Anatomy of a Suicide - Part 30

Lesson: Thursday 15th February 2018

Vsevolod Meyerhold 

Meyerhold was a Russian/Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer born in 1874. His work was based around physical theatre and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting. In February 1940, he was arrested and then killed during the Great Purge conducted by the Communist leader Josef Stalin. He joined the Moscow Philharmonic Dramatic School instead of studying law at Moscow University and between 1907-1917 worked in imperial (Tsarist) theatres in St Petersburg. In 1918 after the Russian Revolution, Meyerhold joined the Bolshevik party as an official of the Theatre Division (TEO) of the Commissariat of Education and Enlightenment where he effectively nationalised theatres under Bolshevik control.  He founded the Meyerhold Theatre in 1920 which was then closed down in 1938 as the Bolsheviks were against non-traditional theatre that Meyerhold had interests in and created. Meyerhold used circus style effects and was against the US Method Acting, instead he connected psychological and physiological processes together. This is where the emotional state of an actor is linked to the physical state therefore emotions can be called upon due to specific movement and gesture. He was tortured and executed by Bolshevik forces and had to 'confess' that he was a British/Japanese spy.

Meyerhold created Biomechanics which was actor training whereby the actor had to be in control of their body in order to create theatre. It forms the basis for modern day physical theatre and was forced underground after Meyerhold's death but re-emerged in the 1970's. In Biomechanics, there are Etudes which are highly stylised movement pieces which Meyerhold choreographed as exercise material for his students. During this lesson we explored Meyerhold and biomechanics and learnt the etude 'Throwing the Stone' as shown below:

This allowed us to keep control of our bodies and build up some core strength. We did this so that during the scene changes of AOAS we would be able to keep control of our movements. During the transitions between scenes, Carol, Anna, and Bonnie will remain onstage getting dressed by various other characters whilst people and props are arranged around them. Below is the first attempt at a Scene change between Scene 3 and Scene 4:

Below is the first attempt at a scene change between Scene 1 and Scene 2: 

For a first attempt at transitions this is relatively good as each person in each section of the stage knew what they were doing and in what sequence to do this in. However, in order for the scene changes to work more effectively we would need to time them so that they finish at around the same time so that people aren't stood on stage awkwardly. Although, this could work as it shows that all characters are being manipulated within the transitions rather than just the three main women.