The Technique of Verbalizing: Anatoly Vasiliev and His Theater of Dissonant Dialogues

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the aesthetics of an important contemporary Russian theater director, Anatoly Vasiliev, who founded the School of Dramatic Art (SDA) in Moscow. Besides his most well‐known stagings of Viktor Slavkin’s Cerceau and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author at the Taganka Theater in the 1980s, Vasiliev’s adaptations of novels and epic poetry have remained in his repertoire for several years at a time. Anatoly Vasiliev’s style of adaptations of classic literature re‐activates the classic texts in exciting, vibrant new ways. My essay provides a detailed account of both the literary inspiration and theoretical approaches of Vasiliev’s aesthetic practice in the context of one case study, Vasiliev’s performance From Onegin’s Journey (1996 and ongoing). Thus, my article addresses problems of representation of the novel‐in‐verse on stage, and the relations between literary studies and Performance Studies. In addition to discussing the form of Pushkin’s novel in verse, my paper makes many references to important literary theory by Mikhail Bakhtin. There is a particular device that Vasiliev has coined as his method of adaptation, and its inspiration can be traced to the ideas of the Russian Formalist school and Mikhail Bakhtin. In discussing the influence of Bakhtin’s theory of the novel on Vasiliev’s method of theatrical adaptation, I also bring attention to understudied writings by Mikhail Bakhtin on the author’s perspective on the character’s role, audience reception in performance space, and theater in the 1920’s and 1930’s.