The Cambridge Chat Thread - it's over 90,000!

I'm very deadline driven when it comes to work. I'll do more or less nothing until it really gets desperate then go flat out and often end up finishing with time to spare. (Case in point: having the bulk of my dissertation to do and write with 2 weeks to go, then ending up finished with 3 days to spare.) Sometimes I wonder if I just like to challenge myself time-wise.

I'm very deadline driven when it comes to work. I'll do more or less nothing until it really gets desperate then go flat out and often end up finishing with time to spare. (Case in point: having the bulk of my dissertation to do and write with 2 weeks to go, then ending up finished with 3 days to spare.) Sometimes I wonder if I just like to challenge myself time-wise.

It was really good! We did have various criticisms that I think only a Russianist would have, but I'm almost certain that the reviewer won't be a Russianist so they won't pop up It was really well staged, and the second act in particular was really excellent. I think it was actually more hampered by the Western audience than by itself, because sometimes people laughed where Russians wouldn't, and it must have been a huge challenge to try to convey the absolute devotion to the party without showing it to be a twisted devotion and somehow evil, bad or misguided. I think Russian sensibilities are very complex in that area, particularly when you start setting things in the era of the purges, and that's another undercurrent that the audience may not have appreciated in the same way that a Russian audience would.

Aye, I think that the actors worked that quite well. I really don't understand Russia at all - the more I read about it the less it makes sense! I thought that the play is interesting because the characters are all presented in a fairly sympathetic way. It's really about the difference between doing something because you think that it is right and doing something even though you know that it is wrong.

You've put your finger on exactly my problem with the play, and this probably comes down to the translated script as much as the staging. For me, the play suggested that there is such thing as a right and wrong, and that people knew what it was. I think what the original film suggests is a much more ambiguous reading of the era and touches upon the difficulty of distinguishing between or even establishing any such thing as right and wrong.

For me, it's all about the tumult of imperialism followed by revolution followed by Bolshevism followed by Stalinism and then leading into the bewildering era of the Purges. It's about how moral compasses become irrelevant when every day there is a new leader and a new set of values that are considered to be 'right'. One minute the tsar is considered to be practically a god on earth, and money brings status and power, and the next it's completely the other way around. And then a few years later, those people who were considered to be heroes of the revolution are suddenly being carted off to the gulag and to be shot because actually there is new evidence suggesting that they are spies. People don't know what is right and what is wrong, they are just trying to lead their every day lives in a world that is constantly changing for them.

I think that understanding concepts like that are fundamental to reaching a greater understanding of Russia and why it is the way it is. I haven't explained it very well really, but there is a constant tug between ideology and reality, but not one that necessarily indicates oppression (despite the Purges).

Anyway, I did enjoy the play, but I did feel that there were layers of meaning that were simplified, probably due to nobody having spent four years studying the country and one year living in it

See this is what I would love to do. I'd love to approach a play with the music from the beginning, so that the music and the acting are inseparable. Essentially, I want a live film The problem is time. There just aren't enough musicians in Cambridge willing to put in the time that this would take, there aren't enough directors willing to take on the challenge. If I had a few more years as a student I would try to get something together, do a late at the Playroom or something, but sadly I've run out of time

This is why I wish you'd been able to see the Russian play! There was music in every scene, although it was sometimes recorded rather than live, but it played a big part in the mood and atmosphere of the play. Unfortunately the only clip that seems to have made it on to facebook is one with recorded music and is a pretty bizarre scene that won't make sense out of context. I think we were really lucky that we have so many talented Russianists - the number of people who play instruments to a high standard was unbelievable. We had two accordions, two violins, a flute and an oboe, and the music was arranged for these from a few recorded tracks by the main character (and accordionist). I really like plays where music is used effectively and you definitely don't see it a lot in Cambridge student theatre!

And thus I win my bet with myself that I could get the Bad Horse song into an all-choir email...

Can'T stand ****ING weather meteorological nervous breakdown !!11 1 !AARGGGH!!!!11

Say what?

They may be wrong. With the right gear it shouldn't be a problem though.

Current forecast is for rain the morning and dryer in the afternoon. fingers crossed