Don't Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Ok, I get it. It’s cold in Russia. This isn’t news to most people in the world. What is news, however, is the obsession that Russian theater seems to have with making it snow onstage. Five shows we’ve seen have made full use of their theater’s snow machine; three of them, a bit fanatically. Perhaps I’m just noticing because four out of four of the most recent plays have had a snow fetish. But really. You want to hear about major trends in Russian theater? Here’s one.

It started with our first show, Ksenia: a play visiting from St. Petersburg, about a suffering Russian saint. Every time she kneeled down to pray, the snow started. I’m sorry, the rain AND snow started. Clearly snow alone wasn’t enough of a trial, for her or for us. The next day, when we were touring the MXAT stage, MXAT’s technical director pointed out where the water pool had been. “Yes, last night they needed it rain and snow at the same time,” she said, and rolled her eyes in that withering Russian way.

The next Nor-Easter held off until last week, when we saw our first opera: Barber of Seville at the Stanislavsky Music Theater. It snowed for the entirety of the first scene, meaning that by the second, there was at least an inch piled on the stage. This wasn’t really a problem until the set moved and we appeared to be inside the house. I think. It wasn’t exactly…clear. Dining room table, couch, and even the piano sat among snow drifts: a puzzling choice, to say the least, in a production that seemed to be going for realism. I’m not sure how the opera singers felt about their odd environment, but the kids in the cast loved it. During the curtain call, the five ADHD-likely boys bounded and slid in the snow, gathering up armfuls and tossing it up in the air over the singers taking their bows. It was cute. Again, not sure how the opera singers felt.

The major snow emergency, though, occurred last Saturday. Mysterious men; a snow-covered grave; a pond with a man-sized fish? Ok, maybe intriguing at first. But the intrigue of Masquerade didn’t last long. This director seriously took snow-making to the extreme. Whether it was to highlight a moment or just prettify a transition, the swell of a deafening waltz was accompanied by a roar from the snow machine hacking itself on. The director clearly found this combination charming, as it happened every 3 or 4 minutes for three hours. I truly don’t know how the actors weren’t buried alive in 3 or 4 feet. I sat there imagining something like that photo of me when I’m 10, dwarfed by a New England winter snow bank.

After that experience, the snow obsession just became a game. We spotted it in MXAT’s new Vassa Jeleznova, falling prettily over a bathhouse. Then, last night, in a play called The Office, it snowed in two corners of the stage, just over the office plants, so that they would wilt. Why? Couldn’t tell you. Forget smoking. Snow machines are the new national addiction.