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There There begins with the absence of an actor. Christopher Walken, we are told, has been touring Russia with his one-man show based on a character from Chekhov—the troubled, troubling Captain Soleni who ends The Three Sisters by killing the closest thing he has to a friend in a duel—but has mysteriously fallen off a ladder and cannot perform.

A proofreader named Karen, who has read the script only once, explains that she was chosen to perform in Walken's place alongside a real-time Russian translator. "Tell them to pretend I have a mustache," Karen tells her translator to tell us. "Christopher Walken had a mustache, but I didn't have time to grow one." The duo eases its way into Walken's adaptation of Chekhov's play, dutifully reciting its epigraphs and pausing for its flyleaf before launching into its opening line: "Am I sorry I did it? I don't know. I'm not even sure I did it."

A collaboration between writer/performer Kristen Kosmas, director Paul Willis, and designer Peter Ksander, There There delicately and repeatedly turns itself inside out like a contortionist flower in perpetual bloom. At first, Karen's English and the translator's Russian gently entwine, but tension builds as Karen goes off script (talking about her dreams, her mistakes, the fact that her hair is falling out) and they begin crashing into each other. "Karen!" the translator (Larissa Tokmakova) yells after one reverie about wearing a short skirt to a party and being carried around on someone's shoulders.

The duet is on the verge of becoming a duel.

Performances are almost all sold out, but you can try for the waiting list—and this production has been filmed for eventual broadcast on OntheBoards.tv.

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