Anna Karenina- Film Review & Acting Class Scenework

In the shadow of wrapping up our first weekend of Every Brilliant Thing, the play I directed about mental health and depression, with the main topic being suicide and its effect on the recent population, I felt it would be an interesting segue to work on the Russian classic Anna Karenina, written by Leo Tolstoy. The most recent adaptation of this book into screenplay was directed by Joe Wright, one of my absolute favorite directors. He’s also done Pride & Prejudice (also starring Keira Knightley), The Darkest Hour (about Winston Churchill starring one of my all-time favorites Gary Oldman), The Soloist (starring Jamie Foxx & Robert Downey Jr.). Many of Joe Wright’s movies are the reason I have fallen in love with the art of filmmaking.

When I was in Los Angeles studying with Juliard-trained Diane Venora (the first woman to play Hamlet on Broadway), she led me to two classics that she insisted that I must read if I was going to be an actor. One was Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. The second was Crime & Punishment by Dostoevsky. In the summer of 2006 I read both of these books and studied Shakespeare under the tutelage of Diane. She taught me that without an understanding of the classics, there was no way to create characters in the modern day world, and she encouraged me to look deep into the text in order to find how to develop character as Leo did in Anna Karenina through his writing; he had such great descriptions that would lead your imaginations into wild places. And the reader develops his own movie in his head while reading.

So when I saw that Joe Wright was coming-out with Anna Karenina as a movie, I was thrilled with great anticipation to see what he would bring to life. And I was not disappointed. The opening of the movie, you quickly are introduced to a proscenium theater stage (an old-world theatre stage) in 18th century Russia where the stage takes different shapes in its multiple corners of different rooms where we follow actors to and from creating dynamic shifts in storytelling. They waltz through backdrops and toy trains take us into real-life train trips for travel. It feels like a well-choreographed dance with musicians and dancers and actors all putting forth their best effort to create a unique film experience that I have never seen before.

So when I decided to bring a scene from this screenplay to my acting class students at Love Acting here in Baton Rouge, I found it important to show them the opening of this movie because I’d never seen something so creative and unique. Wright really understands how to blend mediums in ways I really respect and admire I want to steal for my own movies one day. As I was teaching class last night and watching the students explore the dialogue between famous characters like Anna Karenina and Vroskey, I encouraged them to explore the mania of falling into the depths of the sinful nature of man with blinders on and allowing us into this vulnerable space of lack of control. When Anna makes one small choice to follow her instinctual (yet corrupt) path she started to fall down a slippery slope that leads to her ultimate death. And watching this happen, you can’t help but think about Shakespeare and what he wrote in the 17th century. When watching and reading Shakespare you realize that the fall of man is sin at its core and making poor decisions based on our human frailty and lust, and everyone in Shakespeare who follows these instincts is dead. Tolstoy shows this beautifully in Anna Karenina: how one decision can change the whole trajectory of your whole entire existence. Anna dies by drug addiction, suicide, and her mental health. The irony of working on the play Every Brilliant Thing about suicide in the modern day world and also Anna Karenina with my film acting students, left me with a passion in the same that mental health issues must be discussed because left to our private devices we are ashamed and unable to cope with our own decisions and this could lead to death.

I hope to be influential in my students’ lives and cause them to reflect on the classic literature of the great authors and cause them to wonder and explore the art of acting in a way they have never experienced it before. I find the the modern-day acting class consists of TV sides and conventional characterization of people, and we’re supposed to ingest and step into every character so quickly when we have never fully played with some of the classical literature that is so enriching and full of lessons of life.

I hope to bring more classical training to Love Acting and give actors the opportunity to dive into the Shakespearean roles & other classical literature. I love teaching and I’m a chronic learner as I teach this fun craft of acting. I feel like I learn so much coming up with my class curriculums each time.