A History of Russian Theatre

A History of Russian Theatre

Author: Robert Leach

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1999-11-29

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780521432207

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A comprehensive history of Russian theatre, written by an international team of experts.


Russian Theater

Russian Theater

Author: Marc Slonim

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-26

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 104018491X

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Russian Theater (1963) is a comprehensive study of the main trends in Russian theatre in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning with its origins in pagan folklore and ritual, it goes on to consider the romantic drama which flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century, the realistic drama of Gogol, Turgenev and their contemporaries, and the beginning of the modernist movement. The foundation of the famous Moscow Art Theatre in 1898 by Stanislavsky and Danchenko led to a remarkable period of innovation in acting, production and stage design which still influences the theatre of the West. Their association of Chekhov and their production of his plays is fully described. The reader is also introduced to the work of such playwrights as Andreyev and Gorky, and to the experiments and ideas of directors like Meeyerhold, Tairov and Vakhtangov. A large part of the book is devoted to a systemic analysis of plays and trends under the Soviets and the rise and fall of the avant-garde theatres and the reasons for their replacement by conservative realism.


The Modern Russian Theater: A Literary and Cultural History

The Modern Russian Theater: A Literary and Cultural History

Author: Nicholas Rzhevsky

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-09-16

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 1317455746

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This comprehensive and original survey of Russian theater in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first encompasses the major productions of directors such as Meyerhold, Stanislavsky, Tovostonogov, Dodin, and Liubimov that drew from Russian and world literature. It is based on a close analysis of adaptations of literary works by Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Blok, Bulgakov, Sholokhov, Rasputin, Abramov, and many others."The Modern Russian Stage" is the result of more than two decades of research as well as the author's professional experience working with the Russian director Yuri Liubimov in Moscow and London. The book traces the transformation of literary works into the brilliant stagecraft that characterizes Russian theater. It uses the perspective of theater performances to engage all the important movements of modern Russian culture, including modernism, socialist realism, post-moderninsm, and the creative renaissance of the first decades since the Soviet regime's collapse.


The Soviet Theater

The Soviet Theater

Author: Laurence Senelick

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2014-06-24

Total Pages: 781

ISBN-13: 0300194765

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In this monumental work, Laurence Senelick and Sergei Ostrovsky offer a panoramic history of Soviet theater from the Bolshevik Revolution to the eventual collapse of the USSR. Making use of more than eighty years’ worth of archival documentation, the authors celebrate in words and pictures a vital, living art form that remained innovative and exciting, growing, adapting, and flourishing despite harsh, often illogical pressures inflicted upon its creators by a totalitarian government. It is the first comprehensive analysis of the subject ever to be published in the English language.


Historical Dictionary of Russian Theater

Historical Dictionary of Russian Theater

Author: Laurence Senelick

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2007-03-16

Total Pages: 623

ISBN-13: 0810864525

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Despite constant hindrance from government interference and control, the Russian theater has produced many memorable playwrights, schools of thought, and plays, whose influence can be seen throughout the world. Nikolai Gogol''s The Inspector, Maksim Gor'kii's The Lower Depths, and Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard remain staples of repertories in every language. The ideas of Konstantin Stanislavskii, Vsevolod Meierkhol'd, and Mikhail Chekhov continue to inspire actors and directors, and designers still draw on the graphics of the World of Art group and the Constructivists. The Historical Dictionary of Russian Theater is the only reference work in English devoted exclusively to Russian theater and drama. It provides information on the popular plays and playwrights while also offering information on many persons, works, and phenomena omitted from standard encyclopedias. Through the use of a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, an appendix, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on directors, stage designers, actors, plays, playwrights, concepts, theater buildings, and troupes, this reference provides an unrivaled account of Russian theater.


Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater

Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater

Author: Zvi Y. Gitelman

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780300111552

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Soviet Jewish theater in a world of moral compromise / Susan Tumarkin Goodman -- The political context of Jewish theater and culture in the Soviet Union / Zvi Gitelman -- Habima and "Biblical theater" / Vladislav Ivanov -- Yiddish constructivism : the art of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater / Jeffrey Veidlinger -- Art and theater / Benjamin Harshav -- Habima and Goset : an illustrated chronicle


The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater

The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater

Author: Alyssa Quint

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2019-01-24

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0253038626

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Jewish Book Award Finalist: “Turns the fascinating life of Avrom Goldfaden into a multi-dimensional history of the Yiddish theater’s formative years.” —Jeffery Veidinger, author of Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire In this book, Alyssa Quint focuses on the early years of the modern Yiddish theater, from roughly 1876 to 1883, through the works of one of its best-known and most colorful figures, Avrom Goldfaden. Goldfaden (né Goldenfaden, 1840-1908) was one of the first playwrights to stage a commercially viable Yiddish-language theater, first in Romania and then in Russia. Goldfaden’s work was rapidly disseminated in print and his plays were performed frequently for Jewish audiences. Sholem Aleichem considered him as a forger of a new language that “breathed the European spirit into our old jargon.” Quint uses Goldfaden’s theatrical works as a way to understand the social life of Jewish theater in Imperial Russia. Through a study of his libretti, she looks at the experiences of Russian Jewish actors, male and female, to explore connections between culture as artistic production and culture in the sense of broader social structures. Quint explores how Jewish actors who played Goldfaden’s work on stage absorbed the theater into their everyday lives. Goldfaden’s theater gives a rich view into the conduct, ideology, religion, and politics of Jews during an important moment in the history of late Imperial Russia.


New Russian Drama

New Russian Drama

Author: Maksim Hanukai

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-08-06

Total Pages: 534

ISBN-13: 0231545843

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New Russian Drama took shape at the turn of the new millennium—a time of turbulent social change in Russia and the former Soviet republics. Emerging from small playwriting festivals, provincial theaters, and converted basements, it evolved into a major artistic movement that startled audiences with hypernaturalistic portrayals of sex and violence, daring use of non-normative language, and thrilling experiments with genre and form. The movement’s commitment to investigating contemporary reality helped revitalize Russian theater. It also provoked confrontations with traditionalists in society and places of power, making theater once again Russia’s most politicized art form. This anthology offers an introduction to New Russian Drama through plays that illustrate the versatility and global relevance of this exciting movement. Many of them address pressing social issues, such as ethnic tensions and political disillusionment; others engage with Russia’s rich cultural legacy by reimagining traditional genres and canons. Among them are a family drama about Anton Chekhov, a modern production play in which factory workers compose haiku, and a satirical verse play about the treatment of migrant workers, as well a documentary play about a terrorist school siege and a postdramatic “text” that is only two sentences long. Both politically and aesthetically uncompromising, they chart new paths for performance in the twenty-first century. Acquainting English-language readers with these vital works, New Russian Drama challenges us to reflect on the status and mission of the theater.


Russian Symbolist Theater

Russian Symbolist Theater

Author: Michael Green

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2013-05-28

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1468308122

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Although by writers better known for their verse and narrative prose, the plays of the Symbolists were not intended, like the dramatic poems of the Romantics, for the study rather than the stage. Instead, they are highly theatrical creations in a new style that demanded a new style of production. Meyerhold played a decisive role in the new Symbolist theatre and it was his production of Blok’s The Puppet Show in Komissarzhevskaya’s Theatre that launched the new direction in Russian drama. Among the works collected here are the plays The Puppet Show and The Rose and the Cross (Blok), The Triumph of Death (Sologub), The Comedy of Alexis and The Venetian Madcaps (Kuzmin), Thamyris Kitharodos (Annensky), and The Tragedy of Judas (Remizov) and essays by Briusov, Blok, Ivanov, Bely, Sologub, and Andreyev. Rounding out this essential anthology are Michael Green’s general introduction, as well as insightful prefaces for each writer, placing the plays and essays into their cultural and historical contexts.


Revolutionary Acts

Revolutionary Acts

Author: Lynn Mally

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780801437694

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During the Russian Revolution and Civil War, amateur theater groups sprang up in cities across the country. Workers, peasants, students, soldiers, and sailors provided entertainment ranging from improvisations to gymnastics and from propaganda sketches to the plays of Chekhov. In Revolutionary Acts, Lynn Mally reconstructs the history of the amateur stage in Soviet Russia from 1917 to the height of the Stalinist purges. Her book illustrates in fascinating detail how Soviet culture was transformed during the new regime's first two decades in power. Of all the arts, theater had a special appeal for mass audiences in Russia, and with the coming of the revolution it took on an important role in the dissemination of the new socialist culture. Mally's analysis of amateur theater as a space where performers, their audiences, and the political authorities came into contact enables her to explore whether this culture emerged spontaneously "from below" or was imposed by the revolutionary elite. She shows that by the late 1920s, Soviet leaders had come to distrust the initiatives of the lower classes, and the amateur theaters fell increasingly under the guidance of artistic professionals. Within a few years, state agencies intervened to homogenize repertoire and performance style, and with the institutionalization of Socialist Realist principles, only those works in a unified Soviet canon were presented.