Theatrical Stage Research Articles

А.С. Пушкин на злобу дня: «поверженный» или «неузнанный» (юбилейное, театральное, мережковское)

The article offers a historical commentary on little-known journalistic texts of the Silver Age. All of them are united by attention to A.S. Pushkin as a phenomenon of mass consciousness, which increased in connection with the celebration of the writer’s centenary and the appeal to his legacy on the theatrical stage of St. Petersburg and Moscow. In particular, based on newspaper periodicals, the conversation included speeches by D.S. Merezhkovsky, which were not included in the author’s books of articles, collected works, were not taken into account in his bibliography and still remained outside the field of view of specialists. All of them relate to the Moscow Art Theater, and above all to the “Pushkin Performance” (1915), which caused a wave of criticism. Opinion of D.S. Merezhkovsky on the issue under discussion is considered not only locally, in line with the statements of L.N. Andreev, S.A. Vengerov and F.D. Batyushkov posted on the pages of “Birzhevye Vedomosti”, but also in the broader context of topical interest in A.S. Pushkin from 1899 to 1918: from the story of the nationwide collection of donations for the construction of a monument to the poet in St. Petersburg, which ended at the height of the First Russian Revolution with the establishment of the Pushkin House, to the beginning of the Civil War, when Pushkin’s family estate was looted and partially burned by peasants.

Laikmeta komentārs teātra valodā. Latviešu dramaturģija Rīgas Strādnieku teātra repertuārā: modernisma aspekti

The repertoire of the Riga Workers’ Theatre (1926–1934) reflected the trends of the time and leftist progressive ideas. City life as a nodal point of modern reality became inspiration and material for plays, poetry performances, dramatised feuilletons and interludes commenting on current events. The aesthetic programme of the theatre envisaged the creation of a peculiar sovereign artistic style, where the new dramaturgy played an important role. Topical and recently created works by contemporary authors were chosen for the repertoire with an emphasis on the search for novelty. In the first years, while the director was Roberts Dukurs, the dramaturge was Jānis Grots, then Arvīds Grigulis; after this function was taken over by the director Kārlis Dziļleja. The article aims to introduce the main principles of the Riga Workers’ Theatre repertoire policy, focusing on an overview of the contributions of Latvian authors. Rainis, Andrejs Upīts, and Pāvils Gruzna played a dominant role in the ideological decisions of the repertoire. A circle of progressive authors gathered around the theatre, creating a contemporary drama laboratory. Young authors Aleksandrs Čaks, Valdis Grēviņš, Fricis Rokpelnis, Jūlijs Vanags, and others experienced their first works on stage in this theatre. The research object is dramaturgical works and testimonies describing the productions – programme leaflets, reviews, reminiscences, etc. The article discusses innovative trends in drama and the expansion of the concept of dramaturgy to the dynamics of stage set, musical and choreographic action. As a result, the consistently executed repertory policy heralded a new type of drama programme by achieving a synthesis of contemporary content and new visual, musical and choreographic forms. The article concludes that creating innovative drama forms and genre experiments on the Riga Workers’ Theatre stage significantly contributed to the development of Latvian dramaturgy.

From Strings to Sensors: Movement Representation in AI Theatre

The assimilation of AI technology into theatre practices has inaugurated an expansive frontier of possibilities for both thespians and spectators. In terms of movement, this involves the use of avatars, which inhabit a customary screen milieu (encompassing three-dimensional in-world scenography) that necessitates simultaneous consideration of a tridimensional theatrical space and coexisting performers, within a moment of real-time inception and interconnectedness. This complex confluence raises questions pertaining to the ‘avatarisation’ of corporeal embodiments on the theatrical stage and the consequent emergence of novel performative methodologies. Within AI-enabled performances, the use of motion capture technology, commonly known as ‘mocap’, entails the recording of skeletal data from physical actors, referred to as ‘mocaptors’, who wear a geo-spatial system for motion capture. This is then translated into digital data that can subsequently be used to animate digital characters or avatars.

Playing Dead: The Post-Tragic Impact of Child Actors in Simon Stone’s (2020) and Anne-Louise Sarks and Kate Mulvany’s (2012) Medea

This article examines two adaptations of Euripides’ Medea by Australian-born directors/playwrights Simon Stone (2020) and Anne-Louise Sarks with Kate Mulvany (2012). With a focus on the child actors who played Medea’s sons in each production, the article examines the ways in which their performances contributed to the affective impact of each work. Emphasising the modalities employed by each director to transpose the tragedy for the contemporary theatre stage, particularly providing the child characters with greater prominence in their respective versions than Euripides did, the article argues that the particularly ‘realistic’ performances of the children at once ruptured Medea as a tragedy while accelerating its post-tragic force in a contemporary theatre context. The realism of the children’s performances operated as the driving force behind making the tragic lynchpin of the play – their murders – all the more intensely felt. Case studies of each production are provided while situating these works within the broader contexts of children in performance for adult audiences in contemporary theatre.

О первоначальной редакции пьесы «Страх» сталинского драматурга Александра Афиногенова. 1930-е гг.

The article examines the work of Stalinist playwright Alexander Nikolaevich Afinogenov (1904-1941) through the prism of his complicity in the ideological campaigns of the Bolshevik Party. The study of the impact of party-state ideology on the broad masses of people during the Stalinist era is a priority direction of historical science. However, this direction needs further thematic and problematic expansion. The ideological campaigns of the Bolshevik Party in the 1930s found their artistic expression on the theatrical stage, in the plays of the most famous playwrights. This interaction between propaganda and theater art has not been studied sufficiently. There are practically no generalizing works. This is partly due to the fact that sufficient empirical material has not yet been accumulated. Almost every play by A. N. Afinogenov corresponded to one or another vector of the ideological struggle of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The play "Fear" (1931), which became a full-scale artistic expression of one of the most powerful ideological campaigns conducted by the Bolshevik Party until the time of the "Great Terror" - the campaign to "purge" state and party organs, is of particular interest. The original manuscript of this play, found in the Moscow Art Theatre Museum, significantly expands the understanding of how the play was understood by contemporaries. The initiator of the changes in the text of the play was K. S. Stanislavsky, who persuaded A. N. Afinogenov to introduce the figure of the "investigator" into the play. A. N. Afinogenov significantly remade the main pictures of the play - the eighth and ninth, in fact, they were rewritten anew. The play "Fear" was staged in two theaters - in the State Drama Theater (Leningrad) and in the Moscow Art Theater (Moscow). In Leningrad, where the performances began earlier than in Moscow, they used the original text of the play (at least until the end of 1931), and in Moscow used the revised version. This in no way contradicted A. N. Afinogenov, the playwright, who saw his work as a continuation of the ideological struggle in the artistic images of Soviet dramaturgy. In the found original version of the play and in the revised version there are different accents in the characterization of the characters of the play (in the eighth and ninth pictures, the final ones). But it was not the artistic side of the theatrical work that mattered, but the ideological basis, the meaning of which in both editions was reduced to the most important postulate of totalitarianism - to recognize the class basis of morality, to renounce oneself, one's views, one's "own" science, to erase one's former life in order to enter the "objective" state of collective unanimity without one's own personality.

Between the Stage and the Art Gallery: “Artistic Actions” at the Lublin Theatre Spring in 1973 and 1974

In this article, I have undertaken an analysis of the visual arts section “curated” by Zbigniew Warpechowski at the student festival Lublin Theatre Spring in 1973 and 1974, where many artists, later known as precursors of performance art, performed. Experimental happenings within the field of student theatre, referred to as “artistic actions”, are mentioned by many sources as an event marking the start of performance art history in Lublin. The aim of this article is to reconstruct individual actions, collect scattered archival materials (brochures, descriptions of actions, memories, photographs, excerpts from press reviews), and analyse the reception of these actions among the audience and theatre critics based on press reviews. These events are placed in the context of the simultaneous emergence of avant-garde theatre represented by Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, and Józef Szajna, as well as student theatre. This contextualisation illustrates how this new art form, later defined as performance art, negotiated its position and sought its place between the theatrical stage and the art gallery in the mid-1970s. The article also demonstrates how these new theatre models converged with the reflection on action art. Moreover, the research highlights the local and transmedial specificity of the development of this artistic direction.

Reception of A.P. Chekhov's play “The Cherry Orchard” in China

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a well-known Russian writer and playwright in China. During his life, he created many works that are familiar to the Chinese readers. It is generally recognized that Chekhov's plays open a new page in the history of drama and theater. The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov's last work, is considered one of his most mature dramatic works and today has a debatable character in literary criticism, its interpretations are offered to the audience on the theater stage all over the world, including in China. This article aims to trace the evolution of the reception of the named work in Chinese critical thought, as well as to reflect the history of the productions of The Cherry Orchard in the theater of China. The subject of this work is the reception of the play "The Cherry Orchard" in Chinese literary criticism, the study of the history of its translation and staging in various historical periods in China. The main research methods used are descriptive and historical. The author of the study tries to characterize the main features of the perception of the work and productions of The Cherry Orchard in China, which are determined by the change in the socio-historical conditions of the state. Critical and literary works of Chinese researchers of A.P. Chekhov's work are used as material for analysis. In this regard, the present study seems to be relevant, since the author develops a scientific discussion around the Chekhov work under consideration. The theoretical novelty of the article lies in the fact that the works of Chinese literary critics are introduced into scientific circulation, devoted to the problems of reception of the images of the play, its plot and ideological originality, and analyzes the performances of "The Cherry Orchard" by Chinese directors.

Ivan Vasilyevich Ekskuzovich — Architect and Theater Figure

For the first time the article gives a biographical study of the major theatrical figure and St Petersburg architect I. V. Ekskuzovich. Having graduated from the Institute of Civil Engineers in his youth, he has built several buildings in the capital of the Russian Empire, but his lifework was the management of academic theaters in Leningrad and Moscow. In this article there was first established the existence of the “Ekskuzovich coterie” in 1917, which also included V. E. Meyerhold, conductor N. A. Malko and a certain number of the artists of the Mariinsky Theatre; the role of the coterie in the nomination of Ekskuzovich to the post of the head of the theater department at the end of 1917. The article summarizes the extensive material related to his administrative activities in theaters: the role of Ekskuzovich in the creation of the association of academic theaters, his official and personal correspondence with artists and the People’s Commissar of Education A. V. Lunacharsky. Based on the reviews of memoirists, private correspondence of artists and a number of anniversary addresses, a conclusion is made about the significant popularity of Ekskuzovich in the artistic environment. It is emphasized that the resignation of Ekskuzovich in 1928 took place against the will of Lunacharsky, who lost by the end of the 1920s his real power in the People’s Commissariat for Education. The activity of Ekskuzovich as a theorist and practitioner in mechanization of the theater stage, as well as one of the leading engineers in the park management of Leningrad in the 1930s, is also traced. The monograph “The Theater Stage in the Past and Present” published by him in 1930, Ekskuzovich’s work on the continuation of this research, as well as his work on equipping the stages of Soviet theaters, including the work on the theatrical part of the Palace of Soviets, are considered. The article is based mainly on archival data; materials used 13 archives and manuscript departments of museums and libraries.

Voices on the air: Speech education and campus radio in the postcolonial Philippine university

In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, faculty and students of the newly organized Department of Speech and Drama (later Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts) at the University of the Philippines (UP) were at the forefront of managing the radio station DZUP, mounting radio productions on campus and shaping the academic curricula for classes in radio speech and writing. These pioneering contributions, though significant, have yet to receive due documentation from communication scholars, researchers, and historians in the country. In this essay, I address this gap by bringing into focus archival documents—photographs, newspaper accounts, official memos, and personal correspondences between academics and administrators—that clarify the academic department’s role in the early systems and operations of DZUP. I argue that these efforts are important because of four main reasons. First, they highlight the often-overlooked relationship between speech education and campus radio in the national university. Second, they emphasize the ways in which the radio booth worked alongside the public speaking platform and the theatre stage as a fundamental space where speech-related pedagogies, performances, and practices played out. Third, they show disciplinary genealogy that links the disciplines of speech communication and mass communication in the University of the Philippines. And finally, they shed light on the pedagogical process involved in teaching, training, and transforming Filipino students into a kind of speaking subjects in the postcolonial Philippines.

Rekwizyt w świecie pojęć

This introductory article deals with the different ways of representing the prop: from an object referring to meaning, which is mainly related to the theatrical stage, to the notion of a prop playing the role of an analytical category in literary studies.

A study on the impact of theater performing arts combined with drama arts on the stage in the context of big data

Abstract In this paper, based on the law of motion, combining the spherical coordinate system representation with the drama art of action feature recognition in the process of theatrical performance, the joint points of wrist, elbow and shoulder and the corresponding feature vectors as well as the school angular velocity are calculated. The affine invariant domain of feature matching is constructed, and the algorithms of dynamic frame difference merging and dynamic detection of human-computer interaction are applied to obtain similar feature components of the recognition of body movements and gesture commands in the process of theatrical performance. The harmony factor, emotion factor and contrast factor in the stage scene are used as evaluation parameters to derive the color evaluation function and keyframes of theatrical stage lighting combined with drama art. For the research purpose, the research on the stage influence of the theatrical performance of combining drama is designed, and the example analysis of the stage influence of the theatrical performance of combining drama is analyzed by using origin software. The results show that the level of the audience’s arousal dimension is significantly higher than its level in CSP, t(1, 29)=3.959, p<0.001, upper threshold (Engagement=0.38, Arousal=0.26), lower threshold (Engagement=0.35, Arousal=0.21), i.e., the specific performance episode for the audience to bring about significant emotional relaxation. Audience ratings of CAC were generally higher than their ratings of CSP, with differences ranging from 0.2 to 1.5. The mean times that subjects were in the “S(n)=1” state in the three modes were 219.86 (SD=60.62), 287.37 (SD=80.68), and 310.7 (SD=45.83), respectively. 45.83). This study greatly improves the impact of stage art and gives a whole new life to the combination of theater performance and drama stage art.

Le rôle d’Adelaide Ristori dans la formation de la scène nationale grecque

Adelaide Ristori travelled to Athens in 1865, during her tour of the Eastern Mediterranean, which included major economic and cultural centres in the region. She was the first major actress of the time to travel to the Greek capital to present part of her repertoire. Her theatrical presence, her production on stage as well as her personality as a whole marked the theatre audience, the intellectual elite, even the Athenian bourgeoisie who were lucky enough to admire the great artist’s dramatic art. Being an eminent personality of European theatre, she had a profound influence on the style of performances, from an aesthetic point of view, but also on public opinion regarding dramatic art in general and especially the presence of women on the theatre stage. The presentation will focus on the different areas that she marked in the most pregnant and effective way, contributing to the formation of the Greek national theatre. The data presented here comes from primary research and is based on scientific studies, press of the time and relevant bibliography.

«Il più efficace cooperatore dei negozi diplomatici»? Adelaide Ristori e il conte Cavour

In April 1861, just one month after the proclamation of the Unification of Italy, Prime Minister Cavour defined Adelaide Ristori «the most effective co-operator of diplomatic negotiations», praising her work at the court of the Czar in the winter of 1860. The letter is well-known since the 19th century and has been the key for creating the myth of the Grande Attore as a tool for cultural diplomacy. During her career, Ristori undoubtedly fascinated international audiences and kings, and thus acted as an effective tool for soft power. However, it is unclear to what extent her action was the result of aware foreign policies by the rising Kingdom of Italy. Drawing upon partially uncharted archival documentation, this essay reconstructs Ristori’s activity at the court of Alexander II, framing her Russian tour in the turbulent context of the Russian-Sardinian relations in the aftermath of Garibaldi’s expedition. In fact, Ristori left for Saint Petersburg during a diplomatic crisis: the Czar had recalled his Ambassador in Turin after the Piedmont army had invaded Naples; Cavour had recalled his delegation. The bilateral relationships were interrupted, although theatrical companies kept on moving across borders. Cavour asked Ristori to ‘convert’ the Russian minister of Foreign affairs, Prince Gorčakov: the fascination for the celebrity could sustain Italy’s cause. Between ceremonial and theatre stages, the peculiar affair imposes a new reflection on the relationship between theatre, celebrity, and influence in the 19th century.

Phenomenon of Romeo Castellucci’s Direction: Aesthetics of the Metatheatrical Form of Destruction

The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the aesthetic theatre code of the Italian director Romeo Castellucci. Research methodology. The method of analysis and synthesis, the historical method, the method of systematic, genre-stylistic and art analysis is applied. Scientific novelty. Peculiarities of theatrical direction of the Italian director of the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century have been studied. R. Castellucci in the context of his activities in the theatre company "Societas Raffaello Sanzio"; based on the art analysis of R. Castellucci's productions, the master's aesthetic theatrical code was revealed; the concept of "destructive theatre" by R. Castellucci was analysed through the prism of levelling the established codes of classical drama. Conclusions. Mysterious plays staged by the Italian director Romeo Castellucci have captivated the audience for more than several decades. The master creates unique living paintings, which are usually based on classical and religious themes and invoke tectonic, elemental forces – impressive visual effects are usually accompanied by organic soundscapes, and sometimes unfold in quasi-mystical silence. The director's work methodology and his system of ideas form a unique and dynamic aesthetic language. R. Castellucci pursues a meta-theatrical form of destruction through which the body, text, sound, narrative, and language are subjected to permanent decomposition, which destroys the audience's usual expectations of what to see and feel in the theatre. The director's aesthetic theatrical code is based on: the actor's physical extremity; a strange sound world and a peculiar use of dramatic speech (for example, incomprehensible words, frightening sounds, whispers, breathing, shouts, etc.); the presence of real animals that make natural sounds on the theatre stage; cars are used as sculptural objects with symbolic meaning.
 Keywords: Romeo Castellucci, theatre direction, "destructive theatre", aesthetics, theatre code, European theatre.

Folk Tale “Eglė, the Queen of Serpents” [Eglė Žalčių Karalienė] on the Soviet Stage as a Representation of Lithuanian Culture

A folk tale “Eglė, the Queen of Serpents” is one of the most exceptional Lithuanian mythical tales, which has received a lot of attention from researchers of Indo-European mythology. After a Lithuanian poetess Salomėja Nėris (1904–1945) wrote a poem following the plot of the fairy tale, it became extremely popular on the Lithuanian stage during the Soviet period. Performances based on this tale or poem not only received several productions on different puppet theater stages, but there was also a ballet written by the composer Eduardas Balsys (1919–1984) which went through several different adaptations on the opera stage. This article will analyze the characteristics of this tale based poem, discuss its stage productions and the reasons for their popularity, and their significance for Lithuanian culture in the Soviet period. The study refers to the works of of G. Kadžytė, A. Kapočiūtė, H. Šabaševičius, E. Tarasti, N. Vėlius, A. Žiūraitytė, W. Wolf, and others, and is based on comparative methodology.

Maria Blut or On the Lost Charm of Theatricality

The present article aims to observe the new formulas of theatricalization of the show, starting from an eloquent example in this regard, the Natives of Maria Blut (Die Eingeborenen von Maria Blut), an adaptation after Maria Lazar, directed by Laura Bihler. The discussion about theatricality, one that marked the middle of the 20th Century, returns increasingly relevant in the context of increasingly visible attempts at de-theatricalization, which appeared especially against the background of the unprecedented expansion of technologies on theatrical stages. Dramaturgy and story-telling, sets and costumes, chromaticism and psycho-physical organization of the stage space, the multiple role and the deep recalibrations of the theatrical convention, the mask and its force to produce a certain type of atmosphere – all these become so many major milestones in -a discussion of what theatricality was and has become.

‘Anyone can whistle’ Sondheim: The intellectual autobiography of a Sondheim studies scholar

This piece of autoethnographic writing analyses its author’s coming of age as a scholar and connects anecdotes to the history of Black actors in Sondheim’s musicals. From Reri Grist and Elizabeth Taylor in West Side Story (Winter Garden Theatre, New York City, 1957) to Francois Batiste, Adante Carter and Amber Gray in Here We Are (The Shed, New York City, 2023), Black actors co-create Sondheim’s musicals on and off official theatrical stages even as Sondheim studies as a field erases their labour. By building on Brent Staples’s experience of racism and Claude M. Steele’s theory of stereotype threat, the offensive mechanisms visited on Black men and boys are considered alongside Sondheim’s notable works throughout. Attention is also paid to what musical theatre studies scholars can learn about epistemology and historiography from Black people’s experiential knowledge and lived experience.

한국 무속에서 읽어낸 그로토프스키의 세속적 신성

This study explores the convergence of Jergy Grotowski's ‘Secular sacrum in the theatre’ and Korean Muism(Korean Shamanism)’s shamanic rituals in the context of secular spirituality. Grotowski advocates for the theatrical stage as a sacred space, breaking barriers for genuine inner exploration, with the ‘holy actor’ crucial for manifesting secular spirituality. Drawing parallels, Muism’s shamans(mudang) embody the ‘holy actor’ through acts like ‘self-sacrifice’ and ‘emptying oneself’, seen in rituals such as the initiation ceremony(Naerim Gut). The shaman, bridging the divine and human realms, seeks to heal through spiritual power in a sacred space. Embedded in Korean culture, Gut rituals serve as a pillar of secular spirituality, transforming the worldly into the sacred. The shaman(mudang), a key practitioner, orchestrates these spiritual rituals, playing a central role in communal life.

War and Contemporary Georgian Theatre

How is war and its consequences reflected in the theatre? How, in particular, has the Georgian theatre reacted to war, and to what degree does its presence impact Georgian theatre directors and audiences? When and under what circumstances do theatre companies stage plays on the theme of war? Since war never loses its relevance for Georgians, new texts are written continually on this topic and subsequently turned into plays, primarily by young directors. These productions grapple with the experience of war and its impact on the nation and its people, who are radically transformed by their individual histories. In addition, sometimes, they help to reveal hidden passions.

The Construction of an Atom: A Live Demonstration Using Students on the Lecture Theater Stage

The Construction of an Atom: A Live Demonstration Using Students on the Lecture Theater Stage