RUSS 042. Revolutionary Theater

We start with Konstantin Stanislavsky’s founding of the Moscow Art Theatre, whose revolutionary approach to acting, directing and set design exerts a profound effect on Western theater to this day. Concurrently we will examine Anton Chekhov’s four major plays and their integral part in the success of the Moscow Art Theatre. We then examine the effect of the Soviet revolution on Russian theater from two viewpoints. On the one hand, we will follow the arc of directors and playwrights such as Vsevelod Meyerhold who embraced the Soviet revolution and reflected this embrace in their radically innovative and futuristic productions and set designs. On the other hand, we will follow the tragic arc of playwright Mikhail Bulgakov and his stormy relationship with the Moscow Art Theater and the Soviet regime by reading his plays and his bitingly funny satire Black Snow.
(Cross-listed as LITR 042R)
1 credit.
Spring 2015. Johnson.
http://www.swarthmore.edu/russian
Modern Languages and Literatures: Russian

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