Early 20th Century Studio and Theatre Innovations of Vs. E. Meyerhold and S. E. Radlov

Abstract

The experience of the pedagogical work of the Studio Vsevolod Meyerhold on Borodinskaya Street (1914–1917) to a large extent can be considered one of the important sources of the methodological and pedagogical model inherent in the modern Leningrad — Petersburg theatre school. The education principles of the synthetic actor and director, developed within the studio, combined innovations in the work of teachers and their students both at individual stages of the pedagogical process and on the path to creating a “new” theatre, in a broad understanding of this phenomenon of cultural life at the beginning of the XX century. The unique theatre school-studio became an autonomous art structure, independent of the staffing and financial demands of repertoire and private theatres that studios during this period experienced. For Meyerhold and other teachers of the Studio, particularly, Vladimir Solov’ev, a top priority was reviving the stage technique commedia dell’arte. The student plays of the studio fully reflected the undoubted successes and, naturally, the vulnerabilities inherent in such innovative searches. The article analyzes the detailed list of stylistic, mise-en-scenic and decoration production solutions proposed by Meyerhold and Yuri Bondi, the opportunity to improvise in a pre-prepared directorial plan. Sergei Radlov, a participant in the Studio at Borodinskaya, continued his creative search in the approach proposed by Meyerhold for the development of an improvisational synthetic theatre. Radlov’s directorial and pedagogical work in the studios of Kurmascep, “Popular comedy” (Narodnaya Comediya), etc., at the Institute (later Technical School) of stage arts deserves additional consideration in terms of the scientific analysis of the evolution of his innovative views at the beginning of the century and their interconnection with traditional approaches to theater education and stage practice of those years.