turned into a crack team in four years. Six years later, the point is made.

Standing outside the theatre door of the intimate Frankel theatre (intimate means that the bathrooms are backstage), director Santosham himself seemed reluctant to give up the work’s identity as a work in progress. As he puts it, he’s still not completely sure about the ending. One gets the impression that, as it gets added to the revolving repertoire of Studio Six, there’ll be a little tweaking in the future.

But Santosham and the others in the ensemble are dead sure that they’ve found a way to tackle plays that few American ensembles have the time or inclination to. Studio Six is a direct challenge to the thee-to-six-week-rehearsal, one-month-production  template. They molded themselves and their identity as an ensemble over four years, and since 2005, they’ve kept at it.

The Stanislavskian gauntlet is not for everyone. Studio Six went through it, and their Russophile tendencies, though understandable, can get a little perplexing to those outside the loop. But Winter, at the very least, is a strong argument for American actors to think long and hard about process and partnerships before developing product.