Description
Book Synopsis “Not a mirror but a magnifying glass”—such, in the poet Mayakovsky’s words, was the theater of Vsevolod Meyerhold. The first to insist on the primacy of the director’s role, indeed the first to conceive of it as a role, this passionately dedicated Russian director tore down the fourth wall and forced the actors and audience together into one inescapable community of experience.
Yet Meyerhold recorded few of his theories in writing, and the intensity and brilliance of his work must be recaptured through the actors and artists who helped create the performances. Focusing on Meyerhold’s postrevolutionary career, Paul Schmidt has assembled in this book journals, letters, reminiscences, and, of special interest, actual rehearsal notes that build a fascinating, intimate picture of Meyerhold as a theorist and as a man.
Included are Meyerhold’s frantic notes to his teacher, friend, and bête noire Stanislavsky; detailed descrip
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- A Brief Chronology of Meyerhold’s Life and Major Productions
- I. “… These Past Generations of Theater”
- II. Working with Actors
- III. Shaping the October Revolution in Theater
- IV. Meyerhold and Pushkin
- V. Meyerhold and Music
- VI. Zinaida Raikh and Camille
- VII. The Lost Theater
- VIII. Epilogue
- Glossary of Names
