Actor Sean Astin and the Emerson Quartet Collaborate in a Music-Theater Production

Art and Design, Entertainment — By Mckenzie Hardy on June 24, 2019 at 10:01 pm

By McKenzie Hardy

On Tuesday May 14th, the world-renowned Emerson String Quartet showed off their incredible mastery of Shostakovich’s 14th symphony in a music-theatre hybrid performance called Shostakovich and the Black Monk: A Russian fantasy. The production comes from the minds of acclaimed writer-director, James Glossman, and Emerson String Quartet member, Philip Setzer.

A cast of 7 actors including brothers Sean and Mackenzie Astin (Sean best known for his role in The Lord of the Rings trilogy as Samwise Gamgee) played out Shostakovich’s dream of setting Anton Chekhov’s short story, “The Black Monk,” as an opera.

Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich is regarded as one of the most important musical figures of the 20th century. Incidents of his struggle to produce work under the pressures of Stalin’s government imposed standards of soviet art are paralleled in Chekhov’s “The Black Monk” throughout the production. The opening scene sets the stage for a complex battle between art and repression, as the cast repeated “muddle not music” a powerful phrase that Stalin used to publicly denounce Shostakovich’s music.

Co-creator and director James Glossman says that if audience members walk away with only one thing he hopes it will be “that sooner or later in the struggle between repression and art that art with find its way out.” Shostakovich was working subversively within a regime that was capable of putting a bullet in the back of his neck. This production captures the artistic and personal politics of Shostakovich’s struggle to be a creator.

With such inspirational music and acclaimed actors the production was a powerful statement about love, art, madness and freedom. With the intent to chase the dangerous truth of power and art, director Glossman said, “It’s important that this be a play, a piece of theater, and not a history lesson about Stalin and Shostakovich”

Actor Mackenzie Astin, who played Shostakovich, hopes that those who get to experience the show can “Identify with the struggles of an artist trying to express themselves during an oppressive regime.” Full of enthusiasm, two days before the performance, he said it is “Exciting to finally be on a professional stage alongside my brother.”

Sean Astin played both Stalin and Pesotsky. The audience laughed at his interruptions but then quieted as they realized the intended seriousness of Stalin’s dismissal. Director Glossman points out that the performance is meant to be a combination of humor and dark comedy as well as drama.

 

McKenzie Hardy is a mega-intelligent journalist and writer that recently graduated from the University of California San Diego, with a double major in Communications and Political Science. We hope to have more stories from this very talented lady.