A fascinating conversation when Joanna O. who volunteered to translate the play into Polish, asked me about this line:
ANNA
The first fear came out of the blue, over water—
Joanna asked:
what blue? the mood? or literally? sometimes these lines come all of the sudden, out of context, that i feel slightly confused 
and my answer:
sure, it can be confusing, they come out of context so that it feels like these different characters all experienced the confusion at the same time. sometimes they understand it, sometimes they don’t, but they are all feeling the same kind of limbo.
in the case of “blue” , however, it can translate to “out of nowhere” — out of the blue is an expression shortened from “out of the clear blue sky” meaning that it came suddenly. is there another expression in polish that has a stronger meaning than just came suddenly? it doesn’t have to translate literally in this case.
This interpretation came up with our Deaf West co-production, too, especially since ASL uses fewer words than we do and the repetition that I use as a device in the play doesn’t work the same way in ASL.
I remember that we had an entire conversation about a line that the Nurse says to a woman whose husband is about to die from acute radiation poisoning: “You are sitting next to a reactor.” To a hearing audience, that means (in the context of the play) ‘You might as well just sit next to the Chernobyl reactor as sit next to your husband; he is just as radioactive and contagious.”
For the ASL audience, our Voice said the line as is but Catherine, our deaf actress, signed “He is very contagious.”
That kept reminding me of a line I heard in Eastern Europe: “All wars are due to bad translation.”
That’s really what made me want to learn ASL. Once I mentioned that to my cast, half of them immediately signed up, along with Amy Hendrickson, the understudy, and two of our audience members! Caitie Hannon, my assistant director for the whole festival, hooked us up with Sonya Wilson, who is a fabulous instructor in ASL. We learn deaf culture as well as signing. It is more fun and eye-opening and TIRING than most things I have tried so far.
I also learned another valuable lesson: when collaborating so that your project can reach a deaf audience, add closed captioning into everything. It seems obvious, but it isn’t something we think about because WE don’t have to. By simply adding closed captioning, you can reach even more people, and hopefully earn their respect as well. Enci, who is heavily involved with Chornobyl but who also is filming a short film this summer (Rebel Without a Car Productions), has insisted on the closed captioning for not only her film, but also for the documentaries leading up to the filming.
Just fascinating new ways of looking at the world.
On the morning of the 9th, Aaron and I went over to Cindy’s house to record the script on tape (voice.) Then we went to the shooting location at the B-Space in Atwater Village where we were going to spend two weekends shooting.
We started with a couple easier set ups and I was script supervising and using the clapper for the takes. I was really intimidated with the script supervising element at first because I have never done this before but it was quite interesting and I slowly relaxed into the role. (I prefer acting in front of the camera though.) I had to watch for continuity, I had to write down camera details, and I also had to pay attention and write down what the director was saying. It was a short day and we finished it with some great shots.
On Sunday, February 10th, I was in some of scenes so Corey took over the script supervising role during my takes. We also had a fantastic Make-Up artist, Bill Myer, who helped with anything in between his make-up work. Everybody pitched in. Everybody lent a hand with something other then their assigned job. And during takes we made up a couple Chernobyl songs that I wish we could have recorded. “Chernobyl the Musical!” Ha! Our fantastic actors know how to make light of the situation. In between the depressing, sad, and heartbreaking scenes we sing songs. I love working on this play!
On Saturday, February 16th I had to go to a production meeting in the morning for a short film I’m shooting, so I could not get to set until 3 pm. Shawn jumped into the script supervisor role and he ended up doing it all day long. To make myself still useful for the day I took my reliable Canon D10 with me to the B-Space and I took pictures of the crew, cast and the set.
When I was in front of the camera acting, Bill took some photos of me, which I’m quite thankful for. Usually when I take pictures, there are never pictures of me.
We finished shooting the last scene at around 9 pm. The entire shoot went very fast. This was an incredibly well organized set. We had scripts, story board, and scene schedules all over the place. We had snacks and lunch break. We had a fantastic director, who was one of the most laid back directors I’ve ever worked with (Christine Louise Berry is another one.) And the crew was very professional.
I think these two weekends on the set were the most relaxing weekends for me in a long time. I love being on set! That is where I can relax from all the hustle and all the daily stress. I miss it already. But thankfully I’ll be working on another project this coming weekend. Woohoo!
The finished short film of “Voices From Chornobyl“will be presented in UK on March 9th, at the Remember Chernobyl Conference.
Two years ago I thought my play VOICES FROM CHORNOBYL would be great as a way to raise awareness and money for Chernobyl charities around the world. I modeled my idea after Eve Ensler’s V-Day which uses her Vagina Monologues for various women’s rights charities.
And I’m about to take the very first step towards truly realizing this goal.
REMEMBER CHERNOBYL
Annual Networking Conference for UK & Irish Chernobyl Charities
Saturday 8th March 2008
Alderbrook School, Blossomfield Road, Solihull, B91 1SN
2.00 Dramatisation of Svetlana Aleksievich’s book, Voices from Chernobyl and readings planned to take place on 26th April 2009 - Cindy-Marie Jenkins
Questions and Discussion
Raising Awareness of the Ongoing Effects of Chernobyl and Commemorating the Anniversary - Facilitator: Cindy-Marie Jenkins, Rapporteur: to be chosen, in advance, from attendees
On the 8th we had a rehearsal at one of the “new” cast’s house and it turns out that she is not so new. Kristin Mochnick is one of the original casts of “Voices” and it turns out that I met her already a few times.
I met a few other people whose names I’m afraid I forgot, but I will have plenty of time to practice their real names as well as their new adopted Russian names during rehearsals and during the shoot.
The cast is pretty big this time and I think this new draft will be amazing. After the read through we watched a short scene of the movie “Blood Wedding.” Cindy is finding inspiration from this film for our documentary.
Since I don’t have any money to spend on video rentals, I’m hoping to snag this copy from Cindy for a couple days before we shoot, so I can see the entire film.