I've spent the last three Mondays reading Tolstoy with some great actors (
Michael Stuhlbarg, John Douglas Thompson among them) at
Classic Stage Company's
Books on Stage series, and I've gotta admit, I've learned a lot about
War and Peace and
Anna Karenina and about my own abilities in the process. The readings were a lot of fun, and quite a bit of work. Creating multiple characters from the sometimes wooden, sometimes operatic texts with only a few hours of rehearsal really made us sit up straight and think. Director Tony Speciale was there to beat back our broader natures and knit us to the sensibilities of the Russian texts.
