“East”—“West”: Interaction of Theatre Cultures

Abstract

This article examines the issues of interaction and mutual influence of theatre cultures of the "West" and "East", which at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries proved to be the most vivid. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, new aesthetic concepts and art views are emerging, leading to the emergence of decadence and later to modernism. At the time, the process of establishing directing completed, the performance revealed new requirements of being a holistic and artistically completed product. The problem of synthesis of arts in the theatre of that time became one of the few investigated and quite relevant today. Since the theatre combines various kinds of arts, including dramaturgy, music, dance, decor, painting, costume, make-up, and actor's skill, altogether, it forms the complex synthetic nature of the theatre requiring research. The theatre is a peculiar mirror of society, of historical epochs reflecting the human life on the stage having its creative crises, as well as the society itself. At the end of the nineteenth century, Western artists understood that the time for people, continents, religions, and art in different parts of the world to combine their efforts to save the world was coming. Therefore, interest in the "East" as of something else able to help to identify oneself and receive energy for personal innovations appeared. Over the last century, much has been done in this direction especially in understanding and conducting a dialogue of cultures along the horizontal East-West.