Edward Scissors-Hands, Shots And Framing
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An innovation that cinematic technique was developed was the wipe which allows the one image to be moved off screen to another. He cheeks were red and his fringe had fallen over his forehead, clinging to the sheen of sweat there. I pulled my shoes and socks off in one go, sitting in the chair at the foot of the bed, patting my lap in invitation. Louis was on my lap in an instant, practically purring in my lap as I let my fingers run down the smooth expanse of his back, his spine arching under my touch. This man, this beautiful, wonderful, confident man, was a marvel in front of me as he buried his face in my neck with a needy whimper, his perfectly rounded ass pushing down against my crotch and oh fuck it felt good.
The little shit was going to leave so many marks. Breathy moans shot shivers down my spine and tendrils of heat to my lower stomach, Louis rutting desperately against my thighs. He offered no resistance, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw how truly fucked out he was after just a simple spanking. I pushed in with a single, long thrust and nearly choked at the tight velvety heat that surrounded my cock. I felt like a desperate animal humping into its bitch on heat, and the thought of calling Louis my bitch made me growl, my hips rabbiting into him faster.
I know it feels good but I need you to come back to me. It sounds creepy but there was something endearing and kind of attractive about the taste of sweat and something undeniably Louis that was left on my lips. Sun seeped through the gap in the thick curtains and the golden light lay directly on top of my eyes. A quiet grunt left my lips as I sat up and let out a rumbling yawn before I became aware of the warm body pressed up against mine and the smell of sex and sweat in the air. Memories of last night came flooding back as I felt the ache between my legs and I mentally slapped myself for being so stupid.
I was going to be Harry's boss and I'd been so submissive, so needy , so whiny He was never going to take me seriously. Never see me as his superior. I clambered out of bed and sauntered slowly and stark naked into the ensuite to inspect the damage. There was a pale purple hand shaped bruise around my throat, sticking out from my tanned skin blatantly - spanning too much room to be hidden by anything but a turtleneck.
A sigh left my lips and I slid my clothes back on and grabbed my things from the top of the dresser where I'd left them last night before looking back at the gorgeous man I was about to walk out on. He looked so peaceful in his sleep. Pink lips parted. Skin glowing underneath the rising sun. But he'd seen the side of me I was ashamed of And I couldn't let that happen again. I'd never fallen apart like that before, I was usually so confident but he made me so floaty, so small. With a quick shake of the head I left the hotel room and walked outside to my car so I could get home and put on something that would cover the bruise.
I didn't live too far from the hotel and thankfully I lived alone so I could quickly get inside without any questions of where were you last night and-. As I kicked my shoes off I saw Zayn sat on my sofa with a coffee in his hands and a devilish look on his stupid, stupid face. I quickly, as quickly as I could with the ache in my ass, walked upstairs into my bedroom and shut the door, pressing my back into the wood to recollect myself before getting ready to meet my father, knowing I was already going to be late.
After sliding on some fresh clothes - an all-black ensemble; blazer, slacks and a turtleneck - I slid into the bathroom to make sure I was presentable enough. That I looked powerful. I wanted to scream 'authority' to anyone who even spared me a glance. Including Harry The sound of my deep sigh filled the room before I shaved off my stubble and styled my hair up into a quiff with the sides slicked back. With a quick spritz of my over-priced cologne, I no longer looked like I'd been fucked and was definitely ready to become CEO. I don't want to talk about it right now, Z. I'm sorry" I mumbled, passing him his coat, "I've got a lot on my plate and I really just need you by my side yeah? I had always been grateful that my friendship with Zayn had always had the same power dynamic.
Me in charge, him following along. It wasn't that he wasn't independent It was more I refused to let anyone, even him, see how I felt. To survive in this world, you have to be cold, hard and mean and put everyone in their place. But there was still a rational part of my brain that knew I needed to get a move on, so I showered quickly, removing the stale smell of come and sweat from my body — as arousing as the smell was, it was just a slap to the face after how badly I screwed up, so I ignored the thought and just brushed my teeth — and dressing in a black and white striped button up and black skinny jeans, throwing on my boots from the night before as I rushed down to the lobby, briefcase in hand.
I shot a quick smile at Liam as I speed walked into the building with half an hour to spare, and stopped by his security station when he beckoned me over. You look like hell and your neck has clearly been mauled by someone you left with last night. What did this guy do to make you so shitty, huh? My chest was tight and I raised the Ventolin to my lips, taking a couple of puffs and clenching my eyes shut to block out the tears. He shoved one against my chest without a second glance before hurrying off to bombard someone else with the information. It only took one cough from the big cheese himself to send us all to our seats, Niall taking his place next to me, notebook and pen ready to take minutes.
It will be a big change to the company and possibly to the dynamic of our work place, so naturally I wanted to tell you as soon as possible. I say hopefully because the CEO who will be taking my place takes no nonsense and will scrutinise you to the point of you wanting to tear your own hair out. My son will be taking over as company CEO. He called me just moments ago saying he was running late but- oh!
Here he is! Rule two: if you come to work hungover or still intoxicated, I will know ; you will then have to answer to me and trust me when I say that I will be painfully loud when lecturing you. Any hickies? I did everything in my power to avoid speaking to Harry once the meeting was done - managing to only greet who I felt to be the most important members of staff before slipping into my office. It was quite comfortable, I'd been allowed to decorate it myself and I'd gone for a bright and airy feel - light streaming in from the large windows looking out over the city.
The desk was in the centre of the room, near the window and the books were lined with light wood filing cabinets to match the desk. The carpet was a grey-ish blue and the walls were a pale blue. Massive flirt. He let out an unconvinced hum before leaving my office to sit at his own desk, which was just steps away from my room. I busied myself with familiarising my brain with the computer systems that Dad had chosen and damn were they old Was going to have to update them.
My attention was drawn away by the sound of someone clearing their throat; and there in my doorway was Harry with a solemn and concerned look on his face. I swallowed heavily before standing up and closing the door behind him so Zayn couldn't listen in. I have something for you," He mumbled, fishing out a soothing cream from his bag and sliding it into my hand. I don't know if you're okay but it seems like you are Take this and put it on any bruising, it'll make you feel better. I ignored the ache from the bruise on my neck and growled, throwing the tube back at Harry - his eyes widening with shock. But you do not know me. I am not weak; I am in charge. I'm the boss, got it?
I suggest your shut your trap. It's nice to see that your willingness to give up control in the bedroom doesn't affect your ability to be a twat in the boardroom. Get to work, Styles. Don't even think of coming anywhere near me or my office ever. He chuckled deeply, as if he knew something, and left the room, leaving the door wide open. Zayn leant forward from his desk so he could see into the room and raised his eyebrow questioningly. I ran my hands over my face and let out a wistful sigh before turning away to look out across the window.
As my gaze fell down across the city I knew I'd just have to be strong, not let Harry break me Not let him make me submit. I'll just have to show him who's boss. As the day dragged on, it became clear to everyone that there was an undeniable tension between Louis and I. His eyes were steely and cold as I picked up a pencil, twirling it with my fingers with a small smile. You need to go through them and whittle them down into a pile of people who need more training and people who are incompetent. I barked out a laugh no pun intended and put the pencil back in its spot, settling into the chair opposite Louis and propping my feet up on his, no doubt expensive, desk.
I saw him wince the moment that my scruffy boots touched the pristine wood, and smiled wryly. I held out my hand, smirking when Louis raised his eyebrow in disbelief. I couldn't believe it. It was just my fucking luck that Harry was the COO of my company. But I couldn't let him see that it bothered me, I couldn't let him see through my dominant exterior I was still in charge here and he needed to be put in his place. No matter what your title in my company is," I said calmly, picking up the staff files in my hands and walking over to my filing cabinet, eyes not meeting his. Give the items you want signed or checked to Zayn to give to me, got it?
I'm not like that. Just stop talking about it and get out of my office! He held his hands up defensively and backed out of the room, stuffing his hands into his pockets, allowing me to sink to the floor and cover my face with my hands. I felt Zayn sit down beside me and drape a strong arm across my shoulders. Just be the calm, collected Louis I know alright? I nodded slowly and steadily climbed up to my feet - putting the most important documents in my briefcase before leaving my office and locking the door behind me. After quickly briefing everyone I needed to, excluding Harry, of their tasks for the rest of the day I slipped into the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. As I scuffed the worn floor underneath my shoe I couldn't help but feel like I'd let Harry win.
That I'd cracked and let him see my weak side once again. I wiped my eyes before walking straight through reception and out the door, not even glancing at the secretary when he called out for my attention - I couldn't deal with anyone else. I needed to be alone. Not even my house felt right. Everything around me felt different. It was crazy, I'd let him get to me so badly that I didn't feel worthy. I was weak. I was pathetic. Everything I'd tried to force out of myself, everything I thought I'd grown out of after the way I'd been treated in school. I knew I'd always been small, smaller than most and all through school I'd been picked on for it, treated like less by the other boys because of it.
So, as I left for uni I changed. Forced myself to be hard, to be mean. I wanted to scream that I was more powerful than everyone without speaking a word. And I'd achieved that. People had feared me, I was so dominant that even my professors cowered and accepted my authority but Harry He'd seen the old me. The me that I wasn't proud of. The me that I'd spent years trying to destroy. And I wasn't even strong enough to fight back. After kicking off my shoes, I walked upstairs and climbed straight into bed. Trying to think of a way that I can show him that I was more than the man he thought I was.
I could not let one man break down everything I'd tried so hard to achieve. I opened my pasta salad as I sat in the park opposite Tomlinson Industries. Like you use your tongue as a landing pad for the fork and stick it out like a frog. I was shocked to say the least. My job was doomed. Louis was going to kill me and bury me under the very bench I was sat on. My heart was in my throat and I buried my face in my hands. Little did I know that that statement would land me a face full of chewed up panini as Zayn spluttered and choked.
Ever since I'd got home from work, I'd been binge watching Gotham and I wanted nothing more than to have a nap, but apparently Zayn had other plans for me. I yawned heavily and climbed off of the sofa, my fuzzy blanket draped across my shoulders as I walked to the front door. As I pulled it open, I was shoved backwards and I had to stop myself from falling to the floor. I hadn't seen him this mad since a guy in college had 'pranked' him by spray painting across some of his canvases, art he'd spent months working on.
It was a one-time thing; it's never going to happen again. Harry's a nice guy. Like at all, and the entire time you've known me I've been this almost overbearing dominant kind of guy? I was small, like really small. A-and I used to get picked on all the time for being weak and pathetic. So, when I moved to London for uni I changed I forced that part of me away and became the guy I am now. I looked up into his eyes, seeing no judgment, no hard glares, just the same comforting whiskey coloured eyes that had been by my side for almost 6 years now. A sob left my lips and before long I was sobbing heavily into his shoulder, gripping onto his shirt as he just rubbed my back.
He brought that side back H-He made me feel so s-small, submissive and-and I liked it. He cared for me and looked after me B-but when I woke up th-the morning af-after he I had to get out of there," I cried, as he ran his fingers through my hair. I couldn't He pulled me closer and just held me, letting me cry into his chest - not speaking, knowing that was exactly what I needed right now.
That were now two people had seen this side of me and I felt disgusted with myself. I just wanted to curl up and never face the world again. Before long Zayn started to hum quietly. I'll make us some dinner," He said softly, manoeuvring me so I was lying down on the sofa and he was knelt in front of me. I nodded a little and closed my eyes, snuggling my blanket closer around my body as I let sleep take over and my worries fade away for a little while. Not realising that everything was about to change. I held my phone between my shoulder and my ear as I stirred the curry, running my tongue across my dry bottom lip. I couldn't help but ring Liam as soon as I found about Louis and Harry but something wasn't quite right with Liam's tone.
Stepping out of the shower, I could practically feel the stress of the day dripping off of me. The hot water had worked wonders on the knots in my back, even if my shoulders were still tense and aching. I threw my hair up into a bun and walked into my living room, grabbing an apple and flopping onto the sofa with a loud groan, my muscles still protesting. Liam sighed and I giggled — definitely a manly chuckle — as he began to rub my shoulders. I offered him ointment for his bruises, I was nice to him, I tried having a laugh but I still reduced him to tears! Louis is not him , trust me. I stood in front of the mirror, pumping myself up for work - trying to get into the zone. I'm the boss. I'm strong.
I do not need to be taken care of. But I knew Zayn was waiting for me downstairs and after last night he was going to want to talk Try and give advice, comfort me. But I just wanted to forget about it and move on. It was such a beautiful day, and I was not about to let it get ruined by something like this. As I glanced into the mirror, I began to wish I'd taken that ointment from Harry - my bruise was still sore and I had to wear a shirt which buttoned up very high to hide the bruise and on a day as sunny as this? I wasn't sure I'd survive. Quickly I shoved my phone and keys into my pocket trouser pockets, rubbing at my throat slightly to try and distract myself from the ache.
I slid my feet into my shoes and grabbed my suitcase before heading downstairs to be met with Zayn rocking an all-black ensemble - at least I wasn't the only one who was going to melt today. I shot him a small smile and he slid my flask of tea into my hands with nothing but a solemn nod. We walked out to the car and slid in, he insisted on driving so I couldn't leave early again. Not that I would. I sipped quietly at my tea as the silence blanketed my body, I could usually handle silence but this was different somehow.
It worried me how quiet Zayn was being - he was always quiet, but with me? We just bounced off each other and I brought him out of his shell and something was bothering him. Was it last night? He'd seemed so calm before, what changed? It didn't help that as I walked into the building I could feel the security guard, Liam, had his eyes burning through my skin. I shook it off and slid into my office, bending down and picking up the cream that Harry had thankfully left. Shakily I unbuttoned the top of my shirt and squeezed some onto my fingers before carefully massaging it into the purple skin on my neck, the ache ever so slightly fading away. After a deep sigh I screwed the cap back on and put it on my desk, leaning back slightly to let the dull ache in my head recede a little.
As I looked up from where I was leant against my desk, my gaze was met with a very angry looking Liam. His security office shirt was straining against his muscles as he crossed his arms across his chest, his thick brows etched into a deep frown. My first thought would usually have been so, why does Zayn find you so appealing but I didn't have an opportunity to study him as he clearly was not in the mood to be checked out. I swallowed heavily before clearing my throat a little. Harry's a nice guy, a great guy. You on the other hand My breath hitched in my throat as he essentially caged me against the desk, looking down at me with dark angry eyes - his large hands in fists, probably trying not to punch me straight in the face.
It means nothing. You hear me? No one around here is going to take you seriously or like you if you treat them like dirt on the bottom of your stupid overpriced shoes. You're lucky you're my boss or else I would've socked you so hard in the fucking face And then I broke. Not like I had before, I didn't get angry. I c ried. Which was apparently not what he was expecting by the way he stumbled away from me with a look of oh shit on his rugged face. I sunk down to the floor, and cried heavily into my hands - my whole body shaking violently with the force of my tears. What did you do? My heart broke for the man in my arms. It was clear that he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it was slowly crushing him bit by bit.
I pulled him against me even more and buried my face in his hair, holding him until I felt him fully relax against me. Another day, another fucking muffin. They were slowly getting unhealthier and unhealthier and today on top of a small stack of files was a chocolate cupcake. At first he seemed to be wary of my diet - not that I ate any of the muffins anyway - and gave me healthy foods but that very quickly changed. I huffed and chucked it straight into the bin with the rest of them and tucked the smoothie away in a cupboard of the filing cabinet. I didn't need to be taken care of, I was fine on my own.
I was good on my own. But Harry seemed to think my silence had meant that I wanted his help, but I'd been too busy reminding myself how weak I was to even listen to him. After pulling my apple from my bag and placing it on my desk, I opened up my emails to find one from one of our partner companies requesting a meeting as soon as possible. I called through to Zayn to let him know that we'd both be going to Swindon Inc. He nodded and pulled his phone to his ear, leaning back in his own chair.
My apple remained untouched and eventually in the trash with the cupcake, I was so busy working I had no time to even think of eating. We were about to make a massive transfer and all my focus was on that. Finalising every detail. Checking every contact. Re-reading contracts. This couldn't go wrong and whoever I left in charge tomorrow would have to carry on with the work I'd tired myself out with.
I nodded and walked down the corridor to the boardroom, hearing the faint natter of my employees seeping through the crack in the door. As I walked in, the room fell silent and Zayn began to hand out the quotas for during my absence. I know it seems like a lot but I believe in you guys and we've got that massive transfer coming soon and we need to be ready," I explained, trying to ignore the way Harry was watching me. His green eyes were taking over my body, as if expecting for any signs of me breaking down and it was irritating. He was acting like my parent instead of my colleague. I am also going to extend your lunch breaks by half an hour today to make up for the extra work you will be doing. Thank you for your time.
Back to work. I heard him call out my name but I elected to ignore it and head straight back to my office, locking the door behind me so I could get straight back to work. Basking in the soft warmth from the sun on my back as my fingers typed away at the keyboard - revelling in the fact it'd been a productive day. You're also not eating again. I'm fucking fine! Why is everyone on my damn case? I can take care of myself alright? Just stop trying to act like you know what's best for me because you clearly don't. He swallowed heavily and left the office, slowly shutting the door behind him. I groaned and banged my head against the desk. You're such a fucking idiot, Tomlinson. Now Zayn's gonna hate you too. A shocked squeak left my lips when I read across it.
Charges dropped after investigation was conducted and no evidence was found. Still under watch for any suspicious behaviour. And I let this man choke me? And spank me? A shiver ran through my body - how far had he gone with this guy to make him go to the police? I pushed my chair away from the desk and packed up all of my things into my briefcase, seeing my shift was nearly over. I had to assume Harry would be in charge whilst we went to Swindon Inc But I don't know if I trust him. Why would I trust him? Why did my Dad keep him on…? I shook the thoughts from my head and left the office, Zayn quickly behind me.
Let's just hope Harry is capable enough to run my company. The day that Louis and Zayn were gone was like hell on earth. It seemed like the one day that I was left in charge of the place, everybody had a problem that needed fixing. There were three rival companies calling to make deals that would swindle Tomlinson Industries out of millions had it not been for the fact that I had enough legal experience to know when a company was trying to pull a fast one. I yanked out my phone and pushed the third button on speed dial, Zayn picking up almost immediately. How long are you guys going to be? I have some err… Important developments to discuss with Louis as soon as possible.
I ran in and desperately searched through the filth on my desk, my whole body shaking. Harry furrowed his brow and stood up, walking around the desk as if he planned to peer over my shoulder but as I found what I was looking for a sob racked through my body. The photo of my mother was ruined, the ink had been smeared from grease from the cake and the corners were all ratted and completely ruined.
It's not like the almighty Louis Tomlinson has the capacity to care about anyone but himself," He sneered. No wonder your dad never spoke about her. His smile faded away and he tried to step closer, "I-I I didn't know If you'd just trust me-". When you're likely to beat the shit out of me? Fuck right off. The last thing I want to do right now is beat you. Take you over my knee and spank you, maybe, but your face is too pretty to punch. You call throwing away perfectly healthy food and letting yourself waste away fine? You're fucking starving yourself when you were perfectly fine before! Batter me like the last sucker you battered for saying no to you? As he screamed out, I instinctively brought my hands up to protect my face - screwing up my eyes and cowering away as I feared him punching me.
I heard his breathing shake and as I opened my eyes he'd taken a step back and his head was lowered. I swallowed heavily and took a step away from him as well, my back pressing into my desk. I bet you said that to Isaac too. And you definitely don't know the person I was back then, I never hurt Isaac. Wh-What makes you think you'd be good enough to take care of me?
He tensed up and ran a hand through his hair, tugging ever so slightly as he began to take a few more steps backwards. His breathing was ragged and he was shaking almost as much as I was. I turned away from him to face the mess on my desk and I heard him sob and run out, Zayn's voice calling out for him. I brought a hand up to my face to wipe away the tears before attempting to salvage what I could from my desk but everything was ruined. The journey home was tear filled and something that I could barely remember. I firmly stick by the theory that I got home purely based on memory alone, tears blurring my vision and my chest tight with a painfully heady mix of angst, rage and self-loathing. I got into the house and went straight to my study, throwing myself into the chair and firing up the computer.
I kept those thoughts in mind as I began a brief and vague email of resignation. I was through with being selfish, through with hurting other people without a second glance… Through with bringing out the worst in Louis without even meaning to. Please accept this email as my formal resignation from my post as COO of Tomlinson Industries, taking effect immediately. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work within your company, I am truly grateful. I sent off the email without a second thought, slamming the laptop shut and sliding it out of the way in favour of my nicest letter paper and a vaguely fancy envelope that I got from God knows where. All I ever wanted to do was show you how truly beautiful you are Louis; how beautiful you were when I first saw you at that godawful excuse of a gala that we were forced neither of us wanted to go to.
As I stumbled weakly to the escalator, clutching the note to my chest, I found it near impossible to fight back the tears. My whole body was shaking and my eyes were red as I repeatedly jabbed my finger into the ground floor button, desperate to get out of here. His words were just repeating over and over cruelly in my mind; everything from the first word right down to the ' All the love, H x ' he'd signed off with.
I sobbed messily and loudly as I left the elevator, my free hand over my mouth as I ran through the reception and out the front door. My hand crumpled up the note ever so slightly as I slid behind the wheel - my breathing quaking. I was definitely not stable enough to drive a car but I had to get away. I was a monster. All he ever wanted was to take care of me and now he can't do something he loves because of me.
After managing not to crash my car, I went into my home - slamming the door behind me - before throwing my tie and shoes across the room, stripping down until I was just in my half unbuttoned shirt and underwear. I raided the kitchen and pulled out every drop of alcohol I could find - going straight for the bottle of whiskey Zayn had got me for my birthday that I was yet to open. I trudged back into the living room and sunk onto the sofa, turning on my speaker to play the whiniest emo music I could possibly find before drowning my sorrows in a mix of spirits and various forms of alcohol.
By now the room was just full of empty bottles and cans - I'd been drinking since 11am and it was now 4pm. I hiccupped and giggled, sniffing at the peppermint schnapps before downing the glass in one go. Miss his pretty face already and he only left today After screwing open another bottle of whiskey, I grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper from under the coffee table - a mock pout on my face as I did so. I'll give you a heartfelt note," I burped, covering my mouth with the back of my hand, before I began to read it out loud in my best posh voice, "Dear my precious sweet baby Harold, you fucked me up.
You made the old me happen and don't like old Louis. Old Louis is weak and pathetic and stupid, " The more I read, the more my voice began to crack and the posh voice left. One kid even tried to put me in a bloody backpack when I was I don't want to be small. I wanna be big and strong like you. I wanna be pretty like you too, you know how pretty you are Hazza bear? The prettiest. Prettier than my mum and she was perfect. I miss you. Thank you for trying to care for me, sorry I'm a bastard. Hope you find the boy of your dreams Sorry I'm too fucked up to be him. Louis 'Napoleon' Tomlinson.
I scratched his name and address onto an envelops and stuck a stamp on it before pushing open the front door and poking my head round to see how far away the post-box was - not too far but man was the road wobbly. I stumbled down the road, using my best efforts not to fall into the road. I pressed a sloppy kiss to the envelope before shoving it in the mailbox, curtseying at it with a smile. I skipped back inside to finish off my whiskey. After grabbing a fresh vodka, I grabbed my cigarettes and walked upstairs to the bathroom and slid my blanket over my shoulders. Remember me on this computer.
Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Caryl Emerson. A short summary of this paper. Download PDF. Translate PDF. All rights reserved. Slavica Publishers [Tel. Willis Dr. Members of the International Pushkin Society in good standing will receive a printed copy of the journal and be granted online access to current and past issues. The Pushkin Review publishes new scholarly articles on Pushkin and his contemporaries, translations of Pushkin, reprints of hard-to-obtain Push- kiniana and archival materials, and book reviews.
Submissions to the Pushkin Review should be sent as an attachment via email to Ivan Eubanks ieubanks pushkiniana. All files should be in one of the following formats: Microsoft Word. Editor Ivan S. Boston: Academic Studies Press, ISBN Toronto: University of Toronto Press, With novels, art exhibits, architectural monuments, even movies, the reader or spectator is boss. But live music and live theater depend for their com- munication on the uninterrupted forward thrust of a concept. Polemical or ideologically-driven theater, so familiar to twentieth-century Eastern Eu- rope, can begin with an idea or desired effect and then strap both set and cast to it. But a pragmatic approach to stage work is more often the rule.
The concept works itself out intuitively during rehearsals, as a creation- in-process by those skilled practitioners in the temporal arts we call actors, musicians, dancers, projectionists, all the while being nourished here and there by a directorial hint or hunch. The ensemble succeeds more or less well on opening night, is tuned up throughout the run, and often it is only after the show is struck that principles emerge with the contours of a formal theory. But the production, the theater, and the director were all dead by The tasks here were less tragic but more delicate. It is a love story. But the project was abandoned by its theater even earlier than Boris was by Meyerhold, in December , after the orchestral parts had been prepared but before director, composer, or actors had sat down to serious table work, much less gotten up on a stage.
The Russian original of this play text has not been published. Semyonov as Prokofiev and M. For a mention of Onegin in a list of dramas not included in the volume, see commentary to Sigizmund Krzhizhanovskii, Sobranie sochinenii v piati tomakh, ed. Petersburg: b. Falen that became our working script. The Stalin-era back-story of this aborted Chamber Theater Onegin has been told in detail.
What were the major challenges facing Eugene Onegin, a drama-in- verse? The first was formal: extracting a playable, speakable dramatic core from the novel. By the mids Krzhizhanovsky had been working for over a decade as part-time lecturer at the Experimental Studio of the Kamerny. But how are living, three-dimensional bodies to be pried out of that pervasive authorial texture? Such a solution was not acceptable to the Chamber Theater. Interested parties may contact the author for video-documents at cemerson princeton.
In the librettist Anatoly Mariengof proposed the Resurrection project as an opera first to Dmitri Shostakovich and then to Sergei Prokofiev. See Anna A. The Kamerny resisted in principle any authorial interference that reduced acting characters to puppets, to nar- rated things, and their personal creativity to mere illustration. The second ally of the actor is music, which of all the arts is the most emotionally precise and disciplined.
The Ka- merny was known for its meticulous ensemble work. Breaking up the flatness of the stage floor was a high pri- ority for Tairov. In what other realm is the creative personality inseparably fused with its material as well as with its instrument? Control and responsivity in all areas must be perfect. Directors erroneously seek the truths of art among the truths of everyday life.
Tairov was profoundly suspicious of all this. With its choral imperative, Dionysian aims, tolerance of chance, and indiscriminate invitation to all to participate, the communal impulse was properly a component of religious ritual, politics, folk art, carnival, the brave new project of socialism in Russia. But authentic feeling is no guarantee of accurately formed stage action. Acting, Tairov felt, must not be ashamed to be stage craft. The gestures and intonations of the master actor are by nature sculpted, self-confident, pleasurably aware of their harmony and grace, designed as exaggerated formal moments. At times in his Notes of a Director, Tairov sounds like a cornered poet in the age of paraphrase—like Pushkin, perhaps, making the case for a taut disciplined meter the Onegin stanza against the easy, lazy inroads of free verse or the simple chatter of prose.
Touch it, supply a body for it, and its contours are already distorted. Over her distinguished career she had expertly performed roles at the Kamerny not wholly to her talents or liking. When he realized what he had done, the distraught officer shot himself on the spot. From a dry comment made by Krzhizhanovsky in a letter to his wife Anna Bovshek in July , we know that two years after the Onegin project was canceled, with the Terror against Russian culture at its peak and the participants in the theater debacle watching their every step, Koonen was still hoping that the production could be revived.
Judging by recordings of her voice and by archival video footage of other Kamerny productions from the s, her interpretation of the role would have been majestic, melodramatic, and rhythmically accentuated. They moved quickly, spoke rapidly, and could dress up as anything—a mummer, a monster, a dandy, a bear, an infatuated girl, a doddering old gentleman in a Petersburg salon—without undue gravitas. Nothing came of the probe. The Narrator does her speaking, thinking, letter-writing and dreaming for her—lovingly, of course, but with a certain patronizing voyeurism, and addressed as lyrics usually are direct from poet to reader, not exchanged between acting personages inside their own story space. Opera has the genre of the aria for these private, time-stopping communications that soar outward from one individual heart to the pri- vate recesses of each auditor in the hall.
For portions of the Onegin plot, this is no problem. Pushkin provides clever rhythmic repartee for Lensky, Onegin, Olga, Mme. Larina; those dialogues are ready-made. But in terms of lines, they are a fraction of the whole. They speak bits of Pushkin from throughout the corpus, and the better one knows the poet, the funnier these characters become. But 11 Iu. The essay is in English in Henryk Baran, ed. Dance has done better with it. It also suggests a way to experience the heroine without violating her privacy—which is, for this story, a paramount virtue.
She does not make eye contact. Since her attempts to reach out to others almost never receive prompt or satisfying response, her basic mode is deep, respectful waiting. Her dialogues with the outside world are staggered, asynchronic, for she is the pressure and fantasy of desire without its banal, corporeal playing-out. Her socially awkward, largely silent and invisible person was a source of fasci- nation to Prokofiev, whose music for the production ingeniously supplies her infrastructure. Second was the pervasive, congenital shyness of Tatyana. She flees audience. Her dominant mode is not display, but embarrassment. But these themes are not, strictly speaking, spoken. They are more felt than heard, which is precisely the effect of good cinema music: an arc of emotion, arising from somewhere unknown, suffusing the scene and subliminally absorbed by all within reach.
Tatyana is every- where present in the play, even without or especially without words. It is program music with two simultaneous pro- grams. In a breathless first-person voice-over, the heroine relates, to her Nurse and to us, the horror and thrill of getting access to the forbidden beloved. She watches herself with the wisdom of already having woken up from it. At the same time, she is allowed to re-live that trial of access, willfully acting it out in the body, acting into it. No Onegin stanza on the page can do this; only musicalized theater can do it. In the full score of the Dream, the orchestration is dramatic. The tuba creates a heavy bear lum- bering off-balance through the snowdrifts, while Tatyana rushes ahead, in syncopated leaps at the fourth and fifth, a descending oboe line marking her stumbles into a frozen bank.
Always at the center of her quest is Onegin. Subsequent page numbers in text. Here and elsewhere, Krzhizhanovsky resolved adaptation problems by recourse to film devices, where diegetic and non-diegetic options for voice and music not only vastly enrich the expressive repertory of silent characters, but also encourage flash-forwards and back, close-ups, lingering shots and dissolves.
In places, the Onegin script resembles a film scenario—an art form that deeply interested Krzhizhanovsky, whose work in this medium bridged two eras, silent film and talkies. A brief span of moving images—water over stones, forests of drifted snow, fields or flowers in bloom—marked many of our scene breaks in a darkened hall. Spectators in the hall could see what the hero- 13 Krzhizhanovsky had been hired for some part-time work —35 editing films, and his essay on the stage direction remarka ends with praise for the verbal script in the era of presumably silent cinema.
Clearly he saw a connection between these two technical parts of the visual-acting artwork. Finally it received its freedom: in the film scenario. Cinema is the kingdom of the pure stage direction. Even in sound film, for the time being, audible words are in subjection to mute words. Here, finally, the heroine of this article, the stage di- rection, has succeeded in throwing off the crooked crutches of the parentheses and confidently begins to step into the fully-lit field of the screen. The essay was published with some cuts in the journal Teatr, no. We felt licensed in our interpretation by several bold moves that Krzhizhanovsky had made in his adaptation, adjustments of Pushkin that surely raised the hackles of his Stalin-era censors.
To facilitate the flow of inner events and focus it around the heroine, he switched the order and location of several canonized Pushkinian episodes. And Krzhizhanovsky moved the Nameday itself, so full of humiliation for the heroine, before her Dream. Waking up on the far side of that Nameday nightmare, Tatyana relates to her Nurse what we realize is in part a wish- fulfillment dream. But that consummation too is cut short. The knife- play at the end of the Dream segues without interruption into the lethal Duel, where Lensky and Onegin confront each other over a barrier in a blizzard.
By the time of that Duel only its final moments are acted out , we have again returned to the woken-up stage. What happens here cannot be undone or replayed. But what is dream-life, what is real? Making a dream the axis of the drama, and allowing this dream to slide into reality when the lyrical subject requires it, was of absolute value to Krzhizhanovsky as playwright. Dreamscapes also organize the logic of his best prose works. Key for him is where in the plot a dream occurs, to whom, and how its borders are marked.
It stands in for the fate of all poets. Death albeit in softened, elegaic tones is present from the beginning. It was the sole but we felt, the single indispensable moment of politics in the play. He was costumed to resemble Krzhizhanovsky circa , at a shabby unheated desk, hungry, haggard, cold, whacking out his play. Snow is falling over everything. Later this unemployed poet moves to the margins of the stage, reading out loud the occasional stage direction, like a stage manager.
Or perhaps he only dreams that his play has gone into rehearsal? Our tiny, relatively empty performance space had many corners, and each might have contained a private world. Tairov, fearing the wrath of the orthodox Pushkinists, had always been more flexible on this point. In our production, however, this panoptic directorial presence was more a manager of spaces, images, and movements than he was of words. He was a theatrical equivalent of the lyric poet who had created the novel-in-verse. The acting characters spoke with one another in the cadences of the stanza, because only poetry gives birth to three-dimensional life. In his retrospective testimonial, he had this to say about his hovering presence in this cold-and-hot play: I played the Poet, the one character who serves as a signpost for the continued existence of a world beyond the fabulous dream of Tatyana and Onegin.
It is an odd position for the artist-figure; the romantic poet is, so the story usually goes, buried alive in his dreams. Every time it is said, the word dream threatens to turn into metaphor, meaning beauty, longing, an ideal, an often cheap hope. There is no sense of historical causality, just a sense of historical juxtaposition. And this distinction seems to me extremely impor- tant for all of the artistic visions involved: this was not meant to be a work of meta-theater, with an author-figure directing his characters. The play is a temporal mix of bits and pieces, of strands of gossip, of innuendo and analogy.
The poet and creature, when they meet, announce a certain model for history, which is not the customary linear thread, or the lavish tapestry, or the pages of a turning book. It is a disordered, sometimes glitter- ing, collage. To this glittering end, Cindy Thom, costume designer, and Anya Klepikov, scene designer, configured the acting space into three zones.
The studio is a tiny black box rimmed round with a high catwalk.. The Dream was narrated above to the Nurse while being played out below. The most astute review we received of the production, by Vera Zubareva, made much of this architectural logic. You leave the theater. The snow begins. Is it falling from the sky or is it coming from the play? Woven into this musical score were excerpts of the play read live in Russian and a danced staging both ballroom and modern of major Onegin epi— sodes, choreographed by Sydney Schiff, who danced Tatyana. This essay discusses only the second production. Further page references in text. To create a dramatic role requires a maximal degree of belief in the animating powers of art.
This change need not wait on nature; it can be creatively willed. The very exercise of this will enables all parti- cipants in the theatrical contract, spectators and actors alike, to resist spiritual inertia and decay. Such is the economy of disciplined live performance. The huge eyelid of the curtain rises, the audience is obliged to confront to see , the actor by being watched is authenticated in the role, and a parallel life begins to take root. If epic is a genre of the past in the tight grip of fate, and lyric a genre of the transitorily present, then theater—for all its apparent present-tenseness—permits us to experiment with tomorrow 80— The first is the mystery play, too unified, paradigmatic, and static for effective theater.
The second is drama, overall a comfortable mode that satisfies our fetish for touching and seeing; wedded to the interaction of artifacts and real-life people, it jealously hugs the flat stage floor. Only the third type of theater, at which the Kamerny excelled, encourages poten- tials to be realized in human consciousness that can strengthen and edu- cate us actively. But to project these potentials they need a secure home, separated from the audience by a firm row of footlights. Here as almost everywhere, he echoes Tairov—or Tairov him: the two appear to have collaborated on their theater aesthetic. What we get in this realm is more likely to be what we must learn to work with. It forces us to try out a variety of self-other relations, both with a collective and with our own individual selves.
But other aspects of this dramatic Onegin might not have fared so well in the Kamerny. The fact that Tairov pleaded unsuccessfully with Krzhizhanovsky, throughout the summer of , to adjust his text can only suggest that director and adaptor did not always see eye to eye. In addition to lyrical and folklore inserts, the playscript contains chastushki and a juvenile drinking song both by Pushkin , the latter delivered by a wobbly crew of students on the Neva waterfront at dawn. Subsequent page references in text. Olga and her mother are irrepressible, volatile, open-hearted souls, like Midwestern girls from a healthy American musical.
Except for Vyazemsky, the guests in full court uniform that fill the St. In this boisterous company, our two romantic leads stood somewhat apart. By an accident of casting, both were exotic in a European, Old-School way. Tim Vasen, the director, relies on such accidents: even for the leading roles he does not recruit, but works with whomever turns up to audition. The pool that turned up in for Eugene Onegin was different, although still varied. Tatyana Elena Garadja , a major in Philosophy, was quatra-lingual and a native speaker of Russian.
It was simply impossible to place her accent or intonation on stage English through German and French from a Russian base. He became a master at establishing the beat of the play—in the stanza, in his rocking chair, even, as he confessed, in his heart. The music for Tatiana showed her as much more passionate than I had originally thought her to be. And Krzhizhanovsky too brings out the impulsive and passion- ate in her. Coy or concise? The words had their own beating heart, also essential. He produced historic restora- tions at his Antique Theater Starinnyi teatr in —08 and —12, miniature satires and buffonnades in the Crooked Mirror Krivoe zerkalo between and , and in he managed the first Bolshevik mass spectacle, the Storming of the Winter Palace, with a cast of thousands and the real Petrograd Palace Square as set.
The vigor of our dream life is proof of our biological need to play out a scene, interrogate it, and act in it, all while watching it. Having reflected on that feeling of spontaneous manipulation, I felt more comfortable ex- ploring other, elastic, beats for the play. The first is the genre of monodrama, familiar to the Symbolist period through the dream-plays of Strindberg and Maeterlinck. Evreinov first experimented with the form in , writing his own ex— emplary play in the genre, Predstavlenie liubvi A Representation, or Performance, of Love and prefacing it with a polemical essay.
It refers not to voiced utterance but to visual perspective or focus, and appears to have something in common with the lyric impulse. Alexander I. Nazaroff, introduction by Oliver M. Peters- burg: Letnii sad, Reference in text to Evreinoff English and Evreinov Rus- sian editions. It is included, with illustrations and preface pp. Our production in had a looser, more improvisatory feel to many of its parts. This can be explained partially by American twenty-first-century pace and style, athletic in a far less studied manner. Partially it was because our actors, Elena and Gabriel especially, who owned most of the lines, worked hard to avoid any overly self-conscious declamation—inappropriate, we felt, for this private, almost whispered work of art.
The aims and internal perspectives of monodrama helped us resolve the pre- sentation, and preservation, of a fragile lyrical subject. But in our Onegin, we adjusted the concept to the purity of the heroine. In the play, the Poet-Playwright cares mostly about Onegin, with whom he both identifies and competes, and lets the heroine make her own way at her own risk, in her own body. Tatyana proves equal to this trust. But she is still the same shy, inward self. Since Evreinov argues our perceptual abilities and attention spans are limited, any aesthetically significant effect must be focused and unified.
Then every detail on the theatrical set would have to be manipulated in order to appear to spectators in the hall exactly as the actor, at that moment, was supposedly perceiving it. The technical difficulty of staging monodrama was a matter of some concern. Both cinema projection and bold lighting sequences offer promising solutions to such split-second transfor- mations. And as mere illusion, no audience would co-experience it. Krzhizhanovsky who, to my knowledge, nowhere discusses Evreinov would surely concur. He was a careful student of psychology and believed that uttered words could take on the force of palpable things.
Onegin and Tatyana dream at different tempos. In the play text, her dream Fragment 8 has pride of place on two levels, full of rapid and dizzying events, emotions, risk, which not only do not rupture her relation with real outside life but positively instruct her in it. But something is soldered in her after she confronts her Dream. Not until the very end does she—or for that matter, we—know for sure whether this iron resolve is a weakness or a strength. But he has no images to work with, no stage reality. He has only his remembered and regretted words. With them he curls up on his cold bench, in a position that recalls the Playwright of the opening few moments of the play. They talk about him but not with him. The ottoman in that final Fragment is the site for some sort of denouement.
Creator and creature take leave of each other. Prokofiev wrote no music for the final scene. Falen, has an instructive and at times excruciating prehistory. The Russian archival typescript had been known to theater directors since the s, but its circulation was limited. So the play appeared first in English, as part of a Prokofiev volume published in Simon Morrison, ed. It was a good- faith attempt to communicate the play to an American ear and to accom- modate—or so I thought at the time—the comfort zone of American actors. I thought it was free verse; he insisted flat-out that no matter how I had formatted the lines, it was prose. And what about the comfort zone of the American actor?
That became clear only later. Our director, Tim Vasen, had been skeptical from the start about my free verse. Our Boris Godunov was still fresh in his memory. For the past two years, Vasen had been taking Russian classes at Princeton. Then he insisted that each member of the cast, whether or not they knew any Russian, learn a stanza by heart in the original. The actors themselves were of one mind. The limp residual defense of a free-verse solution fell away. Other moments were formal. Krzhizhanovsky embeds a folktale by Pushkin in the play- script, and assigns it to the Nurse to recite: what should its relation be to the Onegin stanza?
In several instances Falen felt strongly that a couplet or a rhyme should be completed, even though Krzhizhanovsky had stopped short of providing it. A theatrical production that never came together has no canonized parts. We, too, are adapters and we ought to have at least some slight opportu- nity to put our mark if we can justify it on what we do. Below are some excerpts from our e-mail exchanges over this joint project, taken from the first two months: 1. July 25, James Falen to CE before he saw the Russian text : Whatever the merits of the play script, its realization in a production for an American audience presents special problems, as you well know. Americans, on the other hand, ignorant of both Pushkin and EO, will have a much harder time responding to the drama.
Although acting, sets, costumes, music, dance, and staging will all con- tribute to the effectiveness of the production bringing it alive , the prob- lem of the kind of English language in which to embody the play remains tricky and difficult to resolve. I know your own thoughts on this question continue to evolve and that you go back and forth in trying to decide whether to use verse or prose—and which kinds of verse or prose. I can well understand a reluctance to have the dialogue retain all the features of the Onegin stanza, including the alternating feminine and masculine rhymes. This would probably be uncongenial to a modern American audi- ence completely unfamiliar with the work. Furthermore, a dialogue that is completely in rhymed verse would require very accomplished vocal actors to carry it off.
For under- standable reasons you opted for prose rather than verse. I do not find it a particularly rhythmic prose and this is a shortcoming in my view. They say he was a poet. Fleshing this out a bit more, per- haps Onegin might speak in an unobtrusively iambic meter with an occa- sional acerbic rhyme, Lensky in a more obviously patterned and rhymed style. Ah, had EO been written in iambic pentameter it might have been somewhat less difficult to realize on stage. The Following Day, July 26, People know it through the opera, and the key is to peel back Tchaikovsky. Consider the live person on stage.
Does Onegin grow into poetic wisdom, or out of poetic foolishness? The Same Day, July 26, Your translation, for me at least, sits un- happily in some undefined limbo of its own. One must not think Tolstoy. And an unmetrical line bumbles and bumps, reminding me of a rider not quite in sync with his horse. If, in addition as you well know you abandon the meter and ex- cise all of the rhymes as well! But I know you want to make this production as good as it can be. The Next Day, July 27, My more urgent concern is character. The Onegin stanza is the voice of a Narrator, the play does not have a nar- rator, how do individual personalities emerge and differentiate, once on their own? CE informed Tim Vasen, who would be directing Eugene Onegin and co- teaching a seminar for its actors, of this correspondence and the possi- bility of pulling Falen into the project.
From Tim Vasen, August 2, hi caryl—back down and out of the sublime adirondacks, just had a quick look at this exchange and I am thrilled with what you and Falen are work- ing on. I think we can have structured language, at times nakedly poetic at times with a ghost of a rhythm, and it will fit in beautifully with the way i imagine the visual production will work.
August 4 , I can imagine that at times you despair of the project. Years ago, to express how I often felt while translating EO, I came up with this: I write at night with inspiration And suffer an ecstatic fit. August 8, The speaking of rhythmic and rhymed verse requires considerable skill on the part of the actors. This tends to over-empha- size the rhyme and it makes the dialog sound too artificial. Verse, how- ever, can be spoken in a way that approaches normal, flowing talk. But God knows and I do, too —it has a lot of flaws. Weirdly apt. September 14, We should be able fairly easily to find common ground on those questions. These remain paramount to me.
James Falen to CE: Perhaps the broken back effect that you think would be effective and au- thentic can be achieved with your preferred short-worded lines alone, along with unusual pauses, but with the iambic tetrameter still intact. September 15, She is, after all, a rather bookish young lady, a reader of roman- tic novels and epistolary novels at that , from which she can have picked up a certain tone and vocabulary as well as an attitude to life.
You might be right. This is a mind-opener. In gasps, leaps, shudders, and being Krzh dreams. I rashly told him that the definitive text would be evolving for a long time in its details, but a basic re-versification of the line would be ready in two or three weeks. Which means I get the final third back to you today by Saturday night. Which I will. Falen visited Princeton for a day to take in the seminar and coach the cast. Ever so slightly?
And anyway, his script as we have it is more a work in progress and only one version of the several attempts he made! He no doubt would have continued to revise it himself. But what an incomparable apprenticeship. Practiced Prokofiev scholars have no problem decoding these abbreviations. Morrison transcribed the slight but intriguing musical markings and alerted his colleague Caryl Emerson to the existence of this text. Simon Morrison. Although never published, the Russian play script was not unknown. Or rather, it was known through negative criticism of it. Passions have always run high on transpositions of Russian classics. Without a performance history, the verdict on this one is still out.
But with this publication, we hope to restore the complexity of the textual field. The typescript, however, resists replication. In several places letters and punctuation marks bled through one page to impose themselves on another; they would look like typo- graphical or grammatical errors in a facsimile. In other passages, faded typewritten lines would become close to illegible. The text now conforms to the general standards for American play scripts, so as to improve its readability and its usefulness to directors. Such mo- ments were retained in the transcription. In such in- stances, the word in question has been retained when possible. A smaller font was used for comments written in the margins.
Handwritten comments in the typescript correspond as closely as possible with their proximity to given lines in the typescript. Italicized comments in the margins belong to Sergei Prokofiev. Krzhizhanovsky Translated by James E. At the table, his back to the audience: the POET, bending over the scattered pages of a manuscript. The bard Derzhavin, passing, blessed us, As he descended to the grave. And to each mad and fevered rout She brought her gifts and danced about Bacchante-like, at all our revels. And over wine she sang for guests, And in those days when I was blest, Young men pursued my Muse like devils. How often, in the moonlit nights, She rode with me the mountain heights! But then our course abruptly veered And in my garden she appeared, With mournful air and brooding glance, And in her hands a French romance.
And we may press a modest claim To be the first to grace and honor A tender novel with this name. A wild creature, sad and pensive, Shy as a doe and apprehensive, Tatyana seemed, among her kin, A strangeling who had wandered in. From early youth she read romances And novels set her heart aglow, She loved the fictions and the fancies Of Richardson and of Rousseau. I was embittered; he, depressed. And all for what, I ask? POET For freedom.
But heed my words And mark you well this useful truth: This iron age depends on commerce; And freedom, too, requires cash. You need some gold, my friend, good gold; So get it. Why wait? Impatient readers clamor And beg for more. Some crave satiric fare and fun, And others. And so I say, your hallowed lyre Will surely bring us good receipts. Here, take my manuscript. A gravestone. He dandled me upon his knee. In childhood days I loved to wear His medal from the Turkish war. Lowers himself down on the edge of the grave. Pulls a notebook out of his pocket. Pencil slides across paper. He continues I live alone, indifferent Gnaws the pencil, again crosses it out I live alone and sadly wait I wait, and sad With irritation flings down the pencil, then picks it up, writes I live alone and sadly wait To see when death will come at last.
Upon a naked branch, alone, nature The final leaf of summer shakes. A simple unpainted floor.