DRAMA BY ORDER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 910, 1 March 1930, Page 25

DRAMA BY ORDER

Blight of Propaganda in Russia REVOLUTIONARY PLAYS Probably the three most distinctive Russian dramatic tendencies are represented by the Art Theatre, the Kamerny Theatre, and the Theatre of Meierhold, says a special correspondent to a London exchange. They might be classified, respectl“ft the right ’ tlle ce ntre, and the lett of the present-day theatrical movement. The Art Theatre, which is already sufficiently well known to foreign playgoers, has not appreciably changed its naturalistic tradition. The Kamerny Theatre, which originated m a revolt against naturalism, lays special stress upon the development of the actor’s personality, as the most important moving force in the theatre, and upon the aesthetic side of stagecraft, sacrificing realism to the desired dramatic effect in costume and setting.

Meierhold also casts overboard the Art Theatre traditions; but in his aesthetic iconoclasm he goes much farther than the Kamerny Theatre, employing in his productions such devices as loud-speakers and cinema episodes, which Alexander Tairov, the director of the Kamerny Theatre, rejects as inconsistent with the essential nature of the theatre. Meierhold also goes much farther than any other prominent producer in imparting a definitely Communist political tinge to the majority of his plays. “Class-Harmful” Plays The present theatrical season in Moscow has been distinguished by the emphasis ■which has been placed upon the demand that all arts, including the drama, shall serve th epyatiletka, or five-year plan of national economic development. Censorship lines have been drawn more tightly. Not only have all “class-harmful” plays, such as the satirical comedies of the young writer, Mikhail Bulgakov, been excluded from the theatrical repertory, but two plays which were offered with the best of revolutionary intentions, “Natalya Taprova” and “The Party Ticket,” were whisked off the boards almost as soon as they were given, because in some way they transgressed that vague but potent thing known in Russian life as “the Party line.” Meierhold flourishes best in such an atmosphere and has already produced two plays, both, curiously enough, in rhymed verse, by modern Russian authors. The first of these, Ilya Selvinsky’s “Commander of the Second Army,” expounded a rather obscure psychological problem In turgid couplets and, while its “class tendency” was recognised as correct it elicited considerable criticism from proletariat spectators on the ground of alleged incomprehensibility. Loud-Speakers on the Stage

Much more successful, in this respect, was Meierhold’s second offering, A. Bezimensky’s “The Shot.” Here one had a quite simple, almost too simple, epic of a “shock brigade,” or group of young workers in a factory who carry out their object of raisins productivity and output in the face of the obstruction offered by a treacherous engineer, bureaucratic trade union officials, and other workers who prefer to slack on the job. While the theme itself is a little bare Meierhold employed every device to make the presentation vivid and lively. Loud-speakers thundered “For” and “Against” as the factory workers expressed their opinion about the shock brigade; a shower of paper admirably symbolised the bureaucratic past of one of the characters in one place the action was broken and relieved by a cinema episode. The Kamerny Theatre celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of its establishment with a performance of Scribe’s old-fashioned melodrama, “Adrienne Lecouvreur,” which afforded an opportunity for the display of the dramatic power of their leading actress, Alice Koonen, and also illustrated Tairov’s theory that, by the observance of certain aesthetic rules, action, gesture, costume and lighting, subordinated to the personality of the actor, may be so blended as to produce impressive stage effects. The Kamerny Theatre has been successful in its interpretations of some of Eugene O’Neill’s works, such as “Desire Under the Elms” and “All God’s Chillun Got Wings.” rfroduced here under the title of “The Negro.” The Propaganda Play One can still see superb performances ofsuch plays as Aleksei Tolstoy’s “Tsar Fyodor Ivanovitch and Maxim Gorky’s “Lower Depths” m the Art Theatre; but during the present season this great playhouse, lias been marking time. Nothing new has been produced, and the directing genius of the theatre, the venerable Constantine Stanislavsky, has taken a year’s leave of absence, due to illB. ©3l til , The most serious problem which faces the Russian theatre today is whether its traditional high artistic level can be preserved in the lace ot insistent demands that all new plays which deal with contemporary life must treat it from a definitely propaSa rropaga.Kla' in itself is not necessarily incompatible with aesthetic achievement; more than one grea niece of art has owed its inception to the desire to expound some leligious conception; and Communism might conceivably be a mperience 1 tends to show that . the propaganda plan as a wood cinema XT "which ft invariably resembles even in the element of the bappy en ,•» Perhaps the Soviet theatre- e o in ~* iV- e whose edification these iS a mtkf effefuveTT|mand U for Sote varied and less insipid diet.