If I were
living in the world of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit
451, the first book I would seek to protect from the flames would be War and Peace, Tolstoy’s doorstop-sized epic
set during the Napoleonic wars in the early nineteenth century—and I do mean epic. My paperback edition of the 2007
translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is over 1,200 pages, with
48 lines per page. So imagine my delight, tempered by some skepticism, when I
learned that the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge was staging a musical
based on a seventy-page slice of the novel, in a techno-pop fashion, no less. I
can only imagine that Tolstoy, who late in his life ditched all things
bourgeois for the lifestyle of a very wise (and very famous) peasant, would
have regarded the play’s pulsing lights and blaring music as abominations.
Paula and I loved it, as did, apparently, the vast
majority of the audience. There were a number of postmodern touches—one notable
song began, “In nineteenth-century Russia/people wrote letters/they put down
their thoughts/in words.” And for all the high energy and commotion, the play
was reasonably faithful to the section of the novel it was based on: a soirée at
which the young Natasha Rostova, a central figure in the book, is seduced by
the rakish Anatole Vassilievich Kuragin.
Because we have to watch our spending, there was no chance
that we would have paid the $190 cost for our pair of tickets for the musical, whose
title is Natasha, Pierre and the Great
Comet of 1812. But thanks to the Alzheimer’s Association, we paid nothing
at all for seats that put us so close to the action that we were advised not to
stretch out our legs, lest we risk tripping up the singers who occasionally
passed in front of us. (The stage was circular, with some audience members
inserted shoulder-to-shoulder with performers. We were glad that we were not
among them.)
This kind of Alzheimer’s Association-sponsored event is a
regular part of the organization’s “Power and Purpose” program. This past fall,
there were two outings: a tour of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, and
a nature walk in the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. And a forthcoming A.R.T.
production is based on George Orwell’s 1984—the
only book I read in high school that left an impression on me. A maple sugaring
activity is scheduled in early March.
These events aren’t just diversions. They are designed to help
keep people engaged, socially and mentally, for many years to come. And since
my diagnosis, I have often reflected on Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods
on a Snowy Evening.” The final stanza:
The woods are lovely, dark and
deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.
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