Russian Theater: From the Empire to the Soviets

Russian Theater (1963) is a comprehensive study of the main trends in Russian theatre in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning with its origins in pagan folklore and ritual, it goes on to consider the romantic drama which flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century, the realistic drama of Gogol, Turgenev and their contemporaries, and the beginning of the modernist movement. The foundation of the famous Moscow Art Theatre in 1898 by Stanislavsky and Danchenko led to a remarkable period of innovation in acting, production and stage design which still influences the theatre of the West. Their association of Chekhov and their production of his plays is fully described. The reader is also introduced to the work of such playwrights as Andreyev and Gorky, and to the experiments and ideas of directors like Meeyerhold, Tairov and Vakhtangov. A large part of the book is devoted to a systemic analysis of plays and trends under the Soviets and the rise and fall of the avant-garde theatres and the reasons for their replacement by conservative realism.