Reflection_on_Meyerhold

It was very interesting to prepare a workshop about Meyerhold, especially for me, as a student who is really interested in history of Uzbekistan and USSR. The life and work of Meyerhold, in my opinion, is great and can be compared to Stanislavski’s. They were living in the same time period and were focusing on completely different aspects but doing almost the same work – making and building a way for better acting performance – to make theatre more realistic. The work of Meyerhold is very significant for the development of nowadays physical theatre. Vsevolod Meyerhold was born in 1874 in Penza, Russian Empire. After abandoning his study of law he began his training as an actor at the school of Nemirovich-Datchenko and Stanislavski. It is common misconception that Meyerhold is the antithesis of Stanislavski. Meyerhold was an enthusiastic follower of Stanislavski; Meyerhold adopted his system. After some time he began to look for his own style of theatre practicing – for his own nonrealistic conception of theatre. Meyerhold and Stanislavski were respecting each other’s artistic endeavors throughout their careers. He, however, thought that Stanislavski is focusing only in inner life of the actor and felt that the actor inherently knew/know how to think, feel and remember but they did not know how express feelings and emotions through their body. In other words, they study how to express everything emotionally correct but never do that in a physical way. And that was skill, he thought, needs development. In 1913 he founds his own studio. In 1934 Stalin mandates only acceptable form of Soviet Art would be socialist realism, while Meyerhold moved far beyond. In 1940s Meyerhold is repressed and killed by so called Stalin’s Repressions. In 1972 Moscow Theatre of Satire invited Nikolay Kustov, who was, as well as Sergei Eisenstein, the students of Vsevolod Meyerhold. Kustov was supposed to trainee 8 actors the still-forbidden technique. Gennadiy Bogdanov is one of the 8 actors who were trained by Kustov and who was training this technique for 3 and a half years i.e. until the death of Kustov. Bogdanov is the only one of 8 actors who were trained and is only one who teaches biomechanics and is only closest living link to it as a practical technique. He gives a formula of an actor which is N=A1+A2, where N = is an actor who is made of two selves. A1= is the player of the instrument – metaphysical actor (as I call it Stanislavsky’s actor) A2= is an instrument – physical actor (actor of Meyerhold) When the muscles of A1 are stretched through an ongoing process of self-discovery, life experience and imagination, the muscles of A2 require more conscious stretching and stretching through intense physical training. Meyerhold believed that in rehearsal A1 determines what A2 will do nut in performance it is vice versa. So the emotions of the actor are left just to himself because the audience cannot always understand the emotions without physical movement or action. So it is important to be able to express your emotions and feelings through physical action. Also important part of the idea will be that Eisenstein and his teacher – Meyerhold believed that the actor is the person who is able to fully control himself and have his body in a state of equilibrium. Also it is believed that each part of the physical part of the performance has to be studied perfectly to form an unbroken whole – performance. In biomechanics and physics is common understanding of a movement. In order to make a movement to a certain direction you first will do the movement to the opposite (or if you want to e.g. turn left you have to turn right first) in Meyerholds thesis it is called “otkaz”. The workshop as whole was prepared because of long research not only of Meyerhold but also of the way how to present a good workshop. The knowledge I gained from the research is priceless because the workshop in the opinion of the group members was good but I know also my weaknesses which are the lack of physical practice i.e. I did not do a lot physically. This was the first project I did for my IB Drama subject and I consider it as a success. It was interesting! Very much! Now we are doing After Juliet with Stanislavski and I see many possibilities not only to improve my acting skills but also psychology knowledge because I am interested in emotional psychology and do want to know how people express the emotions and feelings as well in physical as psychological way. The reflection is focused more on my workshop not the year beginning. The reason why I took Drama is not only because I like to act but also my desire to see and look in the people’s inside. Their emotions and feelings. I consider Drama to be a perfect way to know that because the work that is done by the actors and performers is that they observe people’s life, emotions, feeling before acting and “want to walk in their shoes”. This ability makes people not only good performer but also make them experienced and smart people; this ability and knowledge develops the logical thinking and critical reasoning as well as critical thinking – which are crucial especially for Internationally minded people.