The Spectator and Dialogues of Power in Early Soviet Theater By Howard Douglas Allen A ...

272 Pages·2013·5.68 MB·English

by  Howard Douglas Allen

Directed Culture:
The Spectator and Dialogues of Power in Early Soviet Theater

By

Howard Douglas Allen

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Sociology

in the

Graduate Division

of the

University of California, Berkeley

Committee in charge:

Professor Victoria E. Bonnell, Chair
Professor Ann Swidler
Professor Yuri Slezkine

Fall 2013

Abstract

Directed Culture: The Spectator and Dialogues of Power in Early Soviet Theater

by

Howard Douglas Allen

Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology

University of California, Berkeley

Professor Victoria E. Bonnell, Chair

The theater played an essential role in the making of the Soviet system. Its
sociological interest not only lies in how it reflected contemporary society and
politics: the theater was an integral part of society and politics. As a preeminent
institution in the social and cultural life of Moscow, the theater was central to
transforming public consciousness from the time of 1905 Revolution. The analysis
of a selected set of theatrical premieres from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to
the end of Cultural Revolution in 1932 examines the values, beliefs, and attitudes
that defined Soviet culture and the revolutionary ethos. The stage contributed to
creating, reproducing, and transforming the institutions of Soviet power by bearing
on contemporary experience.
The power of the dramatic theater issued from artistic conventions, the
emotional impact of theatrical productions, and the extensive intertextuality
between theatrical performances, the press, propaganda, politics, and social life.
Reception studies of the theatrical premieres address the complex issue of the
spectator’s experience of meaning—and his role in the construction of meaning.
The evolving historical context and the changing institutional foundations of theater
altered the interpretive contexts of performance. The discussion of interpretive
communities and audience tastes draws on reviews in the contemporary press and
the data from theater surveys conducted during the 1920s.
The theaters continually sought to align their aesthetics with the demands of
the regime and the preferences of theatergoing publics. In addition, ideology served
as a form of currency in the polemics among theater directors and theater critics
who were engaged in the contest for dominance in the theater world. The theater
spectator became a central ideological figure invoked by warring interpretive
communities in these ongoing dialogues of power. The theater became politicized
under Soviet rule; under Stalin it became a deformed expression of mass politics.
1
Contents
List of I llustrations

Acknowledgements iii

Note on Transliteratio n v

vi

INTRODUCTON: ENTERTAINING IDEAS 1
The Spectator and Dialogues of Power
Directed Culture: The Bolshevization of Theater
The Experience of Meaning

1. THE THEATER AS A CULTURAL INSTITUTION 18
The Politics of Theater in Late Tsarist Russia
The Conventions of Naturalism
The Moscow Art Theater as a Cultural Institution

2. THE MOSCOW ART THEATERT IhNe RLoEwVOerL DUeTpItOhNsARY RUSSIA 42
The Moscow Art Theater in the Aftermath of 1917
The Theatrical Prod uction of
A Case Study of Reception
A Special Spectator
T he Dawn
3. THE EXPERIENCE OF REVOLUTIONARY THEATER 77
as RevolutionTahrey D Tahweant er
The Experience of the Spectator
The Public Criticism of

4. TArHeE Y BoOu LLSisHteEnViInKg ,P MAoRsTcYow, P?R OLETKULT AND THE DIRECTED AUDIENCE 124
Proletkult as a Sociocultural Movement
An Analysis of the Production and Its Reception
The Critical Division

5. TThHeE SAoTuEffRlé D U RING THE ERA OF THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY 159
The Tastes of the Theatergoing Public The Soufflé
atThe Theater of the Revolution
Interpretive Communities and the Meanings of

6. THE PROLETARIAN PLABYrWeaRdIGHTS AND THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 206
The New Administration of the Theater
The Political Context of
The Dominance of RAPP During the Cultural Revolution

CONCLUSION: THE POWER OF THEATER 238
i
Bibliography

249

ii
Illustrations

In the Introduction:
Figure 1. Konstantin Stanislavsky 3
Figure 2. Vsevolod Meyerhold in Red Army cap 7
Tsar Fëdor Ioannovich
Figure 1.1 Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko 22
Figure 1.2 Tsarina Irina in 23
Figure 1.3 Lobby of the Moscow Art Theater 25
Figure 1.4 TThhee LMoowsecro wDe Aprtht sTheater Auditorium 26

Figure 2.1 , Opening Scene 49
Figure 2.2 Kvashnya, the Dumpling Peddler 49
Figure 2.3 Nastya, the Prostitute 50
Figure 2.4 Bubnov, the Cap Maker 50
Figure 2.5 Satin 52
Figure 2.6 Luka 52
Figure 2.7 Luka’s Entrance 53
Figure 2.8 The Baron 53
Figure 2.9 “Is There A God?” 56
Figure 2.10 The Actor Recites 57
Figure 2.11 Satin’s Speech 60
Figure 2.12 “The Actor Has Hung Himself” 63
Figure 2.13 The Moscow Art Theater on Tour, 1922 71

Figure 3.1 Krupskaya and Lenin 78
Figure 3.2 AThnea tDoalyw Lnunacharsky 78
Figure 3.3 Hérénien 81
Figure 3.4 , Plan for StaTgainregl kin’s Death 84
Figure 3.5 Model of the Set, Finale 90
Figure 3.6 Constructivist Set for 91
Figure 3.7 In the Cemetery, Scene Four 95
Figure 3.8 The Audience at the Meyerhold Theater 98
Figure 3.9 An Audience Survey Questionnaire from the 1920s 102
Figure 3.10 OThne P Deaowplne’s Square, Scene Seven 109
Figure 3.11 Aleksandr Apsit “Internatsional,” 1918 112
Figure 3.12 , Finale 113
Figure 3.13 Meyerhold Wearing a Fez 117
D.E.
Figure 4.1 Sergei Tretyakov 136
Figure 4.2 at the Meyerhold Theater 137
Figure 4.3 Pantomime Scene, Act Four 139
Figure 4.4 Portrait of Lenin Unveiled 140
Figure 4.5 Sergei Eisenstein 142
Figure 4.6 Theater Program for the Performance 142
iii
Figure 5.1 MThaep F oofr Mesot scow’s Working Class Districts 163
Figure 5.2 MThaep R oafi tdhe Downtown Area 165
Figure 5.3 at the Meyerhold Theater 166
Figure 5.4 at the MGSPS Theater 168
Figure 5.5 Boris Romashov 176
Figure 5.6 TThvee rSsokuafyflaé Street 177
Figure 5.7 Drawing of Anna Babanova as Rita Kern 179
Figure 5.8 , Finale 183
Figure 5.9 The Assembly at the Bank 184
Figure 5.10 DrawinTgh bey P Doe. mM oAobro. u“Tt hthee G Airxle S ang in the Ch oir” 191
Tempo
Figure 6.1 Anka in 213
Figure 6.2 A Scene from Bread 214
Figure 6.3 Vladimir Kirshon 216
Figure 6.4 A Scene from 218
Figure 6.5 TLyhueb Foivn Yalaer, oMvaikyhaa ilov and Kvaso v 221
Figure 6.6 Drawing of MThike hMaailno vw, itthhe t Bheo lBshrieevfcika sLee ader 224
Figure 6.7 226
Figure 6.8 Scene from 227
Figure 6.8 Raevsky and Kvasov 232
Figure 6.10 Drawing of “The Battle on the Theatrical Front” 235
Egor Bulychev and Others
In Dthoes tCigoanecvlu asniodn O: thers
1. 244
2. Anna Karenina 244
3. Maxim Gorky 244
4. 245
5. Count Vronsky 246
6. The Stalin Constitution 247

Table 1. Moscow Dramatic Theaters, 1925 165

iv
Acknowledgements

Many people and institutions have supported this project. I wish to thank
Victoria Bonnell whose graduate seminars inspired me to undertake the study of
theater art and Soviet culture. To borrow a term from Stanislavsky, Ann Swidler
encouraged me to develop the sociological “through-lines” of the dissertation. They
provided guidance, critical readings, and generous advice. Mel Gordon’s
encyclopedic knowledge of Soviet theater was a tremendous resource. He provided
me with video footage of theater productions from the era. Yuri Slezkine also read
the manuscript and provided critical advice. I wish to express my deep gratitude to
all of them.
Various institutions funded the archival research in Russia, the collection of
source materials, and the writing of the dissertation. I wish to thank the
International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), the Social Sciences Research
Council (SSRC), the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), the National
Science Foundation (NSF), the University of California-St. Petersburg Scientific
Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences Faculty Exchange Program, and the
Graduate Division, the Institute of International Studies, and the Berkeley-Stanford
Program at the University of California at Berkeley.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the Russian State Archive of Literature
and Art, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and the Central State Archive of
Moscow; the Museum of the Moscow Art Theater and the Bakhrushin State Museum;
the Lunacharsky Theater Library; the Russian National Library; the Library of
Congress; the Chicago Public Library; and the libraries of the University of California at
Berkeley and Northwestern University.
Finally, I wish to thank the many others who have contributed in various ways
to the dissertation.
It is dedicated to the memory of my parents and brother.

v
Note on Transliteration and Dates

In the text, titles of plays, organizations, and journals have been given in English
translation, with the original Russian in parentheses or in the notes. Also, I have
rendered names and places in their familiar, anglicized forms, such as Nadezhda
Krupskaya and Kronstadt. In the notes and the bibliography, the Library of
Congress system of transliteration has been used. In February 1918, Russia adopted
the new style (Gregorian) calendar used in Western Europe and the United States.
The old style (Julian) calendar was thirteen days behind the new style calendar at
the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. Hence, the October Revolution, which
occurred on the twenty-fifth of the month in 1917, was celebrated on the seventh of
November beginning in 1918.

vi
Introduction: Entertaining Ideas
The Audience
An audience without a history is not an audience.
Herbert Blau,

Members of Tthhee MChoesrcroyw O rAcrhta Trhde, ater troupe huddled backstage on the eve of
the Bolshevik Revolution on October 25, 1917 listening apprehensively to the buzz
in the auditorium. Anton Chekhov’s play about the demise of a
gentry estate was about to begin. As Konstantin Stanislavsky, the renowned
director who also played the role of Gaev recounted in his memoir:

When the curtain rose, our hearts were pounding in anticipation of a
disturbance of some kind. But Chekhov’s lyricism, the beauty of the Russian
verse in depicting the dying Russian estate—what seemed to be so untimely
given the events we were then living through—nonetheless achieved its
effect, even in this setting. It was one of the most successful performances
ever from the point of view of the spectators’ attention. It seemed they
wanted to rest a bit in an atmosphere of poetry, to bid farewell to the old life
which demanded purifying sacrifices. The performance ended with the very
strongest ovation, and the spectators left the theater in silence and, who
knows, maybe among them were those who were preparing to battle for the
new life. The shooting soon started, and taking cover, we made it home with
1
difficulty after the show.

Here Stanislavsky poignantly describes an evening when momentous
political events overshadowed the stage and threatened to spark a rude clash
between the public and the performers—yet this did not occur. The history of the
Art Theater attested to the considerable power of concurrent public events to
influence the response of audiences. His remarks explain why the performance
received a fervent reception: it enraptured the audience who sat immersed in the
world onstage, temporarily oblivious to the one outside, which—Stanislavsky
suggests—heightened the connection between the audience and the actors. Even
after the shooting started and the revolutionaries looted the Winter Palace in St.
Petersburg, the Moscow Art Theater weathered the storm unscathed, revered as a
cultural institution by the people.
The Moscow Art Theater revolutionized the world of theater when it opened
at the end of the nineteenth century by approaching theater in an entirely new
manner. This meant the creation of a modern aesthetic cleansed of the traditional
aesthetics of the imperial theaters and the commercial ones. In contrast to the
artifices of those theaters, the Moscow Art Theater represented a return to basics
and the power of “authentic” art. Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko,
Moia zhin' v iskusstve Sobranie sochinenii

1
Konstantin Stanislavskii, , vol. 1, (Moscow:
Iskusstvo, 1954), 374. A “farewell to the old life” and “preparing for the new life”
gloss Gaev’s lines at the conclusion of the play.
1