A night two lives changed forever
By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer
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| Peter Webb and Frankie Enos rehearse for "Anna," a work by local playwright Nancy Moss. The play, launching Wednesday, looks at one night in the life of a noted Russian poet.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser 'Anna' A play by Nancy Moss, produced by The Actors Group Premieres at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; repeats at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 4 p.m. Sundays, through Aug. 18 Yellow Brick Studio, 625 Keawe St. $10 591-7999 |
Her latest, "Anna," a 1999 Resident Prize winner in Kumu Kahua's play-writing contest, will have its world premiere Wednesday under the auspices of The Actors Group at the Yellow Brick Studio. In fact, it launches TAG's 2002-03 season.
"Anna Akhmatova was a beautiful woman, so a lot of people painted her," said Moss, who'd read an article about the Russian poet and was drawn to not only her words but her situation in life.
Akhmatova's works had been translated into English, but her poetry was condemned and censored "when Stalin came to power," said Moss. "She suffered a lot, living a bohemian life of suffering and unable to have her poetry published."
Not only were Akhmatova's poems suppressed for 24 years, her son was imprisoned. But she kept writing in secrecy and helped other persecuted writers find artistic expression.
"Anna" dramatizes one night in the poet's life.
"It's an evening, at the end of World War II, when a Westerner is permitted to visit her," said Moss. The real-life visitor was Isaiah Berlin, a virginal Oxford philosophy professor and diplomat, with whom she spent the night and fell in love, resulting in major changes in both their lives.
"He had never been with a woman before, so it's a love story; she was 55 then and he was 36, so the age factor lends tension and an element of flirtation. The situation is very theatrical."
It's the kind of relationship commonly explored in films.
Frankie Enos plays Anna, and Peter Webb plays Berlin, with Brad Powell directing.
"I've been sitting in on rehearsals, and it's quite wonderful how it's coming together," Moss said about the production.
Earlier, she wrote the book for a musical, "Infinite Jest," which the now-defunct ASATAD group produced in 1998.
"It's a story about Laurence Stern, an 18th-century British writer, and an Episcopal priest," she said. "I was reading one of his books ... and thought it had something" to offer.
A New York composer did the music, and in August, the show will be showcased in New York, in the initial move to get it produced.
She said she is drawn to historical figures "by accident" and when one intrigues her, she searches for elements that might work on stage.
Moss, a retired Iolani School teacher, is an East Honolulu resident who is part of a local writers' group. She is in the midst of creating yet another play with yet another historical figure.
She said Harry Wong of Kumu Kahua had been supportive of her "Anna" property and that TAG seized the opportunity to premiere it because Kumu Kahua stages only works with Hawai'i themes.
