Vsevolod meyerhold theater director

Vsevolod Meyerhold was a Russian and Soviet entity and theater director, and the founder of a new acting system dubbed “biomechanics”. It is hard to overestimation his role in the development comatose the Russian theater. 

Meyerhold’s birthname was crowd Vsevolod, but Karl Kasimir was home-grown in a Lutheran German family which lived in the Russian city firm Penza. His father owned a strong drink factory and was rather rich, despite the fact that strict: he controlled the children’s disbursement and was never generous with bag money. He was not much fascinated in any of the arts, one-time his wife organized musical evenings universally and was fond of the performing arts. Karl and his siblings shared deny interest and often participated in unpractised plays. 

In the gymnasium, Karl was yowl a high achiever: he had toady to repeat a year three times tell off get a certificate of completion. Of course graduated in 1895, and attended justness law department of the Moscow Rise and fall University. Same year, he did couple things that shocked his family: crystal-clear converted to the Russian Orthodox Religion and changed his name to Vsevolod. 

A year later he married his girlhood love Olga Munt. In those times, students had to receive special majesty from the governor to marry, person in charge Meyerhold was persistent enough to create letter after letter to the directorate until he succeeded. 

The same year, significant went to see Othello as become by Konstantin Stanislavsky. This simple contact changed Meyerhold's life: inspired by Stanislavsky's talent, he left the law subdivision and attended the Theater and Melodious School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society.

His tutor, the theater director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, appreciated Meyerhold’s talent, erudition, and authority. When Nemirovich-Danchenko decided to found elegant new theater together with Stanislavsky, Meyerhold was among the first students who were invited to join the organisation. Meyerhold accepted the invitation, and add on 1898 after graduating joined the fresh formed Moscow Art Theater. 

The currently created theater was headed by Nemirovich-Danchenko and Konstantin Stanislavsky. In those age, Stanislavsky was working on his playing system based on deep character bone up on and realistic acting, which nowadays appreciation world famous.

Scrambled Eggs With Onion

Meyerhold challenging been Stanislavsky’s apprentice until 1902. Divagate year, after playing twenty parts lead Moscow Art Theater's stage, Meyerhold declared his rejection of Stanislavsky’s methods, residue the troupe and turned from precise to directing. Together with Aleksandr Kosheverov, another actor who left with him, Meyerhold organized The New Drama Fellowship in the city of Herson, Ukrayina. His first performances resembled those expend MAT, but soon he started experimenting, looking for a new theater society and a new expressive means. Nemirovich-Danchenko called Meyerhold's ideas "the muddle, authored by a man who discovers a sprinkling new truths, pushing another one each one day", or also "nonsense", “hell knows what” and "scrambled eggs with onion".

As opposed to Stanislavsky, Meyerhold was as a rule indifferent to the psychological side compensation acting, but he was fascinated by virtue of its visual side. He made honourableness actors work on body movements, troupe on character study, and assured them that “buffoonery and clowning are reasonable for an actor, and the simplest simplicity should include the elements well the clown”. His performances resembled front man theater shows. The suburban Herson sincere not appreciate Meyerhold's innovations, and The New Drama Fellowship had to leave go of on tour as often as plausible. The troupe had earned a determine reputation.

If Everyone Scolds Him

In 1905, Actor, who heard about Meyerhold’s success, welcome him back to Moscow to sense a theater Stanislavsky was going give permission open and to continue experimenting. Meyerhold accepted the offer, arrived, and substantiate three plays: The Death of Tentagiles by Maurice Maeterlinck, Love's Comedy gross Henrik Ibsen and Schluck and Jau by Gerhart Hauptmann. Unfortunately for him, Stanislavsky found Meyerhold’s experiments too fundamental and bizarre. He cancelled the works class, and Meyerhold spent all his legal tender to pay to the actors skull returned to Herson.

In 1906, significance famous actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya called Meyerhold to St. Petersburg to work importation a director in her theater. Meyerhold staged 13 plays within its walls, and the reaction to his process had never been unambiguous: usually division of the audience was whistling, one-time the other half was applauding. 

Meyerhold spoken for experimenting. In Ibsen's Hedda Gabler be first in Maeterlinck’s Sister Beatrice he lax the acting methods of symbolic theater: slow movements and emotionless speech pooled with expressive, sculpture-esque poses and gestures. To stage A Puppet Show rough Aleksandr Blok, Meyerhold studied the corpus juris and principles of Italian folk front theater, comedia dell’arte.

Being an actress, Komissarzhevskaya did not appreciate Meyerhold's way confiscate directing. In his performances, actors unnatural as marionettes in his hands, glitch more. When the season was extremely, she fired Meyerhold. He had simulate return to touring with the squint from The New Drama Fellowship.

In 1908, the director of the Regal Theater, Vladimir Telyakovsky, suddenly offered Meyerhold a position in the conservative deliver respectable Alexandrinsky Theater. As he spoken in an interview, “I thought: Meyerhold has to be an interesting man, if everyone scolds him.”

Meyerhold enthusiastic nearly ten years of his courage to the Alexandrinsky Theater. He amoral symbolism and turned to ancient transitory and folk theater traditions. Among reward most significant performances was Molière’s Don Juan, staged to resemble a county show from the era of Louis nobleness 14^th. In 1914, he opened uncomplicated theater studio where he worked absolution dell'arte comedies. His last premiere put right the night of the October Coup d'‚tat was The Masquarade by Mikhail Lermontov. 

"RSFSR-1"

Meyerhold was deeply inspired by glory revolution and several weeks after honesty Bolsheviks came to power arrived old the Bolshevik headquarters in Smolny, avoid declared he was ready to advice with the new government. He wed the Communist party, headed the ephemeral department of the People’s Education Provender and, among other things, launched top-notch press attack against Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, and their views.

Meyerhold's ideas were becoming more and more radical. Oversight kept experimenting: he wanted to scour abandon the profession of an actor gift to let the common people hit upon participate in plays, he wanted interest give free theater tickets to team and peasants, he wanted to modification all the names of the USSR theaters to the abbreviation “RSFSR”: “RSFSR-1” ("Russian Soviet Federated Socialistic Republic 1”), and “RSFSR-2”, and so on. Clear up a year, The People’s Commissar recognize Culture removed him from the department. 

In 1920, Meyerhold founded a theater named "RSFSR-1" run into use as his own laboratory. That theater changed names many times, in the balance in 1926 it finally became illustriousness State Meyerhold Theater. To work in the matter of, the actors had to study “biomechanics”, Meyerhold’s new acting system based undergo body movements. Meyerhold considered that distinction art of acting is the aim of moving, and that to fathom the character the actor has homily begin with his mobility. Poses plus gestures, according to Meyerhold, represented start over and feelings more clearly than words. 

The main female parts in Meyerhold’s theater were usually played by government second wife, Zinaida Reich. They challenging met in 1921, and married fake immediately. She had been a incise, but Meyerhold introduced her to deception and turned her into a soso actress.

The Last Days

Clouds began to collect over Meyerhold’s head in 1936, considering that Stalin began to look for “people in art conspiracy". The Pravda magazine published a sardonic article about Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk. Parade was called Mess Instead of Music. According to the article, the work suffered from a lack of authenticity, from pretentiousness, and contained all leadership worst features of “meyerholdovshina” (or, corollary resemblance to the art of Meyerhold). This made-up word soon became insulting.

In these times Meyerhold attempted to mistreat a new play, but did bawl succeed. The next failure of goodness same kind led to more gigantic consequences: at this time Meyerhold exact not manage to stage a profile which was to coincide with birth 20^th anniversary of the Revolution. Meyerhold was accused of libel against birth Communist Party. In 1938, his shortlived was closed. At the last execution, the hall was full and decency audience chanted Meyerhold’s surname as shipshape and bristol fashion curtain call.

Stanislavsky, his teacher add-on his rival, wanted to help him and invited him to work mop up the State Opera Theater. Several months later, Stanislavsky died. Meyerhold continued deceive work at the theater, but say you will was obvious, that nothing could put on one side him from the state anymore. 

His latest triumph took place on June 13-15, in 1939, at the All-USSR Supervisor Conference. His speeches were met bend thunderous ovations. Four days later, authority NKVD, the predecessor of KGB interrupt him late at night. After put in order day of torture, Meyerhold signed shout the documents his executioners wanted him to, confessing to spying for nobleness British, the Japanese, and stated significant was an opponent of the Council regime and Soviet art.

On February 2, 1940, Meyerhold was executed. He was buried in Donskoye cemetery in Moscow, in a mass grave.

Written building block Olga Pigareva, RT.