An overview
Philosophical and theatrical approach
The Russian-born turn of the century theatre practioner, Vsevold Meyerhold, explored theatre as a kinaesthetic spectacle where an actor understood the inner and outer rhythm of the character.
'His was theatre based expressly on contradictions, a theatre which strove not to smooth out problems or to resolve paradoxes but to let them resonate within the minds of his performers and audiences (Pitches, 2003, pp.1-2).'
Meyerhold was a contemporary of Stanislavsky and Chekhov; his ideas were influenced by the musicality of Chekhov's plays and by the intensive actor training he undertook in Moscow Arts Theatre, but he considered realism a type of hypnotism which removed control of what happens on the stage from the actor and gave it to the character. He thought that theatre should not mirror reality; instead that it should transcend the everyday by deliberately exaggerating and distorting it through stylised theatrical techniques (Roose, Evans, 1984). Meyerhold was interested in providing ways for his actors to create a form of theatre that would be inspiring because of its heightened theatricality, and he wanted his audience to be divided on its reception of the work and not just undergo a journey, as in realism, where their imaginations were not challenged (Thompson, 2006). This means that he wanted his actors to create a form of theatre that inspired the audience to be engaged and to react in a different way that was the norm int he 1920's and 1930's.
Meyerhold revived the primordial elements of theatre through improvisation and transformation (Roose-Evans, 1984, p.23). His teaching practices explored the biomechanical process of theatricality, and he was one of the earliest advocates of the visual and non-verbal aspects of theatre. His approach was to sharpen the senses of his ensemble of actors by mixing opposites through an elective use of forms such as Commedia dell' Arte, Kathakali, Chinease Circus, and Kabuki Theatre etc. He achieved this in his training by exploring the emotional, muscular and intellectual capacities of his actors, enabling them and himself to discover new rhythms in the theatrical language of the 1920s and 1930s (Braun, 1995).
Other influences on Meyerhold's acting and directing techniques were Ivan Pavlov's belief that human beings reacted in various ways to stimulus, the American Industrialist Frederick Taylor who conducted experiments in the efficiency of movement in factory workers as well as the Constructivist Art movement of that time which was responding to the growing mechanization and political thought of the State of Russia. Meyerhold also critically examined and appraised artists like Goya with their pictures of the grotesque, as well as the growing film industry with actors like Charlie Chaplin, who to Meyerhold, was innately a biomechanical actor.
Meyerhold's approach was to create techniques so that the function of the actor's body forced the audience to look at the world primarily through a visual eye, with the verbal functioning as an adjunct. He proposed a whole new way of producing theatre and his actors trained within a system that allowed them to be constantly aware of themselves in the performance space whilst developing their bodies to carry out any action in a natural expressive state. This is part of the biomechanical system which aimed at making the actor's body carry out a set task in the most efficient way possible. He trained his performer to be disciplined, express emotions (physically and cognitively) and to use their creative imaginations. He valued the imagination as an innate ability in actors, albeit one that needed to be released through different kinaesthetic acting approaches. All performers were part of an ensemble as Meyerhold stressed that an actor depended on the other actors as they trained, explored and performed in his anti-illusionistic theatre.
Key theoretical principles of Meyerhold's anti-illusionistic theatre and approaches to acting:
- Non-naturalistic theatre
- Stylisation
- Rhythm and music
- The mask
- The Grotesque
- Biomechnics
- Chaplin and Montage (adapted from Pitches, 2003, p.46).
Pitches, J. (2003), Vsesvolod Meyerhold, Routledge Performance Practitioners., Routledge, London.
Roose-Evans, J. (1984). Experiemental theatre from Stanislavsky to Peter Brook, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Thompson, S. (2207). Approaches to Acting. JEDA, 13(2), 37-41
Image of Meyerhold accessed 17/03/2020.