By SRIMATHI KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAYA

Nowhere is the theatre such a centre of the artistic life of a nation as in Russia. It has survived the many continuous shocks of the great war, the civil strifes, the famines, the blockade, etc. The Revolution served to give it a great impetus and today it has become the foremost art of the country, literature, painting, music, all but reflecting its spirit and becoming part of its integral self.

The Revolution played a mighty part in evolving a new life for it. The spirit of revolt against the old traditions and the desire to break away from old forms entered the heart of the theatre too. Then arose the usual conflict, the academic on the one hand defending and fortifying the old traditions of the art, and the revolutionary on the other brushing aside the murky cobwebs and breaking down blind walls, so as to create new forms which would express the subtle and intense experience of the people. At first it seemed as though the two would never come to a compromise but the spirit of the times was such, that whirl and storm released a new life, a life born out of the agony of ages, which harmonized the two opposing forces. Thus while preserving the theatrical art as it had been developing for centuries, its entire ideal and aim became different. The two influenced each other with much benefit to the contemporary theatre. The conservatives supplied the solid and firm foundation which it needed, while the radicals filled it with the new life. The latter absorbed the profound art of acting which the former had acquired, while the former took up the rhythmic and the constructive expression of the latter and freed itself from many unnecessary details.

To those who had already been experimenting in theatrical reform, the Revolution offered great opportunities for further developments. The most famous among them was Meyerhold, who accomplished the blasting of old forms. The theatre cut loose from its former attachment to pictorial and decorative art and began to reflect the passionate and flaming epoch in all its pathos. Meyerhold developed new themes, placed new problems before the actor and the stage, and pushed on the evolution of the theatre rapidly. He brought into being the bold and free actor of agitation, not of impersonation, who put his own personality into the part which he played, satirising the reactionary elements and holding up the ideals of the Revolution and the new ideas that followed in its wake. The theatre became a profound realism, but realism concentrated, musical and rhythmical, reflecting and expressing life.

The theatre is called forth to a certain degree by the will of the spectator. During the transitional stage closely following the Revolution, the people used to come free of charge, and thus came to be habituated to it. Therefore when the new economic policy was introduced and they were called upon to pay, they still continued to frequent the theatres. The new body of spectators hailed mostly from the working classes which formerly never paid the theatres a visit. In creating this new class of audience, the responsibility of the theatre became even greater as a cultural and social factor. It maintained a strictness in its artistic demand. The public in spite of its heterogeneous education has now, on the whole, a healthy taste and easily rejects the superficial.

The choice and selection of suitable plays was a mighty problem. In course of time the theatre had come to abandon the idea of bare agitation and settled down to its constructive work. It entered upon the work of propaganda clothed in appealing and cultured forms. It. sought to unfold the contemporary feelings in regard to life and give the theatre a wider and more profound task. Thus suitable plays had to be found. One set of dramas were the classical ones, Shakespeare, Moliere, Hugo, Schiller, which were produced with different interpretations, seeking to conform them to the needs of the modern times. Each producer thus gave them his own subjective interpretation reflecting the influences of the age. But without the contemporary authors no theatre can move on and the literary men of Russia rose to the demand of the time, which was for highly artistic and ideological pieces. The historical drama proved of least significance and interest. Even the historical illustrations of the near past, which were successful at first, came to disappear and to be replaced by plays of contemporary social life and customs, satirical comedies written in masterful language with daring criticisms. Thus we have at present various dramatists, those who approach the epoch from within and picture on the general background the mass movement, the fate of the group, its evolution, its rights and privileges, its pathos and heroism. The other class of writers are those who deal with problems relating to society in relation to the individual, such as Love, Duty, Marriage, etc. Then there are a number of plays dealing with the problems of contemporary youth, the students and the new generation in general. The authors seek to embrace life in its depth and its width and give the plot a broad social background. The actors, like the authors, emphasise the social and class peculiarities of the characters they represent. Moreover, a lyric and dramatic stream is penetrating the modern works which observe the entangled and complex experiences of modern man and in its contradiction and excitements realise the eternal search for truth. The problem of individuality and its role in the making of contemporary society, with its strange conflicts–these are the absorbing subjects. There are theatres which produce only contemporary and modern plays. These are the Theatre of the Revolution, the Theatre of the Labour Unions, the Satirical Theatre.

Meyerhold who was one of the first to declare the principles of the Revolutionary Theatre, is now moving towards the open-air theatre and the popular comedy, He has rejected the customary box-like stage, casting off the curtains, and has replaced it by the theatre of the people’s melodrama, only with a more artistic and aesthetic form. In the drama too, he seeks to unfold the middle class sentiment and the life of the rural gentry, making out of these an exhaustive and completely expressive picture. He does not favour an imitation of life nor the minute psychological expressions. He but cuts out definite pieces of it and unexpectedly unites them; thus they seem like a musical symphony, where every detail is a part of the harmonic whole. Every expression of his production is subject to definite laws of rhythm, colour and light. In the matter of production too, new innovations have been made by him. In the outer form, he uses constructive staging instead of painted decoration. The footlight is replaced by a searchlight.

The Theatre of the Revolution is doing a great deal for the playwrights. It helps along young writers and permits a wide range of themes on its stage. The experiments of the Theatre of the Proletarian Culture, whose troupe is composed only of workers, seeks to produce a consistent class theatre. There are many other experimental theatres and those which have established themselves such as the Little Theatre, the Children's Theatre. Russia is a vivid example of the vast and powerful energy that is released when a nation is set free from political and social trammels, an energy that is pregnant with rich fruit, if it is but given the clear white sunshine and the sweeping breath of freedom.