Some of the various directors in which Meyerhold inspired in some fashion include Eugenio Barba, Joan Littlewood, Ariane Mnouchkine, Anatoly Efros and Yury Lyubimov. What in Meyerhold’s theatre or life left a lasting value or inspired these directors? One might describe him [Meyerhold] as a director-poet. If there are in the theatre director-storytellers or director-rationalists, then one is entirely justified in regarding Meyerhold first and foremost as a director-poet.This is not to suggest that his poetic view is either sentimental or ineffectual. Meyerhold is a poet-satirist, a poet-pamphleteer, a poet of deep thoughts and passionate emotions. It was these qualities that impelled him to seize so avidly on the poetry of Blok.
One might describe him [Meyerhold] as a director-poet. If there are in the theatre director-storytellers or director-rationalists, then one is entirely justified in regarding Meyerhold first and foremost as a director-poet. This is not to suggest that his poetic view is either sentimental or ineffectual.Meyerhold is a poet-satirist, a poet-pamphleteer, a poet of deep thoughts and passionate emotions. It was these qualities that impelled him to seize so avidly on the poetry of Blok. Perhaps an immediate answer to this question is by directly quoting Pavel Markov, a Russian theatre critic, literary manager, and teacher.
Between 1925 and 1949, he was head of the Literary Section of the Moscow Art Theatre. According to Benedetti, Pavel Markov is “the most outstanding teacher and critic of his generation” (298). In an article celebrating the director’s sixtieth birthday in 1934, Pavel Markov wrote:When making a reference to Blok, Markov hints at a pinnacle moment in Meyerhold’s career. This is his 1906 production of The Fairground Booth.
Many greatly value Meyerhold’s sense of experimentation. In the middle of his exploration of symbolism, Meyerhold experimented with this production in which both the playwright and director embraced the ambivalent spirit of carnivalesque, popular culture. This caused a shift in Russian symbolist theater and drama into grotesque theater (Listengarten 73). It was in the theatre of the grotesque Meyerhold truly found his locale.One of the founder’s of New York Cities Group Theatre and essential American director, Harold Clurman explains “He [Meyerhold] stamped the grotesque, the dislocated, the saturnine, the satirical grimace on his productions as hallmarks of contemporary civilization” (“New York Times Book Review” 51). Similar to Alfred Jarry, the playwright of the classic precursor of Theatre of the Absurd play known as Ubu Roi, Meyerhold rejected the theatre that imitated reality and favored theatre as an event.
Relating Blok to Meyerhold’s paradigm, it is imperative to understand what Markov alludes to when referring Meyerhold as a “director-poet. For as a poet of the theatre, Meyerhold embodies a myriad of qualities. Meyerhold’s vocabulary became ‘the syntax of a language that is made even more complex. . .
The musical composition. . . serves to establish the relationship between gesture, space, colour, sound, dialogue, light, making a unity of them while still allowing each to maintain its own means of artistic expression. .
. ’ (Braun 310). Before Meyerhold could make a lasting impression and influence the theatre of the grotesque, he had to dabble in experimentation with symbolism and symbolist theatre.As Marice Baring stated, “The Russians stage simply aims at one thing- to depict everyday life. . .
It simply aims at presenting glimpses of human beings as they really are, and by means of such glimpses it opens out avenues and vistas onto their lives. The Russian Stage, therefore, is like the Russian novel, realistic because it is a reflection of life. . .
” (133). Paralleling the development of symbolism in Russian Litature, Meyerhold attempted to translate symbolist texts onto the stage. Symbolism also promised to constitute new modes of aesthetic experience for the stage.Reflecting symbolist thought as far back as Wagner, Fuchs called for the restoration of the theater as a festive ritual, involving performers and spectators alike in a common aesthetic experience that would reveal the universal significance of their personal existence. The symbolic gestures of the actor was to emancipate the audience from the merely apparent and contingent realities of the physical and social world, and provide access to the “inner life” of humanity.
The mysticism of the poetic symbol puts humanity in touch with the supernatural.Meyerhold then develops the importance of stylization in theater. As Meyerhold said himself, “The theatre must definitely uncover its dynamic essence; and thus it must cease to be theatre in the sense of spectacle alone. We want ‘to come together in order to create- to take part- collectively, and not only to observe’” (Meyerhold 52).
A major lasting impression in Meyerhold’s movement into symbolism is in the role of the audience. Before symbolism and symbolist theater, naturalism did not call upon the imagination of the audience since it was so true to life.Thus, the audience was passive instead of an active. The way to create an active audience is through this stylization in the production.
As Meyerhold describes, "To 'stylize' a given period or phenomenon means to employ every possible means of expression order to reveal the inner synthesis of that period or phenomenon, to bring out those hidden features which are deeply rooted in the style of any work of art. " Thus, with the ‘reveal of the inner synthesis,’ Meyerhold requires the audience to become active and derive the true meaning in the piece.Even though Meyerhold was a great revolutionist in terms of Symbolism in Russia, there were inherit problems with symbolist drama in itself. In order for the production to unveil the hidden truth or “unknown” of a subjective world, the symbolist often ignored the concrete specifics of daily life and of recognizable personality traits in his characters; he often eliminated dramatic conflict and action and exaggerated the vagueness and obscurity of his work. Additionally, in many symbolist productions and plays, an elimination of dramatic conflict and action occurred.
Despite these problems, Meyerhold and Symbolists have left an enduring mark on the history of theatre. Their interest in platform theatre helped to free the stage from naturalism. As their plays prove, they concerned themselves little with the practical problems of production. But their anti-naturalistic attitude and their improvements on the participation of the audience in the theatrical space sparked the imaginations of the new directors. Although symbolism functioned as their starting point, they did not limit themselves to symbolist drama.They created a theatre of great vitality and turned symbolist stylization into theatricalism.
In general, the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold in Russia always seemed to represent the latest and most extreme innovations in theatre. He was eclectic in his use of materials, shifting form style to style. Even though Meyerhold made great advances in symbolism, the majority would argue that his main contribution to the theatre was Biomechanics. This movement concept blended ideas from Stanislavski's System and the larger-than-life styling’s of Commedia dell'Arte.Biomechanics is based on the idea that psychological and physiological processes are inextricably linked. Meyerhold argued that actors could call up emotions in performance through the use of movement and gesture.
He created sequences of choreography, called "etudes", which were used to express specific emotional and physical scenarios. Biomechanics develops balance, strength, coordination, agility, and flexibility through rigorous, athletic training in skill-areas such as tumbling, acrobatics, partner-work, and work with objects.Meyerhold's teachings, though very helpful to actors in "teaching the body to think", do not stand on their own. They are mostly physical in nature and a great supplement to the training of an actor.
Similar to how Meyerhold inspired Eugenio Barba, Joan Littlewood, Ariane Mnouchkine, Anatoly Efros and Yury Lyubimov (some argue that Meyerhold even inspired Brecht), his theories on movement greatly influenced Grotowski's work and Viewpoints.
