Oct. 14, 2020
“One day the time will come
when we know why we suffer,
there will be an end to all this mystery —
but meanwhile we must live,
we must work, only work!
Tomorrow I’m going away, alone,
I’ll teach school, and I’ll give my life away
to the people who need it.
It’s fall now;
winter will be here soon and cover the world with snow…
and I’ll work, I will work…”
-Irina in Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters
I can’t believe it’s been 7 months.
When the pandemic hit, I had been traveling and needed to come home abruptly. I wasn’t going back to any sort of job, as I had just finished an acting contract about a week prior, and was working in the service industry before then, which I had quit to go act.
The day I was flying back, I received a text message from a manager of the restaurant I had served at, asking if I could work that evening as someone had called in sick. Only an hour prior, the government of Ontario had asked all bars and restaurants to temporarily stop dine-in services. I guess the manager realized this in the same moment, as the next minute he wrote back, “false alarm.”
A week later, all non-essential businesses were required to shut down: bars, restaurants, spas, gyms, cinemas, shopping malls, retail shops, museums, art galleries, more. I didn’t have any acting work lined up, but theatres across the country were canceling their upcoming shows, some their whole seasons. Film and TV sets were abruptly shut down too. All non-essential.
I needed to do my two-week self-isolation anyhow, but after the initial thrill of acknowledging we were entering into some kind of altered reality, I couldn’t help but feel so incredibly… useless. While my boyfriend was out helping those in need (he is a doctor), I was doing nothing, in a state of daily excruciating turmoil over what to do with myself, and then increasingly, what I would do with myself, given that my working industries were seemingly becoming obsolete. The government was making it easy too, to do nothing— they provided those out of work with a decent wage (CERB), just to really not do anything. They were begging all who could just to stay the fudge home and refrain from any activity until further notice.
Like (I believe) so many of us, I thrive off work. Not to say that I don’t cherish time spent nourishing my relationships, hobbies, and other interests, but in a world where our work titles are so tied to our identities, I can’t help but acknowledge why that might be — work gives us something to do. It validates our existence. And given that we now live in such an advanced world where social connection is a click away, and life’s necessities can be delivered right to your door, it is inevitable that in a time of pandemic, we are so frankly divided up: the essentials, and the non-essentials; those responsible for our health, safety, nourishment, and transportation, and those…not.
After almost a month into the pandemic and becoming increasingly anxious while contemplating my new existence, I received a text message from an actor friend of mine. It read: “I’m doing a Chekhov reading group. Just to read the stuff. Friday’s and Tuesday’s. 3-4. Starting tomorrow. Want to read with us?”
I don’t think I have ever felt more validated in my acting abilities.
The plan was to “meet” (virtually) twice a week and read through Anton Chekhov’s major plays, of which there are four, in reverse-chronological order.
Immediately we were all struck with how much it felt like we were reading pandemic plays. Chekhov sets his plays in a single household, usually an estate, usually featuring characters with too much time on their hands, often stuck with just each other, often far from the rest of humanity, often bored, often miserable, often pining over the wrong person or stuck married to the wrong person, often wishing things were different. Often not working.
In one of my favourite plays, Three Sisters, the character I was reading, Irina, the youngest of the referred-to three sisters, in stark contrast to the gloominess of the rest of the characters, giddily declares at the beginning of the play,
“I woke up this morning, got up and washed my face, and everything in the world seemed suddenly clear to me, and I knew how to live.
I knew everything!
People have to work, to labor!
Work by the sweat of our brows.
No matter who we are. This is our one purpose, joy ecstasy!”
She eventually starts working at a job she hates and is overworked at, complains about it, then becomes a teacher and is not any happier in the end, but reading it in that moment, I couldn’t have agreed more.
I was craving being overworked, stimulated, productive, collaborative, feeling tired and high on adrenaline and accomplishment, feelings I began seeking out in house projects, baking, cooking, exercising, deep deep cleaning, classes, offering help to loved ones, reaching out to friends, anything to feel useful and needed.
There are a lot of other characters in Chekhov’s plays, the ones barely seen, the ones who perhaps have more cause to complain, but are given so little to say because they have so much to do. They are the ones working for the ones complaining.
This too felt eerily similar to what was happening in real life — essential workers being asked, perhaps unfairly, to sacrifice their own health and work long hours for everyone’s health, safety, and nourishment, while the rest of us sit back and sigh at the state of the world, enraged at how cooped up and bored we feel. Because we have the privilege to do nothing.
When things started opening up, I was still in need of a job. I didn’t want to return to the service industry. I wish I could say that I found work doing something I enjoy immensely, but a serving job was available to me, and it beats the constant nagging, meaningless anxiety
that creeps in with too much time on my hands. It’s fitting that I’m writing this on a day I was called off a work shift due to Ontario’s new dining restrictions (I’m sure you’ve heard: no more dine-in services). It gave me time to sulk and write about how anxious I feel from not doing anything. And it gave me something to do.
-Anonymous Contributor #3