 All right, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Graham Schmidt, I'm the Artistic Director of Great Spring Theater and I'm extremely proud and happy to be here this evening. It's such a fantastic production. I'd like to introduce two people before the cast join us on the stage who are quickly getting dressed back in the dressing room. The first is a person to whom we all, I think, owe a great debt of gratitude, the mastermind of this production, somebody who's been working on it since the fall of 2011. One is Director Liz Fisher. And the second is our honored guest and someone who has made a great commitment to the works of Maxine Quartichkin as well as the cause of disseminating, celebrating, investigating new Russian drama in the United States. And that's John J. Hamlin, our translator. Thank you so much for being here. So first, I'd just like to invite you, John, if you could share with us your impressions, your reaction. This is a text that you've lived with for quite a while, but to this production here, if you will. Well, the big thing to say is that this is the one play that Maxine wrote that has not a single stage direction in it. It's all dialogue, so it's an invitation to a director, but I've never imagined that a director would do this much with a text. So all the action you saw up there, all the things that the actors did and interacted, those all created by Liz, and I assume some collaboration with the actors. But Liz really deserves great honor for taking this thing on the page and turning it into a full vision. So I was wowed by all three characters in the way that they manifested the forces. I feel like you could feel them manifesting the force of vodka and television and that other one. Because that's what the whole conceit of the play is, is that these are not supposed to be people, they're supposed to be forces out there on the stage, and I felt like the relationship between them and the hero made it clear how they impacted his life. Well, before we open up the audience, I'd like to ask a couple more questions. One is something that came up just the other night. It's stated at the beginning of the play that the author is not represented by the hero in this play. And I think you've probably spent the most amount of time with Maxine, who I hope is actually, and I'm quite confident he's still watching the event, Maxine. But I wondered if you might tell us a little bit about the, you know, compare and contrast. What we see here at Moldolyn's hero is Portrayal and the man, the myth, Maxine Fudge. We should turn off the camera. Oh, I think that, I would call it an altered ego, but I think that the hero is a sort of synthesis of Max at moments in his life plus a type of Russian man of his generation that he has seen a lot of. You know, Max has a lot of contemporary friends who have kind of gone through the history of the Soviet Union and just grown up together. It is a very particular generation that fates between those legs, let's say, of the camel. And, yeah, so that's why I think he draws it from. We talked about how he's called the hero possibly in reference to Lermontov's novel, a hero of our time from the 1830s and that the hero there, Pichon, is supposed to represent a certain type from that generation. And I think in the same way that hero is not Max, it's a generation. And here comes our lovely Maxine Fudge. She's behind us so well to sit in the hot seat. Oh, okay. Jude's on his way up, but if you guys want to introduce yourselves really quickly, please. I'm Adrian Michler. I'm Joey Hood. Noel Moldolyn. Jude Hickey is on his way. Yes, he's on his way. He had an important conference call. How is it? It's not true. Well, and one more question I have for you, John. This is something that we talked about a little bit, because you had been reading your translation on playing you, myself, and Technology Director Robert Matney as well as Liz had an opportunity to meet today. And one thing that came up was how this play does or does not fit into the tradition of Russian playwriting, Russian literature. I wonder if you might speak to that. Well, you know, it was John Friedman, hi John, in Moscow, who pointed out the connection between the title, a hero of our time, and the hero in this play. So I think that's part of it, to make that link, that this is supposed to be a representative work for a whole generation. But beyond that, I think that there is a part, there's a kind of figure in Russian literature who's the sensualist, who is tormented in the aftermath of what he does. And that goes back at least to Dostoevsky. And Russia is both a great Orthodox Christian nation and a great vodka drinking nation, and a winter nation. And I think that combination makes for characters who move back and forth between indulging their sensuality in big, big ways through the winter, the long winter, and then waking up in the spring, even the spring of the day, in the morning of the dawn, and having, you know, the light come through the church windows that they grew up with, making them bring their hands and swear that that is it. It's the last time. That's the last time. Till next year. That's right. At this point, I'd like to ask anybody in the audience, you know, this is a play that originally found the resonance in Russia and Moscow, contemporary Moscow. And I wondered if you might say, one, if you have any reactions to this production. But also, I wonder how accessible it felt. Of course, the idea was to produce it here for y'all. Any reaction? When was the play set? When was it set? I believe 2003. That's when it came out. Post-it said he was 33 years old and he was born in 1997. Wow. Jude, we saved the seat for you. Oh, right there? Sorry. I just have a question. Something a little bit different. Can you translate a play with that? So when you get a play that you probably have read in Russian, I assume, and then you get a translation. Do you get the each to change things or do you just leave it as is? I actually was pretty, not to say hands-off with this. This process was really driven by Liz. And there was a, you know, we have a select, thanks to what was called the New Voices, New Visions Initiative that was conducted by an organization called the Center for International Theater Development, led by Philip Arnaud, directed by John Friedman. There are about 29 plays that have been written over the past 10 years from a movement in Russia called New Russian Drama. And we have access to translations from a range of translators from about 14 different playwrights. Everybody in the United States has free access to these translations. We've really been minding them here in Great District Theater. I want, I'll say I find John's translations to be superior. I don't go back and check the original Russian because when you read something and it reads as smoothly and beautifully as John's do, then you don't, I have no urge to check. I would be disappointed to find that any correction would need to be made. They're all approved. So, I don't know, Liz, what was your experience and this is a script that you discovered in the United States? Absolutely. Well, this whole sort of process came about as a result of a lot of its past years, New Russian Drama Festival, where we've been highlighting Max's work. Graham was directing a full production of his play, The Schooling of Bend and Bonship. And similarly to what we did for the first year, we wanted to have a number of staged readings and Graham asked me if I wanted to direct one. So, I started reading all of Max's plays. We have translations of them because I don't speak of Lincoln Russian. Not at all. I'm not ashamed to say it. So, and this was one, I mean, just from the title loan and the little synopsis which we have copies of, that was very interesting. And I started reading the translation and was really impressed with it. I thought that it read really sort of cleanly and it had a lot of humor. It was very accessible for an American audience and also as a bonus would make for a very easy to do staged reading. And just on the merits of that loan, we put together a cast. Nolan Adrien, who was a part of our original cast for the staged reading, did it when Max and John were actually over about how John Friedman were over for the New Russian Dog Festival and people really enjoyed it and found it to be a very funny, very entertaining text. So, we just had a grand ask if we'd like to do this as a whole production and said absolutely yes please. So, here we are tonight. Are there things because of the differences in the cultures that were hard to do that couldn't translate in something that maybe an American audience wouldn't understand because of the political differences? Even the poet, for example, the role of the poet in Russian society where as we said, it's not like that poet that we would recognize and we would know the poetry. I'm going to segue on top of this question because I'm thinking of something similar. Think of the title. I'm thinking about the words back in English and how that F word has so many uses and variations and I'm just wondering what the Russian word is. Is it a word that also uses a curse word and an adjective and an adverb? Actually, the roots, there are kind of four roots of Russian profanity and they all have to do with sex. I'll let you use your imagination for what the other ones are and those roots get into the middle of all sorts of words and so the word but is to fuck in Russian and it just shows up as the root and then there's prefixes and suffixes for anything so you can do anything in a sort of fucking style. Like in the same word then? Yes, yes, but there's also a lot of the word which is thick and that shows up and if you try to translate that as like literally it doesn't work and so we have to use fuck instead in that expression. So there's a lot of manipulation because they're so creative with the making of words that have these profane bases to them and actually the English language is fairly limited by comparison. Since we're on this topic it's what's difficult sometimes too. There are different forms of speech for example the word piece gets which means pussy is actually preferred so in Russian it's like I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry No, it's foreign cultures That's really interesting Yeah I'm sorry I'm sorry Well, all the methods are not on my mind I was going to I was an educator I was going to I was going to say there's a slideshow and I was just about to get posted and I put the link in it and I had to title the play I thought the team is on my I didn't think I would have posted because there is that thing about the language I'm sorry but I was like let me click on your I mean you click but you've got F I didn't do any promotional stuff on Facebook the whole word simply because I got so much family That's interesting Except people doing the reviews had reviewed it that way instead of the word F or had put F I'm not here to say Myself and Robert kind of Robert Manny kind of pilot he coordinated this entire book last year but just from our screen we kind of are in the driver's seats of the breaking the string promotional machine which includes Facebook and when we first used the word F I think it was probably in June and we have people that came to see which was kind of you know classic Russian theater and we have roots in check out and stuff and when we first used it within a week we lost like 20 unlike this but since then we've gained we've gained about 70 so I want to say I think it's just it's probably just a certain demographic is falling away a little bit and a different one is taking its place I just want to point out that just now John Friedman who's the editor for the Moscow Times just posted John Jay Handlin and Graham Schmidt currently seriously almost discussing the four roots of Russian obscenities how can you miss this also Maria Kruutnik also in Russia compliments for just waving to John it's a mess so we're having live chat here we have time for one more comment or question anybody from the audience I'll pose it one question that just came up came up in a radio interview with Noel and we have John here and I wondered if you might speak to this just put it at me to kind of embody the Russianness of this place that's something you strove after and yeah I wonder if you might speak to that oh me to embody the Russianness yeah vodka number one number two I think it's a speed of thought that it's really fascinating with and this duality of like tragedy and comedy and that they become that's right there it's under the surface and also the intelligence there like there's so many themes there's so much it's so rich it's so dense and so yeah I don't know I mean I try to make it accessible it's me it's still me I'm not Russian but I am you know I don't know we're still in Austin it's everything it's human so I'm not doing an accent so I'm not trying to be Russian so that's an interesting question yeah what do you want me to say can I ask one more little question of the actors I'm just wondering what it's like those of you the three of you who are being since you traditionally are a character you can even make a little backstory and you can really create the character what's the difference in all of us thinking I'm just television I'm just logistically speaking there's a difference because the way I would approach a character the way I would approach Masha you know whatever in the same way which is to live and breathe would be other characters on the stage so logistically it's the same because it's even easier because we have full permission to to move, live, breathe with him it's kind of great too because we can just kind of listen to him and write an aesthetic response but in terms of fucking it's tricky yeah and it's tricky to talk about too because I come off a little bit I think like snooty when I talk about it because I want to make sure that when I'm talking about it people that I'm talking to know that I'm smart I think natural so it's tricky because it's very harmful to play the caricature and yet that's kind of what it's all about the harmfulness of the character so it's a balance I think it's a little bit of finesse and to be completely honest it's been a little trial and error like one night fucking is off the wall sex and another night she's very stern and I'm touching you it's interesting because you brought it up it's like what does fucking mean what does that even mean? and it's interesting because as a hero every night I drink vodka I watch TV but do I fuck fuck that's the question seems to be so I mean but that's my question the other thing that's tricky about yours is that as it turns out in the end she's not fucking which we have since been discussing it's very interesting to meet so she has to kind of fool the audience for a while there that was a nice touch did you that's the whole genius that's the whole genius of the play I was getting there and it's so important we haven't yet talked about that which I was quite surprised at the same time I left but it kind of adds that layer of it can't just be the one character because it never is that it never was that there's always that Joey? if I may cut in just for a second on that note we have a great discussion up here about what fucking is as opposed to the wife and you bring up the intellectualness of the wife being the part of fucking and it came to an agreement up here that it was actually fucking's way to make sure that she doesn't get kicked out by saying that all of these things aren't fucking so therefore she doesn't go she's not even the wife she's just smarter than everybody she also has the line earlier on that says nobody in their right mind would give a fucking she's shining on a point there too what a card to say isn't the line calling somehow that makes the line even better but you are actually right that's one of the things that we had sort of come to as we were working on realizing that well of course everyone gets to stay because this problem where all three of you refers to this several times I can't live with all three of you so when she is no longer fucking there's only two of them so of course everyone gets to stay so in a way she kind of saves them all so maybe we could say fucking is selfless or he does it the whole time lately I've been you know like he's the one who's the god of his own trajectory of reality he creates his own reality so what if the whole time he really is the hero he's created this whole thing to be as such that's sort of the way that's where it gets yummy right at the end of the day he's there with the laptop and he's just looked and oh my god where did that whole day go either he spent it in his imagination fighting this thing out or he wrote the play that in his imagination he's the hero fighting his whole thing out alright well I want to thank everyone for joining us I want to since he's probably watching I hope he's watching thank Maxine Kudrichke for any of his comments thank John J. Hamlin for making it accessible for audiences here in Austin and for being here with us all to continue this conversation and we'll end it on the stage right now thank you