The Theater In Soviet Russia by Nikolai A. Gorchakov (review)

1958 205 closet drama, has been acted with surprising success. Dorothy Sayer's The Zeal of Thy House intex:mingles angels and men, saints and sinners in an earthy narrative of the medieval rebuilding of the Canterbury Cathedral Choir. A serious accident teaches laymen and priests to forego sell for the promise of salvation. And finally, James Schevill analyzes several facets of the clerical ego in The Bloody Tenet, a verse restaging of Roger Williams' defense before the Puritan magistracy. That human pride is varied and infinite is exemplliied also throughout the twenty mystery verse plays comprising Volume II. Selected. and edited by E. Martin Browne, from the well-known Cornish, Chester, York, Wakefield, Coventry, and Hegge medieval English dramatic cycles, they have been arranged in traditional performance order-"from the creation of the world and fall of Lucifer, through the narratives of the Old Testament, and ending with the llie, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ." Everyman, most famous of morality plays, completes the collection. The popular flavor of these liturgical folk-dramas has been carefully retained, except for those textual changes needed to make the original Middle English intelligible to modem readers. Editor Browne concludes with a considerate discussion of how best to stage these medieval dramas, for which numerous religious, academic, and private acting groups should be grateful. Both of these volumes of religious drama, despite their basic didacticism, present exciting and stageworthy plays. They recreate' a world governed by holiness, majesty, and cosmic order, a world populated by warm, humorous, understanding, and frail personalities. Each addition to this series should reaffirm the durability of good dramatic literature. BEN SIEGEL THE THEATER IN SOVIET RUSSIA, by Nikolai A. Gorchakov, translated by Edgar Lehrman, Columbia University Press, New York, 1957, 480 pp. Price $10.00. This history of the Russian theater in the USSR is a very dramatic one. Mter 1917 some artists and stage managers believed that the new Communist Government would encourage and support their daring revolutionary experiment which began in 1898 when the Art Theater was founded in Moscow. Actually, experimentalism flourished for only one decade (1917-1927) on both stage and screen. But the taste of the new dictator, Stalin, put an end to any kind of artistic experiments . The Communist Party introduced the so-called Socialist Realism. The term "realism" was interpreted, in a somewhat outmoded way, as a concept of "lifelikeness ." And in order to make this "realism" a "Socialist" one all the arts were put under the severe and pedantic control of the omnipotent party which transformed all artists into obedient servants of Communist propaganda. All the Muses left Russia except for Terpsichore who continued to inspire the great dancers of the Russian classical ballet. ", The author has emphasized the idea that both artists and stage managers did not fail to resist the Party. The most courageous among them lost their jobs, or, like Meierhold or Eisenstein, were arrested. Meierhold, this "eternal rebel," rejected the "psychologizing" of the Moscow Art Theater to which he once belonged. "Psychologism " he replaced with a picturesque pantomime, or with grotesque masques. Sometimes he used the acrobatic technique of the Italian commedia dell' arte, or the technique of the Chinese and Japanese theaters, or even the technique of the circus. N. Gorchakov also presents a perspective account of the contribution of both great creators of the Moscow Art Theater, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. Less known are other daring experiments of Russian artists before and after the 206 MODERN DRAMA December revolution. Evreinov (who later died as an emigre) set forth the idea that the whole audience should be transported within the drama itself and become an "inner factor" of it. He called it "making a theater of life." One of the greatest Russian experimentalists was Tairov, founder of the Kamerny Theater in j\'loscow, who emphasized the importance of a definite rhythm on the stage. His actors would read prose as verse in a singing voice. Their motions and gestures were subordinated to the musical principle. Tairov's musical and pictur~ esque performances had the charm of fairy tales alien to the gloomy realities of Soviet life. There were many other gifted experimentalists who belonged to the...