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Leopold Sulerzhitsky (Suler) in 1910. Suler led the First Studio and taught the elements of the 'system' to its members.

The First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) was a theatre studio that the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski created in 1912 in order to research and develop his 'system' of actor training.[1] Its founding members included Yevgeny Vakhtangov, Michael Chekhov, Richard Boleslavsky, and Maria Ouspenskaya, all of whom would exert a considerable influence on the subsequent history of theatre.[2] Leopold Sulerzhitsky, who had been Stanislavski's personal assistant since 1905 and whom Maxim Gorky had nicknamed "Suler", was selected to lead the studio.[3] In a focused, intense atmosphere, its work emphasised experimentation, improvisation, and self-discovery.[4] Until his death in 1916, Suler taught the elements of Stanislavski's 'system' in its germinal form: relaxation, concentration of attention, imagination, communication, and emotion memory.[5] On becoming independent from the MAT in 1923, the company re-named itself the Second Moscow Art Theatre, though Stanislavski came to regard it as a betrayal of his principles.[6] Chekhov led the company between 1924 and 1928.[7] A decision by the People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party closed the theatre in 1936, to the bewilderment of its members.[8]

History

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Maxim Gorky (seated, centre) and Suler (standing centre, hands clasped) with studio members, including Vakhtangov (seated to the right of Gorky), in 1914.

At a meeting of the board of the MAT on 5 September 1911, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko proposed that the organisation should respond to Stanislavski's repeated requests for proper facilities to pursue his pedagogical experiments with young actors.[9] The playwright Maxim Gorky encouraged Stanislavski to seize the opportunity not by founding a drama school to teach inexperienced beginners, but rather—following the example of Vsevolod Meyerhold's Theatre-Studio of 1905—to create a |studio for research and experiment that would train young professionals.[10] Stanislavski created the First Studio on 1 September 1912.[11] Initially, though, he financed it himself (as he had done with the Theatre-Studio).[12] The First Studio occupied an appartment consisting of two small rooms and one large one that had been used previously by the Lux cinema, and which occupied a floor of the same buliding in which, in 1888, Stanislavski's Society of Art and Literature had been inaugurated.[13]

Suler was almost entirely responsible for the day-to-day operation of the studio.[14] He taught the elements of Stanislavski's 'system' in its germinal form: relaxation, concentration of attention, imagination, communication, and emotion memory.[15] Some of the studio's classes were led by Vakhtangov.[16] Its first production was Herman Heijermans' The Wreck of the 'Hope', which Boleslavsky directed.[17] It opened on 15 January 1913 and ran for a total of 454 performances.[18] In light of this demonstration of the studio's achievement, the board of the MAT agreed to fund its activities.[12] Its following production was Gerhart Hauptmann's The Festival of Peace, which Vakhtangov directed.[19]

When Harley Granville-Barker, who visited from England to study Stanislavski's approach to theatre-making on 26 February [O.S. 14 February] 1914, sent two students to learn more, Stanislavski placed them in the First Studio rather than with the main company of the MAT.[20]

In the autumn of 1914 the studio relocated to more spacious premises.[21] Following its particularly successful next production—an adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Cricket on the Hearth—by the end of the 1914-15 season the studio was regarded as, in Jean Benedetti's words, "the centre for original work and expressive acting."[22] Vakhtangov played Tackleton and Chekhov played Caleb, while Boris Sushkevich adapted Dicken's novella and directed the production.[23] A cinematic version was released as Sverchok na pechi on 20 May 1915, directed by Sushkevich and Aleksandr Uralsky.[24]

Early in 1915 Nemirovich convened meetings of the management committee of the MAT in order to disucss what he perceived as the deleterious effects of the First Studio on the main company.[25] He proposed that the studio should sever all connections with the MAT and that Stanislavski should return to the company full-time.[26] The committee decided to create a monitoring group to oversee the activities of the studio.[26]

After the October Revolution in 1917, Stanislavski let most of the rooms in his house on Carriage Row to members of the studio, who used its larger rooms as rehearsal spaces, until he was evicted in 1921.[27]

Chekhov as Erik in the studio's production of Strindberg's Erik XIV in 1921.

In 1923 the First Studio became independent of the MAT and re-named itself the Second Moscow Arts Theatre.[7] Michael Chekhov, one of the First Studio's original members, led the company between 1924 and 1928, after which he created studios of his own in Europe and the US.[28] Sushkevich, Ivan Bersenev, and Serafima Birman took over the leadership of the theatre after Chekhov's departure.[29]

Following an announcement published in the Izvestia newspaper on 28 February 1936, the Second MAT was closed by the People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, to the bewilderment of its members.[30] Its members were incorporated into the MGSPS (Moscow Region Professional Union of Actors).[31]

Members

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Boris Sushkevich in the First Studio's adaptation of Dickens' The Cricket on the Hearth in 1914. Sushkevich co-directed its film and became one of the company's leaders after Chekhov's emigration.

First Studio

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Second Moscow Art Theatre

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Productions

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The First Studio's production of Dickens' The Cricket on the Hearth in 1914.

Influence

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Stanislavski went on to establish several more theatre studios in which he continued his experiments with actor training and developed further his 'system.' Boleslavsky modeled the American Laboratory Theatre, which was to prove so influential for 20th-century acting in the US, on his experience in the studio.[53] When former members of the First Studio came to the US to teach, however, they were ignorant of the development that the 'system' had undergone in the years since Stanislavski had first started to experiment with them in 1912.[54] Pavel Markov wrote an influential history of the First Studio that Mark Schmidt translated into English for the Group Theatre in 1934.[55] On the basis of its description of Vakhtangov's approach to the 'system,' Lee Strasberg reduced its concept of "experiencing" to romantic self-expression and rejected the paradoxical dual consciousness of the actor, first advanced by Diderot and reformulated by Stanislavski.[56]

Notes

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  1. ^ Gauss (1999, 34), Whymann (2008, 31), and Benedetti (1999, 209-11).
  2. ^ Benedetti (1999a, 210) and Gauss (1999, 32). Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya went on to found the influential American Laboratory Theatre (1923-1933) in New York, which they modeled on the First Studio. Boleslavsky's manual Acting: The First Six Lessons (1933) played a significant role in the transmission of Stanislavski's ideas and practices to the United States. Boleslavsky thought that his student Lee Strasberg over-emphasised the role of emotion memory at the expense of dramatic action; see Banham (1998, 112). Chekhov, too, would come to reject the use of the actor's emotion memory in his later work; see Chamberlain (2000, 80-81).
  3. ^ Benedetti (1999a, 209) and Leach (2004, 17-18).
  4. ^ Leach (1994, 18).
  5. ^ Chamberlain (2000, 80).
  6. ^ Benedetti (1999, 365), Solovyova (1999, 332-333), and Cody and Sprinchorn (2007, 927).
  7. ^ a b Cody and Sprinchorn (2007, 927).
  8. ^ Solovyova (1999, 331-332) and Benedetti (1999, 365).
  9. ^ Benedetti (1999, 209).
  10. ^ Benedetti (1999, 209).
  11. ^ Whymann (2008, 31), Benedetti (1999a, 209-11), and Leach (2004, 17).
  12. ^ a b Gauss (1999, 41).
  13. ^ Benedetti (1999, 211), Gauss (1999, 39), and Magarshack (1950, 332).
  14. ^ Gauss (1999, 35).
  15. ^ Chamberlain (2000, 80).
  16. ^ Gauss (1999, 36).
  17. ^ Gauss (1999, 40-41), Worrall (1996, 222-223), Chamberlain (2000, 80), and Cody and Sprinchorn (2007, 927).
  18. ^ Gauss (1999, 127).
  19. ^ Worrall (1996, 223).
  20. ^ Benedetti (1999, 220).
  21. ^ Benedetti (1999, 225). Magarshack gives the date of the re-location as October 1913 (1950, 334).
  22. ^ Benedetti (1999, 225).
  23. ^ Leach (2004, 42) and Gauss (1999, 127).
  24. ^ Sverchok na pechi at IMDb
  25. ^ Benedetti (1999, 225-226).
  26. ^ a b Benedetti (1999, 226).
  27. ^ Benedetti (1999, 257-258).
  28. ^ Cody and Sprinchorn (2007, 927). At a studio in Germany Chekhov taught a physical and imagination-based system of acting training that included his "Psychological Gesture" technique. Based on the symbolist ideas of Andrei Bely, it requires the actor to physicalise a character’s need or internal dynamic in the form of an external gesture. Suppressing the outward gesture, the actor incorporates it internally, allowing the physical memory to inform their performance on a subconscious level. In 1936 Chekhov established The Chekhov Theatre School at Dartington Hall in Britain, though two years later it moved to Connecticut in the US.
  29. ^ Solovyova (1999, 325, 331-332).
  30. ^ Solovyova (1999, 331-332) and Benedetti (1999, 365).
  31. ^ Solovyova (1999, 336-337).
  32. ^ Worrall (1996, 224).
  33. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Solovyova (1999, 332).
  34. ^ Worrall (1996, 224).
  35. ^ a b Solovyova (1999, 325).
  36. ^ Obraztsov (1950, 55-56).
  37. ^ Worrall (1996, 219).
  38. ^ Gauss (1999, 127) and Vakhtangov (1982, 270).
  39. ^ Gauss (1999, 40-41), Worrall (1996, 222-223), Chamberlain (2000, 80), and Cody and Sprinchorn (2007, 927).
  40. ^ a b c d Gauss (1999, 127).
  41. ^ Benedetti (1999, 211), Gauss (1999, 127) and Vakhtangov (1982, 270). Vakhtangov (1982) gives the month as November rather than October.
  42. ^ Benedetti (1999, 211), Gauss (1999, 127), Vaktangov (1982, 270), Worrall (1996, 223).
  43. ^ Gauss (1999, 127) and Vakhtangov (1982, 270).
  44. ^ Gauss (1999, 127), Leach (2004, 42), and Vakhtangov (1982, 270).
  45. ^ a b c d Gauss (1999, 128).
  46. ^ Gauss (1999, 128) and Vakhtangov (1982, 270). The title of the play has also been translated as The Deluge.
  47. ^ Gauss (1999, 129). Vakhtangov (1982, 271) gives the opening date as 23 April.
  48. ^ Vakhtangov (1982, 271).
  49. ^ a b Gauss (1999, 129).
  50. ^ Gauss (1999, 129) and Vakhtangov (1982, 271).
  51. ^ a b c d Gauss (1999, 130).
  52. ^ a b Gauss (1999, 131).
  53. ^ Pitches (2006, 169).
  54. ^ Carnicke (1998, 46).
  55. ^ Carnicke (1998, 122) and Markov (1934).
  56. ^ Carnicke (1998, 122).

Sources

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  • Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521434378.
  • Benedetti, Jean. 1989. Stanislavski: An Introduction. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1982. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413500306.
  • ---. 1998. Stanislavski and the Actor. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413711609.
  • ---. 1999. Stanislavski: His Life and Art. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1988. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413525201.
  • ---. 2005. The Art of the Actor: The Essential History of Acting, From Classical Times to the Present Day. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413773361.
  • Beumers, Birgit. 1997. Yury Lyubimov at the Taganka Theatre, 1964-1994: Thirty Years at the Taganka Theatre. Contemporary Theatre Studies 21. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic. ISBN 3718658755.
  • Carnicke, Sharon M. 1998. Stanislavsky in Focus. Russian Theatre Archive Ser. London: Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 9057550709.
  • ---. 2000. "Stanislavsky's System: Pathways for the Actor". In Hodge (2000, 11-36).
  • Chamberlain, Franc. 2000. "Michael Chekhov on the Technique of Acting: 'Was Don Quixote True to Life?'" In Hodge (2000, 79-97).
  • Cody, Gabrielle H. and Evert Sprinchorn, eds. 2007. The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. Columbia UP. ISBN 0231144245
  • Gauss, Rebecca B. 1999. Lear's Daughters: The Studios of the Moscow Art Theatre 1905-1927. American University Studies ser. 26 Theatre Arts, vol. 29. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 0820441554.
  • Golub, Spencer. 1998. "Meyerhold, Vsevolod (Emilievich)." In The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Ed. Martin Banham. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 728-729. ISBN 0521434378.
  • Hodge, Alison, ed. 2000. Twentieth-Century Actor Training. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415194520.
  • Ignatieva, Maria. 2008. Stanislavsky and Female Actors: Women in Stanislavsky's Life and Art. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. ISBN 0761841032.
  • Leach, Robert. 2004. Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415312418.
  • Leach, Robert, and Victor Borovsky, eds. 1999. A History of Russian Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN 0521432200.
  • Markov, Pavel Aleksandrovich. 1934. The First Studio: Sullerzhitsky-Vackhtangov-Tchekhov. Trans. Mark Schmidt. New York: Group Theatre.
  • Obraztsov, Sergei. 1950. My Profession. Amsterdam: Fredonia, 2001. ISBN 158963456X.
  • Pitches, Jonathan. 2006. Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415329078.
  • Solovyova, Inna. 1999. "The Theatre and Socialist Realism, 1929-1953." Trans. Jean Benedetti. In Leach and Borovsky (1999, 325-357).
  • Vakhtangov, Evgeny. 1982. Evgeny Vakhtangov. Compiled by Lyubov Vendrovskaya and Galina Kaptereva. Trans. Doris Bradbury. Moscow: Progress.
  • Whyman, Rose. 2008. The Stanislavsky System of Acting: Legacy and Influence in Modern Performance. Cambridge: Cambrdige UP. ISBN 9780521886963.
  • Worrall, Nick. 1996. The Moscow Art Theatre. Theatre Production Studies ser. London and NY: Routledge. ISBN 0415055989.
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