Machinae Et Orgia: Post‐Revolutionary Theatre Machines in the Soviet Union of the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

Machines as they have been conceptualised in the works of Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze are based on applications mainly in two fields: war and theatre. This article follows the second line from the ancient deus ex machina right down to Tretyakov’s and Eisenstein’s orgiastic experiments in the early Soviet Union. Here the machine was given its threefold diversification as biomechanics according to Meyerhold’s theatre experiments, as the constructivism of the technical apparatuses and things on stage, and as the social machine of the Theatre of Attractions. The machine material of Soviet theatre encompassed the bodies of the actors, the construction and the audience. The montage of physical movements in biomechanics, the montage of technical apparatuses in the constructivist stage settings and the montage of the audience as a social machine sought not only a composition of organic, technical and social machines, but also the ‘becoming‐orgiastic’ of the organs, the flows of the technical constructions and the insurrection of the social machines.