My contribution to the Russian Doll word-of-mouth mill consisted of calling two-dozen people the afternoon before closing night, many of whom were writers. (More than anything else, the show, which again and again pulled in unforeseen directions, exemplified narrative possibility, which I realize isn't a thrilling plane of thought for everyone, but the first of the three performances I saw made me want to go home and turn out a novel.) One problem Russian Doll's creators are going to have as they take the show elsewhere is describing Russian Doll in a way that makes it sound remotely entertaining. The description of the show that ran in The Stranger's calendar--"spectacular physical theater"--sucks. The show was spectacular, and its physicality was endlessly compelling, but it wasn't a show about pantomime. It was about people. Pantomime is a tradesman's trick; it's imitative and dull. What the few who saw Russian Doll saw was life--sharply presented, but messy, seemingly uncalibrated, surprising. The Russian doll of the title, made entirely of metal, got no here-is-a-symbol treatment. Nor did the theme of time, although time's at the center of it all: its thrilling forward rush, its awful imperviousness, its neutrality, its speed, its dispensations, its unfathomable capacity. There were physical innovations in Take Me Out, too, but who cared? The innovations in Russian Doll, which also involved physical elements, were riskier. Russian Doll was modern in the literary sense. It was about being trapped in the act of being.