Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance (review)

This study of theatre director and acting teacher Lev Dodin and his productions with the Maly Theatre in St. Petersburg confirms, yet again, the Russian capacity to make exemplary theatre. I really enjoyed this very readable book by a respected scholar. It is sufficiently comprehensive to convey a full impression of Dodin's work to readers who have not seen productions. Maria Shevtsova skilfully allows her account of the Maly productions to reveal the provocative way in which Dodin's work comments on his society and unfolding political events and the way in which his artistic brilliance makes remarkable theatre for spectators everywhere. If twentieth-century Russian theatre more broadly seems to arise from traumatic times, the Maly is an extreme example, with its origins in performances for the troops in 1944 in Leningrad. Social bleakness might drive theatre practitioners in Russia to artistically revision their world (12), but outside Russia, we remain envious of theatre's continuing importance as an intellectual pursuit.

As an Australian academic who is interested in the seminal impact of turn-of-the-twentieth century Russian theatre and drama on English-speaking theatre and film over the past century, I am delighted that we now have easy access to this expertly researched, full-length study of significant theatre work created at the century's closing. This concentrated investigation is a valuable addition to existing theatre scholarship and teaching resources. Dodin's work is known through tours to international arts festivals in the 1990s, and the book will also interest readers outside academic circles, as the foreword by actor Simon Callow attests. While Dodin's style was influenced by exposure to the work of Pina Bausch and other western European innovators, the possibility of the Maly's large, eighty-strong ensemble's working at their art over a significant period of time suggests a practice long associated with Russian theatre. Company members subsist on a profit share arrangement and can be admired for their unerring commitment to perfecting their art.

Shevtsova locates the Maly in the context of recent political change in Russia, describes the company's working process and its finished productions, and concludes with a section describing Dodin's later productions of Russian operas without the Maly ensemble. The Maly productions described in detail include Brothers and Sisters, one of two productions based on novels about Russian life and history after World War II by Fyodor Abramov; Chekhov's plays The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard; and the postmodern dance theatre pieces Gaudeamus and Claustrophobia. Shevtsova provides coherent descriptions, drawing on written sources, her own observations, and observations of other recognised commentators on contemporary Russian theatre, such as John Freedman (18–19). This offers a balanced perspective, which covers the varied reception of some works. While Shevtsova expresses the questionable aim of getting "inside Dodin's mind" (185), she does capture specific rehearsal processes that explain his working methods as a director. Even allowing for considerable change in the remounting of productions, an account of their reception is fascinating, since it reveals how productions have a time and place in which audiences are more receptive (22, 25).

Dodin, as a teacher of actors, draws on his famous predecessors, Stanislavski, Vakhtangov, and Meyerhold, in a way that is reportedly "authentic" (38) although this is clearly to do with the possibility of cultural continuity. Dodin's investigation of "aliveness" in acting, however, makes for a very contemporary approach to performing. The overriding legacy of Stanislavski is the belief that effective acting comes out of ongoing experimentation, from training through to rehearsal (38–40). Shevtsova's summary of how these approaches are aligned with contemporary philosophy and even neurology is an extremely useful section of the book for any reader interested in actortraining discourses. The idea that "the imaginary is itself real" is the kernel of an idea of an alive theatre (40). This investigation of Dodin's Maly productions makes apparent that theatre is a laboratory space for...