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Book Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . .
37th Edition.
Richard Nelson. A Diary of War & Theatre: Making theater in Kyiv, Spring 2024. N.p.: Wordville, 2024. 169pp.
It’s not often that a book is published within a few months of the events it chronicles. Richard Nelson’s A Diary of War & Theatre is a good example of such a book, being about his experiences directing a play in Kyiv, Ukraine, over a nine-week period this year, beginning in March and ending in May. Nelson, of course, is the prolific, widely respected American playwright-director whose work includes the acclaimed, serial family dramas The Gabriels (two plays) and The Apple Family Plays (four plays). These were seen before the Covid pandemic at New York’s Public Theater, with which he’s enjoyed a long relationship.
In 2020, Nelson was invited to St. Petersburg to direct a translation of a play he was writing about Russian characters. A disagreement brought the project to an end, but a Russian familiar with another of his plays, Conversations in Tusculum, which had been produced in 2008 at the Public Theater, thought it would be worthwhile to present in Russia. In this play, set in 45 BCE, a group of conspirators, including Brutus, Cassius, and Marcus, believe they can “manage” Caesar, the new dictator; this proves to be a fallacy that leads to the conclusion, “He must die.” For a Russian audience, Caesar’s contemporary analogue was obvious.
In February 2022, as plans for a Russian staging were underway, Russia began its “full-scale invasion” of Ukraine, which derailed the production. Ukraine had been at war with Russia since 2014. To Ukrainians, however, the shocking attacks that began in 2022, are differentiated from the longer war by being called the “full-scale invasion.”
Nelson’s book details how several non-Russian, anti-Putin countries, including Israel, were considered suitable for a production before Kyiv’s Theatre in Podil heard about the play and invited him there. He accepted, even though friends and family were concerned for the then 73-year-old writer’s safety.
In straightforward prose, Nelson describes the experience of directing this play with a company of actors only one of whom spoke English. He always had an interpreter present, so language was the least of his problems, although the play’s translation continued to evolve as mistakes became evident.
While he was there, Kyiv came under increasing bombardment; not only were rehearsals constantly being interrupted by air raid alerts, Nelson’s sleep was also a victim. He had promised his wife not to ignore any alerts, so he made it his business to visit the available shelters, either in his hotel or the theater, even when he was the only one present. Many locals, including the actors, often took the alerts for granted. However, Nelson’s shelter visits sometimes turned up interesting people he describes.
The Theatre in Podil, whose artistic director, Bohdan Benyuk, plays a major role in Nelson’s diary, has an active 40-play repertory, performed in two venues, the smaller of which—originally the ballroom of a private house—was used for Nelson’s six-character play, done in the semi-round in modern dress. Since the repertory offerings were always changing, and the actors were in multiple productions, the rehearsal schedule was chaotic, especially as the theater did not operate with the managerial efficiency Nelson was used to in the United States.
Actor illnesses, holidays, birthdays, and other problems, including the need for actors to replace those being called up by the military, made the rehearsal process daunting. There were days when only a single actor was available, or when the rehearsal furniture was taken for another play, or when the rehearsal space itself was not available. What seemed on paper an ideal period of nine weeks was perhaps half of that in practice.
Nelson also had the difficulty of applying his unique artistic approach to actors unused to it. He writes a good deal in the diary of his being an “actor-centric” director, how he seeks a kind of acting that is as close as possible to ordinary conversation and behavior, with a focus on listening to one another to establish authentic human relationships. Anything that smacks of “acting” is dismissed: “Just be” is Nelson’s acting byword. He compares the European emphasis on directorial inventiveness and visual creativity to his simple, practically sceneryless method, with only necessary furniture and furnishings. Throughout the rehearsal process, he struggled to get the actors to tone down their theatrical tendencies, which they eventually managed to do.
Nelson’s diary includes intriguing commentary on his daily life in Kyiv, his walks in the city, the museums and churches he visits, the people he meets, and the Ukrainian theater. He discusses how the war has created a cancel culture in which, as the nation seeks to define itself, animosity toward anything Russian—including the language, which most Ukrainians speak—rejects even a writer like Mikhail Bulgakov, born and raised in Kyiv, because of his Russian associations. He relies on (and reprints) news releases from various online sources, like WhatsApp, Telegram, and a local online English newspaper.
But those mostly interested in Nelson’s day-to-day encounters with Ukrainian actors, assistants, and theater workers, will reap a rich harvest. He relates how he auditioned his actors by video; notes the need to overcome the actors’ suspicions of his motives; and comments on how vital the theater has become for the citizens, who pack each performance. He talks of having to double-cast a couple of roles when their original performers were lacking in one way or the other. He notes the actors’ feeling that they were being disrespected by their leadership. As problems pile up he realizes that, given the circumstances, things are what they are, and one must be grateful for what one has: “So stop complaining.”
Nelson emphasizes the political relevance of the play for its actors and audiences (a script synopsis is included): “My interest is to use history and historical characters to somehow address the world as I see it today.” And, he ponders the necessity of theater as he experiences the act of putting on a play in the middle of a war.
Nelson comes off as a warm, decent, low-key individual, who sometimes faced dilemmas when his intentions and needs clashed with those of his actors. He keeps having to reiterate how the last thing he wanted to do was hurt anyone. This, however, sometimes was inevitable under the circumstances, especially with artists experiencing the kind of stress faced when living in a city under siege from bombs and missiles.
In the end, though, his actors and the others with whom he worked closely developed a loving relationship with him, and he with them. For an excellent insight into his modest personality and that of the more outgoing Benyuk, one can find this video on YouTube of a press conference featuring the two men.
In his epilogue, Nelson moves away from his Kyiv production to cover related issues, such as how he “accidentally” became a director of his own plays in the late 90s. He also briefly describes several other recent plays of his he directed for important theaters, including Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil. He then expostulates on his idea of how these shows represented his theory of an “actor’s theater,” for which he provides a description of his working methods.
Nelson concludes his intriguing diary by reprinting a Guardian article he wrote on why, in such a “profoundly uncertain” world, plays should even be produced. A good question with which to conclude a good little book.
Coming up: Ken Bloom, Show & Tell: The New Book of Broadway Anecdotes.
Leiter Looks at Books welcomes inquiries from publishers and authors interested in having their theater/show business-related books reviewed.
