Posting has been light, due to extreme theatregoing. Over the past few days, I saw NOSFERATU at Teatr Narodowy three times in one weekend (I’ve never done this before for a show I wasn’t working on–very, very interesting experience, still processing it…), NASZA KLASA at Teatr Na Woli, and CK’s MAGNIFICAT at the Instytut Teatralny, as well as a couple of films in the Jewish Film Festival.

Articles, articles, articles, articles, articles in progress. If this continues, I, like Keats in Byron’s posthumous slur, will be “snuffed out by an article.” Just kidding. I’m really enjoying having the chance to do so much writing, and to use some of the rusty old wrenches from the critical toolbox that I haven’t really used since the good old days at LAist.

Wednesday, I spent some time at the Nowy Wspanialy Swiat café talking with a translator for a number of Polish plays–it was really interesting to have the chance to discuss his work with him. He’s also involved in projects such as supertitles and translating at festivals. One cool thing I got to do for him that I can share was make a list of war poems in English that he could scour through for a one-line analog to a famous line from a Polish war poem (Mickiewicz’s “Reduta Ordona”–the line, in English is something roughly like “We were not given the order to fire.”) Poetry and theater: “it’s complicated,” since before 2400 BCE.

The Russian Film Festival started yesterday, just in case you thought there wasn’t enough going on around here.

I am saddened by the OWS encampments being torn down, in NYC and elsewhere. I know this isn’t going to be the end of the movement, or of the issues it raised, but I do hope it’s not really the end of the physical manifestation of the protesters’ camps. I’ve read so many interesting articles over the past few weeks about what they’re doing, and the human interactions occurring at these camps, and it just seems like a remarkably positive-intentioned movement, to sound like a Californian (which I am). I’m proud of everyone I know who’s been involved with OWS in all the various cities.

I am happy that the new Muppet movie is coming out soon, although it won’t come out so soon here–but that feels like a remarkably trivial observation, given the previous one. I would also be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about today being the premiere of Zmierzch: Przed świtem; Część 1, if only for the many opportunities to try to pronounce “Zmierzch.”

My inbox bristles with political emails. “Dara–are you on the right side of history?” “Dara–can we count on you?” OWS in danger. Internet freedom under attack in Congress. My Gmail is turning into the bearer of bad news. And in my own small wheelhouse / cabin / dugout / metaphor, Arena Stage has to pull a production, on the heels of the Funny Girl revival being canceled, on the heels of one of my favorite theaters in the world (TJT) closing its doors. Oh, ArtsJournal, bring me some good news. Please.

It’s a good time to be in Europe, but my thoughts are with my friends at home who are still trying–to keep their jobs, to make art, to protect our civil liberties, including the right to assembly, and slow the further collapse of the economy.