Body as a Machine: Meyerhold Between Politics and Theory

Yıl 2023, , 1 - 12, 21.12.2023

Magda Romanska

https://doi.org/10.26650/jtcd.2023001

Öz

There might be many explanations for why Meyerhold’s theatre did not survive Stalinist Russia and why Stanislavsky’s did. Meyerhold’s theatre of biomechanics differed significantly from Stanislavsky’s method. If Stanislavsky’s psychological theatre of the truth presented no ambiguities and surprises, Meyerhold’s theatre of the hidden, of the invisible manipulations, put forth a number of problems. On one hand, Meyerhold’s idea that man is in control of himself was very much in tune with Soviet propaganda; on the other hand, Meyerhold’s actor was fundamentally split, a condition that presented no problems within the space of theatre, but which involuntarily put into question basic premises of Soviet ideology. Although in theatre the theoretical discrepancies and paradoxes did not present a major problem, in Soviet Russia caught in the grip of history and ideology, any discrepancy signaled a danger for a newly evolving fragile system based on nothing but blind power and illusory promises.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Meyerhold, biomechanics, Soviet theatre, machine body, abstract theatre

Kaynakça

• Braun, Edward. Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1995. google scholar
• Braun, Edward, ed., Meyerhold on Theatre. Translated by Edward Braun. New York: Hill and Wang, 1969. google scholar
• Bulgakov, Mikhail. Flight and Bliss. New York: New Directions: New York, 1985. google scholar
• Chekov, Anton. Four Plays: The Sea Gull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard. New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1965. google scholar
• Craig, Edward Gordon. “The Actor and the Uber Marionette.” Mask, Volume 1 (1908): 12. google scholar
• Evreinov, Nikolai. Life as Theatre: Five Modern Plays by N. Evreinov. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1973. google scholar
• Gladkov, Aleksandr. Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerhold Rehearses. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1997. google scholar
• Gogol, Nikolai. Inspector and Three Other Plays. New York: Applause Theatre, 1987. google scholar
• Golub, Spencer. “The Silver Age, 1905-1917.” In Leach and Borovsky, A History ofRussian Theatre, 278-301. google scholar
• Gorky, Maxim. The Lower Depths and Other Plays. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973. google scholar
• Helbing, Robert E. The Major Works of Heinrich von Kleist. New York: New Directions, 1975. google scholar
• Kuhns, David F. German Expressionist Theatre: The Actor and the Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. google scholar
• Law, Alma, and Mel Gordon. Meyerhold, Eisenstein and Biomechanics: Actor Training in Revolutionary Russia. London: McFarland, 1996. google scholar
• Leach, Robert. “Russian Theatre in World Theatre” and “Revolutionary Theatre, 1917-1930.” In Leach and Borovsky, A History of Russian Theatre, 1-5 and 302-24. google scholar
• Leach, Robert, and Victor Borovsky, eds. A History of Russian Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. google scholar
• Marx, Karl. “The German Ideology” and “On the Jewish Question.” In Selected Writings, edited by David McLellan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. google scholar
• Mayakovsky, Vladimir. Plays Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968. google scholar
• Reeve, F. D., ed. Nineteenth-Century Russian Plays: An Anthology. New York: Norton, 1963. google scholar
• Reeve, F. D., ed. Twentieth-Century Russian Plays: An Anthology. New York: Norton, 1963. google scholar
• Rudnitsky, Konstantin. Meyerhold the Director. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1981. google scholar
• Schlemmer, Oscar. Letters and Diaries, selected and edited by Tut Schlemmer. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1972. google scholar
• Schlemmer, Oscar. “Man and Art: Figure.” In Twentieth-Century Performance Reader. Edited by Teresa Brayshaw and Noel Witts. Routledge: NY, 2014. google scholar
• Schlemmer, Oscar. Man: Teaching Notes from the Bauhaus. Edited by Heimo Kuchling. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971. google scholar
• Schmidt, Paul, ed. Meyerhold at Work. Translated by Ilya Levin and Vern McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980. google scholar
• Solovyova, Inna. “The Theatre and Socialist Realism, 1926-1953.” In Leach and Borovsky, A History of Russian Theatre, 325-57. google scholar
• Symons, James M. Meyerhold’s Theatre ofthe Grotesque: The Post-Revolutionary Productions, 1920-1932. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1971. google scholar
• Walton, Michael J. Craig on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1983. google scholar
• Worrall, Nick. “Meyerhold’s Production of ‘The Magnificent Cuckold.’” Theatre Drama Review 57, no. 1 (1973): 14-34. google scholar