Russian dramatist Meierkholid： an underrated genius

Meierkholid (1874-1940)

　　Meierkholid, a Russian dramatist, finally returned to China in 2019, taking the opportunity of updating and republishing Meierkholid Conversation compiled by Mr. Tong Daoming. He is a genius who has been erased and is still underestimated. As the Russian director vakhtangov said, "In the near future, all dramas should be constructed and designed as predicted by Meierkholid." China’s theatrical circles are familiar with stanislavski, but they are still alienated from Meierkholid. Therefore, his "coming back" is particularly important to China’s plays.

　　In a curious and impromptu form, conversation can capture the pedigree of thoughts, the context of terms and the journey of words through colloquialism. In this way, Meierkholid’s Conversation bridged the theoretical gap, reappeared the past time and space, and we can remember the fierceness and habits of the master in his later years. The creation/breaking in art often exists in opposition to each other, accompanied by dazzling Gemini: for example, Dostoevsky is to Tolstoy, Ibsen is to Chekhov, and stanislavski (hereinafter referred to as Stani) is to Meierkholid. Stani is a boundary marker, and Meierkholid will always be a master of innovation. The beauty of Meierkholid is not in the desk, but in the theater; However, the writing on his desk is full of aura, shining with his discoveries, inventions and imagination everywhere.

　　Discovering "Hypothesis" and "Theater"

　　Meierkholid borrowed Pushkin’s words that "the essence of drama art lies in the fact that it is different from reality", and discovered the "hypothesis", which reversed Steiner’s "drama" and emphasized the "theater" of integration. He is an important turning point in the history of directing.

　　"Director" is an independent modern division of labor that began in the 19th century. It originated from the demand for identity and common experience in drama. A unified organizer can aggregate the theaters that have lost their internal binding power. "The origin of the director lies in the framed stage; His first success lies in the imitative stage; And his victory lies in the expressionist and dramatic stage. " For the first time, Duke Meningen played a unique role as a director: fully rehearsing, unifying performance style, conforming to historical costumes and dancing beauty, and realizing the dream of drama integration for centuries.

　　Stani also emphasized the overall design of "director-despot". At first, he gradually turned from external reality to internal reality with the help of external techniques such as sets and props, and pursued "more psychological realism". Stani takes the actor as the core and gives the performance dignity. These familiar terms: experience, through action, inner vision, role tone … … A realistic towering system has been established around actors, which has led for more than a century.

　　Stanny pursues realism and verisimilitude, while Meierkholid explores hypothesis and theater. Realism must admit the hypothesis, and the theater is not a place to reproduce the truth of life and psychology, but a space to express ideas with impressionistic actions. The stage is a platform for performance, not a realistic scene, and life must be transformed into a "theater" to be displayed on the stage. Theater is "the imagination of the audience can provide the rest of the things expressed in unused words"; Theater is not only the lines and the actions decided by them, but also full of all the factors of the stage. Assumption is the characteristic of all arts, and it also refers to a non-descriptive technique, which replaces reproduction with performance and constitutes a "drama" different from "drama" art. Meierkholid and Steiner parted ways from their origins, but they were not out of place, but came from different understandings of realism. The stage does not create illusion reality, but constructs non-illusion hypothesis; So he must invent certain hypothetical techniques.

　　What are "constructivism" and "organic modeling"

　　Meierkholid invented two symbolic terms: constructivism and organic modeling; Without an actor who can communicate and ready-made skills, he invented it and taught it to actors. The invention focuses on three stage factors: action, music and space. Action is no longer the shape outlined by language, but the display of concrete shape. Music is emotional contagion’s time, and it is expressed through the spatial image, thus completing the spatialization of time. The Imperial Envoy is designed according to the sonata, and each new improvisation is a change of theme.

　　Drawing lessons from constructivism sculpture — — Various planes and materials are connected by various lines such as glass strips or steel wires, and an anti-realistic constructivist stage is constructed: the curtain is cancelled, the empty walls are exposed, and the lights are not concealed; The stage is equipped with a combination of platforms, slopes, escalators, runways, railings, roulette, etc., such as scaffolding for building, which is also a necessary fulcrum for actors’ activities. Meierkholid observed Sicilian actor grasso’s understanding of the skills between characters’ emotions and modeling, and summarized them into twelve or three kinds of modeling training. Organic modeling requires actors to receive various trainings in gymnastics, circus and ballet, which is plastic and becomes a magical engine, similar to Gordon Clay’s "super puppet" and suitable for the style of the machine age: strong physique, strong sense of rhythm and accurate movements; Let the whole body participate in our every movement.

　　From the director’s style, he was influenced by Appiah’s plastic stage and lighting skills and Clay’s "screen setting". Although they closely linked the director with the aesthetic program and eventually made it the common language of an international movement, their achievements stopped at an anti-naturalistic stage setting skill. It is Meierkholid who really makes the stage and actors blend into the overall director style.

　　A kaleidoscope of theater exploration

　　The pursuit of theatricality has made Meierkholid move from the stage center to the theater center. The performance is as unpredictable as a kaleidoscope, and it will be amazing to sort out his exploration path.

　　1906 -1907: Directed the mystery play Nun; Masked comedy "Vaudeville Artist"; The expressionist drama A Life of Man. 1908: Directed O ‘Flo, Don Juan and Masquerade, carried out novel ideas and found that it was necessary to start with actor training. 1913 -1917: Developed a unique performance method from masked comedies in ancient Greece and Italy; In the rehearsals of "Mysterious farce" and "Earth-shaking", film screening, jazz music and hexagonal accordion were used to match the noise of the machine. 1922: The Generous Tortoise and Death of Tarelkin, with mature constructivism, adopt the form of farce, and have the roles of clowns and vagrants. 1924: "Give me back Europe" adopts "movable wall" and projection. The stage changes rapidly much like a movie montage, and the lighting also fully shows the dynamics. 1925: The Power of Attorney adopted a screen setting. In 1924, "The Forest" used a mask, divided into sections without a curtain, and the sections were connected by pantomime, with subtitles on the screen, which can be said to be an early "narrative drama". In 1926, "An Imperial Envoy" adopted a platform set with one master and three assistants, and adopted a sonata.

　　Meierkholid tried all kinds of modernist styles, and their scope dwarfed the directors, forming a unique "Meierkholid habit". His rehearsal is impromptu, one way to stage a scene, and then another way in a few days. Improvisation requires superb skills and rich imagination in order to be vivid. Not only that, but also learn from various arts, creatively make the stage film and change the scene flexibly.

　　Meierkholid was extremely revolutionary, attacked and deprived of the theater. He honestly defended his views, and arrest and death followed. It was not until the thaw in the 1950s that he was officially reburied and his plays were staged again.

　　In the last performance of La Traviata, he gave up constructivism and adopted realistic scenery. And from the mechanical outside to the actor’s inner emotions. The most famous is the three meetings between Armand and Margaret, which were designed to be scattered three times according to different plots and emotions: the petals that met for the first time; Scraps of paper from the second proposal; The third coin with negative gas separation forms a stage expression vocabulary. Over time, he will certainly find the hypothetical way to externalize his inner emotions.

　　"At first, you were a maverick innovator, and later you became the founder of the white-haired tradition", which became a prophecy. Modern culture has the ability to assimilate dissidents and turn pioneers into classics. Meierkholid always looks like a clank of iron, but it is full of vitality and strength. As his proud disciple Eisenstein paid tribute to him, "When I am old, I will feel that I am not worthy to kiss the dust under his feet." (Zhou Quan)