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Home / Plays That Have Been Played at the Moscow Art Theater

Plays That Have Been Played at the Moscow Art Theater

1898 product of a play by Anton Chekhov

The Moscow Art Theatre product of The Seagull in 1898, directed past Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, was a crucial milestone for the fledgling theatre visitor that has been described as "one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama."[1] It was the first production in Moscow of Anton Chekhov'southward 1896 play The Seagull, though it had been performed with just moderate success in St. Petersburg two years before. Nemirovich, who was a friend of Chekhov's, overcame the author's refusal to allow the play to appear in Moscow after its earlier lacklustre reception and convinced Stanislavski to direct the play for their innovative and newly founded Moscow Art Theatre (MAT).[2] The production opened on 29 December [O.S. 17 Dec] 1898. The MAT's success was due to the allegiance of its frail representation of everyday life, its intimate, ensemble playing, and the resonance of its mood of despondent uncertainty with the psychological disposition of the Russian intelligentsia of the fourth dimension.[3] To commemorate this historic production, which gave the MAT its sense of identity, the visitor to this day bears the seagull as its emblem.[4]

Cast [edit]

  • Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina: Olga Knipper
  • Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplyov: Vsevolod Meyerhold
  • Masha: Maria Lilina
  • Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin: Konstantin Stanislavski

Stanislavski's directorial conception [edit]

While visiting his brother's estate near Kharkiv in August 1898, Stanislavski began work on his production programme (or his directorial "score" as he came to call it) for the play, into which he incorporated his sensory experiences of the Russian countryside there.[v] He storyboarded key moments of the play with pocket-sized drawings that gave the actor's spatial and proxemic relationships.[5] He likewise detailed individual rhythms, physical lives and mannerisms for each character:

Sorin's express joy is "startling and unexpected"; Arkadina "habitually folds her arms behind her back when she is aroused or excited"; Konstantin is, in full general, "tense"; Masha takes snuff; Medvedenko smokes a lot. The production copy sets down every movement, every gesture, exact facial expressions in almost cinematic detail.[5]

The score indicates when the actors will "wipe away dribble, blow their noses, smack their lips, wipe away sweat, or make clean their teeth and nails with matchsticks."[6] This tight control of the mise en scène was intended to facilitate the unified expression of the inner action that Stanislavski perceived to be hidden below the surface of the play in its subtext.[seven] Vsevolod Meyerhold, the director and practitioner whom Stanislavski on his death-bed declared to be "my sole heir in the theatre—here or anywhere else", and the actor who played Konstantin in this production, described years later the poetic effect of Stanislavski'southward treatment of the play:[viii]

Probably there were individual elements of naturalism but that's not of import. The important thing is that it contained the poetic nervus-centre, the hidden verse of Chekhov's prose which was in that location considering of Stanislavski'due south genius every bit a director. Upwards to Stanislavski people had just played the theme in Chekhov and forgot that in his plays the audio of the pelting outside the windows, the dissonance of a falling tub, early morning light through the shutters, mist on the lake were indissolubly linked (as previously but in prose) with people's actions.[9]

Stanislavski's directorial score was published in 1938.[10]

Production process [edit]

Studio portrait of Stanislavski (right) as Trigorin—"elegantly coiffured, clad in evening dress, mournfully contemplating the middle altitude with pencil and notepad, suggests someone licked his mentum on resurrecting the dead seagull in deathless prose than plotting the casual seduction of the ardent female past his side."[xi]

Equally an histrion, despite wishing to play Trigorin, Stanislavski initially prepared the role of the physician Dorn, at Nemirovich's insistence.[12] When Chekhov attended rehearsals for the production in September 1898, however, he felt that the performance of Trigorin was weak, which resulted in a re-casting; Stanislavski took over Trigorin and Nemirovich apologised for having kept the part from him.[13] Olga Knipper (Chekhov'due south future wife) played Arkadina.[14]

The production had 80 hours of rehearsal in full, spread over 24 sessions: 9 with Stanislavski and 15 with Nemirovich.[15] Despite this, a considerable length by the standards of the conventional practice of the day, Stanislavski felt it was nether-rehearsed and threatened to have his proper name removed from the posters when Nemirovich refused his demand to postpone its opening by a calendar week.[15]

Operation and reception [edit]

The product opened on 29 Dec [O.S. 17 December] 1898 with a sense of crisis in the air in the theatre; most of the actors were mildly cocky-tranquilised with Valerian drops.[16] In a letter to Chekhov, 1 audience member described how:

In the first act something special started, if you lot can so describe a mood of excitement in the audience that seemed to abound and abound. Most people walked through the auditorium and corridors with foreign faces, looking every bit if it were their altogether and, indeed, (love God I'm non joking) it was perfectly possible to go up to some completely strange adult female and say: "What a play? Eh?"[17]

Nemirovich described the adulation, which came after a prolonged silence, as bursting from the audience like a dam breaking.[18] The production received unanimous praise from the printing.[18]

It was not until xiii May [O.S. 1 May] 1899 that Chekhov saw the production, in a performance without sets merely in brand-up and costumes at the Paradiz Theatre.[xix] He praised the product but was less cracking on Stanislavski'due south ain performance; he objected to the "soft, weak-willed tone" in his interpretation (shared by Nemirovich) of Trigorin and entreated Nemirovich to "put some spunk into him or something".[20] He proposed that the play be published with Stanislavski's score of the production'south mise en scène.[21] Chekhov's collaboration with Stanislavski proved crucial to the artistic development of both men. Stanislavski's attending to psychological realism and ensemble playing coaxed the buried subtleties from the play and revived Chekhov's interest in writing for the stage. Chekhov'southward unwillingness to explain or expand on the script forced Stanislavski to dig beneath the surface of the text in ways that were new in theatre.[22]

Encounter also [edit]

  • Moscow Art Theatre
  • The Seagull
  • Moscow Art Theatre product of Hamlet

References [edit]

  1. ^ Rudnitsky (1981, viii) and Benedetti (1999, 85).
  2. ^ Benedetti (1999, 73) and (1989, 25).
  3. ^ Braun (1981, 64).
  4. ^ Braun (1981, 62, 64).
  5. ^ a b c Benedetti (1999, 76).
  6. ^ Worrall (1996, 109).
  7. ^ Braun (1981, 62-63).
  8. ^ Rudnitsky (1981, fifteen) and Braun (1982, 62).
  9. ^ Quoted past Benedetti (1999, 78).
  10. ^ Benedetti (1999, 79). For an English language translation of Stanislavki's score, run across Balukhaty (1952).
  11. ^ Worrall (1996, 107).
  12. ^ Benedetti (1999, 80).
  13. ^ Benedetti (1999, 79-81).
  14. ^ Braun (1982, 62).
  15. ^ a b Benedetti (1999, 85).
  16. ^ Benedetti (1999, 85, 386).
  17. ^ Quoted past Benedetti (1999, 86).
  18. ^ a b Benedetti (1999, 86).
  19. ^ Benedetti (1999, 89).
  20. ^ Benedetti (1999, 89-xc) and Worrall (1996, 108).
  21. ^ Benedetti (1999, 90).
  22. ^ Chekhov and the Art Theatre, in Stanislavski'southward words, were united in a common desire "to reach artistic simplicity and truth on the phase"; Allen (2001, xi).

Sources [edit]

  • Allen, David. 2001. Performing Chekhov. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-18935-7.
  • Balukhaty, Sergei Dimitrievich, ed. The Seagull Produced By Stanislavsky. Trans. David Magarshack. London: Denis Dobson. New York: Theatre Arts Books.
  • Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge Upwardly. ISBN 0-521-43437-8.
  • Benedetti, Jean. 1989. Stanislavski: An Introduction. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1982. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-50030-6.
  • ---. 1999. Stanislavski: His Life and Fine art. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1988. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-52520-1.
  • Braun, Edward. 1982. "Stanislavsky and Chekhov". The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. London: Methuen. p. 59-76. ISBN 0-413-46300-1.
  • Chekhov, Anton. 1920. Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family unit and Friends with Biographical Sketch. Trans. Constance Garnett. New York: Macmillan. Full text available online at Gutenberg
  • Golub, Spencer. 1998. "Stanislavsky, Konstantin (Sergeevich)." In Banham (1998, 1032-1033).
  • Rudnitsky, Konstantin. 1981. Meyerhold the Director. Trans. George Petrov. Ed. Sydney Schultze. Revised translation of Rezhisser Meierkhol'd. Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1969. ISBN 0-88233-313-5.
  • Worrall, Nick. 1996. The Moscow Fine art Theatre. Theatre Production Studies ser. London and NY: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-05598-9.

External links [edit]

  • The Ocean-Gull at Project Gutenberg

townwrou1955.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Art_Theatre_production_of_The_Seagull