In terms of satisfying the catalog, the writing of Pod Kablukom started before the writing of ownership and ended after it. And it was the longest writing process of any play I have ever been a part of. Not necessarily to get the original text straight. The original text was formulated in Pinsk and then got fleshed out in Poland with the help of Tatiana Kopus.

If one were to be honest, I never have said that I was responsible for every word. I just said I created a play and that she helped. The way that she helped was providing quite a bit dialogue which I think really made this play quite special.

I don’t want to say it was a magical time because I’m not sure magic is possible. But I think it was really good energy for me to make this thing go all the way to the end. We made ourselves comfortable. Beaches, stage plays, did our own cooking. And then I would pull out the computer and we would talk about the situation. And she would just say these things, these beautiful things. She was voicing the characters so perfectly in terms of who they were really. They were all communists being forced to live in a world that just made no sense. The town had been destroyed by massive economic bombs by the Russian banks. The currencies had evaporated. No one had anything and they weren’t even allowed to be together. But they tried.

She knew the public line. It’s always been true. Later, I wrote several other plays with my English students just for the same thing. There is a texture that someone from a different culture has that you do not. You might appreciate that culture or even know a thing or two about it but if it did not grow up with you and exist as a part of your life, you can’t know it like an original. This is always true. She was offering up the real goods. The voices of this play are real.

Again, if you want to misunderstand the idea of plagiarism, you’re talking about something completely different. I wrote Pod Kablukom. And in the order of ownership, I claim the following. To even write a scenario was my original idea. To write it about the specific subject, was my original idea. The actions of the scenario, the timeline under which all of this dialogue would attach itself all came from me. And even the point of the lines I was asking for came from the situation I had created. Literally, I didn’t steal anyone’s words. I just wrote down how they answered my questions. And I gave credit. Sorry, not even close to plagiarism. Never have, never will.

But enough of the politics, the play is a gas! It’s funny. It’s really funny. It’s caustic and brutal. It’s snappy fast-paced dialogue that comes at you unexpectedly sometimes. But the family keeps up the chatter. You have to respect them for this. They do keep up the chatter.

The play is about an unexpected happenstance where a traveler named Robert meets the beautiful Nadia on the train from Brest to Pinsk. She speaks English which is a great plus because he is completely lost in Belarus. And she has something about her that has his attention right from moment one. It’s not that she is beautiful. It’s how she is talking with him. She is supportive. He’s gone.

However and completely unexpectedly to the American, the girl has a boyfriend and there he was waiting for them at the train station with flowers. Oops. The play is a few days later and they have finally managed to invite Robert to have dinner with Nadia’s family. Of course this is an exciting moment and hear the family nervously chatter is about the possibilities. Edward, the now hysterically jealous boyfriend, has been eating his heart out for days not knowing what is going on between Nadia and Robert. Meanwhile, Nadia has said nothing to anyone but simply meets with Robert every day. And now it’s time for everyone to get together in the same room and get to know each other.

If I have to say this, it is fair to note that this scenario is literally bespoke by me for my taste. To me, it’s richly hysterical. To me, it has timing and movement and there are enough gags and enough punches throne that this played genuinely has a raucous start. I’m not talking about physical actions, I’m talking about the flow of ideas. This is old school theater. This is the theater where the arguments for mingle. This is the theater for those who wish to be smarter or better. Anyway, there are no fight scenes per se yet. Yes, everyone has their physicality and one would think that the men might be a bit intimidating with each other if needed. But yeah, snappy dialogue. It’s nice.

It also plays perfectly to archetypes. Papa, the head of the family, man handles the entire first half of the first act. He is the attention magnet. But he is purely a Russian philosopher. He does not work, he talks. And if philosophy never ends nor the jokes that he sees in them. You can see what the family is like. They are chaotic. They are a noisy group. They are pretentious in their way but this might be a little soon to be meeting America full blast. Then again, it might be something for America to meet Belarus full blast all at once like that. And especially still if the guys without an army.

I have never felt there is an easy answer as to who is the good guy or who is the bad guy in this scenario. I don’t think you can easily put anyone into a mold and say they absolutely must be there. You understand that people have desire and that they are trying to move in a direction. But at the same time, I believe there is a humble core, especially with women. Maybe it’s only that I respect those who do physical labor more than I respect those who talk. You can say that Papa is greedy. Although he says it as if he’s joking you can see that he would happily take a result that has money flowing to the house. But can you fault him? And let’s think about this as a Russian language play intended to be played in Belarus. Do you think anyone in the audience would blame him?

In the end, it’s a very enjoyable play. I can read it well even out loud. I understand every word and I understand the characters and the things flows beautifully for me. I think people will like this play. I definitely think it needs to be played in the original language. You can have titles flowing either under the stage or over the stage, much like subtitles in a movie. If you’re playing the play and you know you have mostly an English language audience, you can tell people what is being said but I think it’s very important to let the texture of the original language stay. The English language version of the play is not really a literary work. That was simply the sketch that would eventually lead to the play in Russia. It’s actually a bit gibberish when you’re listening to both sides of the conversation go off in English during the translation run.

After this I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to say any spoilers. But I see this as potentially the greatest play I ever wrote. I’m not saying that I haven’t gotten better as a writer and a dramatist, I’m just saying that this was the play that pretty much hit the nail on the head. And I want to say that by the strangest of oddities, it is absolutely relevant today. It seems the president in office during the time of the play is still there. That means that nothing really has changed, doesn’t it?

Enjoy Pod Kablukom