During Russia’s revolutionary years from 1905 until 1917, the Russian theatre engrossed the cultural intelligentsia with productions that manifested the society’s acute obsession with challenging conventional notions of art. Vladimir Lenin believed that theatre ought to be “greater than a spectacle” and challenged visual and performing artists and members of the cultural intelligentsia to create an aesthetic revolution. The creative environment changed drastically under Joseph Stalin’s repressive regime, whose cult of personality suffocated much artistic inspiration until his death in 1953. The legacy of Russia’s early twentieth-century theatre its dramatists continues to influence the way cinema is produced around the world one hundred years later.
Svet Doytchinov, a PhD candidate of film studies at Université de Montréal, will provide a historical overview of the Russian Silver Age and early Soviet theatre. Doytchinov will identify the leading figures of the time, their movements and creations, and masterpieces. Elaborating on his previous introductory seminar, “The Actor’s Method: from Stanislavsky to Strasberg,” which was hosted on April 19th, 2016, Doytchinov will discuss the influences of Russia’s film and acting methods on international theatre.
The 2016 Fall Speaker Series on Russian theatre will survey the most significant historical events that influenced the development of Russian theatre. This month's October seminar will focus on the legacies of Konstantin Stanislavski, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Mikhail A. Chekhov, Vsevolod Meyerhold and the Moscow Art Theater. It will explore the political contexts of Russian theatre during the early twentieth century, in the ages of Lenin through the Stalin Era.
The presentation will be in English.
