5

p At one point in this book Tovstono-
gov writes: “Speaking of the way rehearsals should be conducted, I feel that one of the most serious diseases in stage direction today is verbosity. We always seem to be talking non-stop.

p “.. .We waste a tremendous amount of time on useless talk. As I see it, ideally our profession should be a silent one.

p “.. .Very often, how I feel after a rehearsal, whether I feel satisfied or dissatisfied, depends on the amount of talking I have done. If I’ve done a lot of talking, then something’s wrong: it means I’ve tried to cover up with words the fact that I am not sure what I want in a particular scene.”

p There’s a lot of truth in these words. Indeed, it is because Tovstonogov displays such inspired vitality at rehearsals and in all his everyday work, is so constructive in the complex business of staging a play - in giving real help to the actors and collaborating with the author, designer and composer - that this discourse on the job of the stagedirector is so interesting and useful. His views are convincing because they are so well substantiated, backed up with practical examples drawn freely from his vast experience in the theatre. They are all the more valuable in that Tovstonogov does not try to foist his opinions 6 upon the reader but, on the contrary, avoids the slightest note of superiority and dogmatism, and plays down his own ability and experience.

p It is this humility, sincerity with himself and others, coupled with a high sense of professional responsibility that makes Tovstonogov’s art so vital and startlingly original, that makes him stand head and shoulders above the many cock-sure mediocrities.

p Paradoxical as it may seem, it is because he constantly casts doubt on the value of his experience, that we feel such tremendous respect for him and confidence in the correctness of his opinions.

p One chapter of this book is entitled “Stage Direction Is a Profession” and is a plea for professionalism all the way. Tovstonogov examines almost every aspect of the director’s work in his book, and stresses throughout the director’s professional duty.

p Tovstonogov makes no attempt to dazzle the reader with brilliant literary tricks, paradoxes and clever twists of style. He writes in a straightforward, honest manner of the hard effort that goes into producing a play, getting what he wants from the actors, and achieving a high level of dramatic art.

p Tovstonogov is an extremely versatile director. He has tried his hand at all kinds of themes, genres and styles. Yet his productions all have one thing in common: they all deal with man as a member of society, are all in a major key, and all have a strong note of conviction running through them, the conviction that man is essentially good and strong, and that he is capable of reorganising life and making it good too.

p This optimistic theme was naturally strongest in such heroic plays as The Death of the Squadron, The Optimistic Tragedy, and the story of Julius Fucik.

p The Leningrad Pushkin Theatre production of The Optimistic Tragedy, for which Tovstonogov was awarded a Lenin Prize, was one of the greatest triumphs of the Soviet theatre. It was a triumph on every count. A. Bosulayev’s magnificent sets created the impression of a road of battles and glory running into the distance through boundless expanses. Kara Karayev’s original music was full of emotion and lyricism. The acting was first-class: O. Lebzak brought tremendous moral purity and humanity to the role of the Woman-Commissar, Y. Tulubeyev’s Vozhak, the anarchist leader, had quite extraordinary evil force, and A. Sokolov as Siply was mercilessly acute.

p But the main thing was the way all these individual ingredients were blended, so that instead of clashing with one another they merged to form a single monumental whole. They were welded together by the producer, who perceived in Vishnevsky’s play the sharp realism of the 7 characters, the poetic convention of the framework and the deep, lyrical undercurrents expressed by the music.

p Tovstonogov managed to give the authentic acting and the designer’s poetic rendering of nature a truly epic sweep, so that the production, harmonious and uplifting, was in fact an optimistic tragedy.

p For those who saw the production, the scene of the sailors’ farewell ball where the terrible pain of parting was presented so poignantly or the episodes where the regiment is seen leaving for the front, are quite unforgettable. As the severe, majestic outlines of Leningrad’s buildings float slowly past and away, and the endless road unfolds, leading into the distance, the spellbound audience are irresistibly drawn into the moving epic being enacted on the stage.

p Tovstonogov visualised The Optimistic Tragedy as the strands of individual destinies interwoven perfectly naturally with the vast canvas of history.

p A similar effect was achieved in Tovstonogov’s production of Sholokhov’s Virgin Soil Upturned, where revolutionary ardour was blended with true humanity, mingled with lyricism. P. Luspekayev in the role of Nagulny combined child-like naivety and simplicity, authentic and life-like to the last detail, with tremendous integrity and devotion to noble ideas that gave him almost superhuman stature. T. Doronina as Lushka and Y. Lcbedev as old Shchukar were tremendously human. The whole production represented a superb synthesis of the epic and the lyrical, the social and the human.

p However, Tovstonogov’s repertoire includes other, very different productions, far removed from the heroic. In these too, he is to be found constantly searching for features that correspond to his convictions, his faith in life, and his constant desire to present it in a major key, in all its beauty and power.

p Many of Tovstonogov’s productions at the Gorky Theatre in Leningrad begin with a short prologue, added to the original play by the producer as a “tuning-fork” for what follows.

p Thus When the Acacias Bloom begins with two smart, witty “masters of ceremonies” introducing the actors, establishing contact with the audience. The gay, festive “parade” serves to prepare us for a light-hearted, playful show.

p While in the prologue to When the Acacias Bloom the stage lights are full on, for Sixth Floor they are all out but for a dim light in the gloomy corridor of Madame Marais’ boarding house. Bertha, one of the tenants, gropes her way around, with tousled head and bleary eyes, only half awake. The silhouettes of people stretching are visible through the frosted glass of one of the doors, and a young woman trots blithely past on her high-heels, proudly bearing a chamber pot.

8

p Instead of being given a foretaste of a theatrical “occasion” we have an invitation to take a look at a slice of unadorned everyday life.

p The Fox and the Grapes opens to the striking of a gong, at which the actors slowly make their way up the steps from the orchestra pit onto the practically empty stage. They walk seriously with fierce concentration as if mounting a rostrum to deliver a speech, to explain, argue and convince. We realise that we are about to witness a fierce battle of ideas, a philosophic debate, that the loud stroke of the gong, the concentration of the actors and the meticulous precision with which they take up their places on the stage are an invitation to listen carefully and seriously, and follow closely the meaning of what is about to begin.

p Before The Idiot, the title page of Dostoyevsky’s novel, yellow with age, printed in the old-fashioned script, is projected onto a small screen. One can almost sense the enchanting smell of old books in the theatre. And before every scene a new page is opened, a new page of the old book with the yellowed edges, taking the audience back to the time when Dostoycvsky wrote his impassioned work.

p Tovstonogov manages to find his own formula for every play, for every author, his own special “rules of play” as he calls it.

p Why did Tovstonogov decide on a light-hearted, “theatrical” method for N. Vinnikov’s When the Acacias Bloom? The point is that in this play with its light humour, and lyrical, youthful note, many of the situations are somewhat artificial and the characters superficial, so that care over psychological authenticity and “depth” would be out of place. Tovstonogov adopts a tongue-in-cheek approach to some of the more naive points in the action, characters and dialogue, though perfectly good-naturedly, without any intention of getting at the author. He prefers plain fun, or light-hearted hints at something more profound to seriously presenting a storm in a tea cup.

p Yet, despite his ironic attitude to the characters, Tovstonogov is charmed by their youth, by their youthful sincerity and vigour.

p The producer’s dual attitude is embodied in the two “masters of ceremonies”, who run an original commentary on the action. One of them is a man, a wise, dispassionate and slightly mocking observer, the other is an expansive woman, who goes into rhapsodies over the characters of the play, unable to remain uninvolved.

p The light-hearted, “theatrical” acting is perfectly suited to the play. The heroes are students, and in every room of their hostel there is laughter, chattering, friendly mystification and romping. Indeed the whole production is one delightful, scintillating, youthful romp, where everything seems to occur spontaneously, in an improvised manner, out of excessive exuberance, effervescence and imagination. It throbs with 9 the creative pulse of youth, sometimes humorously, sometimes magically turning the world upside down, making a holiday of a working day and turning the mundane into something quite extraordinary.

p We are taken for a ride by Tovstonogov, designer S. Mandel and the whole cast, but what a delightful ride it is, and far from being offended we are quite enchanted, especially as this apparently casual romp has great theatrical precision, optimism and elegance.

p Tovstonogov did not merely hit on just the right form for the play: he injected added irony and humour into it. I would even go so far as to say that, paradoxical as it may seem, his light-hearted approach is what enables us to take it seriously, as a serious work of art. Indeed, I can’t help feeling that if it had been produced in all seriousness, then we, the audience, would as likely as not have adopted a tongue- incheck approach to the production.

p Tovstonogov finds a completely different answer for A. Gehry’s Sixth Floor. Both he and the designer, V. Stepanov, went for all-out realism. Tovstonogov’s aim was to show that self-sacrifice and the purifying dream of happiness are to be found in the most mundane circumstances among the most ordinary people. Hence the way he begins by showing the unvarnished prose of life with all its incongruities, before going on to gradually reveal its hidden beauty.

p All the sordid aspects and routine of everyday existence, both amusing and tragic, are represented here: the drab, peeling walls, the squeaking doors badly in need of oiling, and even the long loud flushing of the toilet, whither the tenants race one another of a morning.

p Why is it that all the perfectly ordinary details of this joyless existence are so interesting, why is it that taken together they make real art, and delight us as real theatre (though of a very different kind from When the Acacias Bloom)?

p Simply because it is all done so boldly and slickly according to the producer’s well-defined intentions.

p Tovstonogov brings all the events and conflicts in the play, and all the characters’ feelings to boiling point, so that they simmer with passion, and the vigorous acting of many of the cast is just right to give the irrepressible joie de vivre of the simple French folk the play is about.

p Daylight never penetrates the sixth floor, the same old light as was there in the prologue glows feebly, yet by the end of the first act the stage seems brighter, as if there were sunshine there after all. For we have found it in the characters’ hearts.

p Tovstonogov manages to overcome the sentimentality and shallowness of Gehry’s play by intensifying all conflicts and emotions to the utmost, adding salt and dimension. If he brought an added irony to 10 Vinnikov’s play, here he brings a passionate faith in the essential beauty and nobility of man that was lacking in the original.

p A great contrast is provided by Tovstonogov’s production of Guilherme Figueiredo’s The Fox and the Grapes, where attention to detail is completely abandoned for a laconic statement of the essentials. Here the aim was to present the general idea and Tovstonogov went about it himself, dispensing with the services of a designer, producing an extremely simple decor—one might even say “ascetic”—consisting of white flagstones and doric columns, against a background of the azure sky of Greece, with the temple of Delphi in sharply reduced perspective in the distance. The result is a remarkable elevated atmosphere-almost rarified-ideal for thought, and high, noble ideas.

p The acting too is reduced to essentials, and there is nothing superfluous in gestures or delivery, just intense concentration on the sense of the scene, dialogue or monologue in progress.

p Tovstonogov’s production of Nicolai’s Signer Mario Is Writing a Comedy adds new dimension to a rather slight theme by bringing out the clash between the world that is the product of Signer Mario’s imagination and the middle-class world of his family life.

p Signor Mario’s play is about noble and base feelings, purity and wickedness, hope and justice, and so contrasts with the world he actually lives in that it is as though two different plays are in progress at the same time. Tovstonogov treats the whole like an intricate piece of music in which various themes and refrains, uniting whole scenes and dialogues, come and go alternately either harmonising or clashing.

p Signor Mario (played by Kopelyan) and the creatures of his fancy life move and speak as if obeying an invisible conductor’s baton in the harmonious world of the imagination. Tragedy, passion and struggle are all dimly perceived in an as yet hazy plot, in a vague aura of magic that shrouds the nascent work. Everything is perfectly real yet at the same time has an almost fairy-tale quality about it, and the simplest actions seem remarkable in the beautiful and incomprehensible miracle of their birth in the calm joy of Signor Mario’s profound meditation. His characters, and he himself, seem to act in slow motion in a special clear atmosphere purified by the breath of humane thought. They act slowly and carefully as if weighing up the truth and correctness of their words and actions as they go along.

p It is as though the producer has bewitched his actors. They are totally obedient to his will, following and obeying an inner melody which can be sensed but not heard, almost like sleepwalkers. One is reminded of the Pied Piper of Hamlin.

p But this sweet music is interrupted by the cacophonic blasts of the middle-class world in which Signor Mario lives. His quarrelsome 11 vociferous wife, his unruly, boorish son, and his dull, sentimental daughter arc the eccentric philistine trio that constantly distract him from his creative meditations. When they start their noisy chatter, shouting and gesticulating, it is as if the room has been invaded by swarms of buzzing flies that cannot be warded off no matter how hard you try to slap them down. Signor Mario blocks his ears, shuts his eyes and tries to answer, to make them see reason, to calm them down. Then suddenly an idea flashes through his mind, some image of his future play, and he no longer heeds them. They carry on waving their arms about furiously, but Signor Mario, and we the audience with him, are no longer listening, and their mouths form soundless words. The audience rarely fails to applaud this clever device for showing the retreat of vulgar philistinism before the attack of creativeness.

p However, in his search for bold expressive devices Tovstonogov never loses sight of the inner life and psychology of the characters. His watchword in everything he does is Stanislavsky’s formula “the life of the human spirit on the stage”. His constant urge to put across a subtle and accurate psychological image of the characters of a play was very much in evidence in his production of A. Volodin’s Five Evenings.

p In this production we find perfect authenticity in every minor detail of behaviour coupled with tremendous dramatic intensity.

p The orchestra pit is covered to form an apron stage. A moving platform comes forward out of the darkness bearing a minimum of modest furniture such as one finds in the most modest home. Everything is brought as close as possible to the audience, enabling the most subtle psychological details to be observed. Although every minor detail is brought out, one never feels the hand of the producer, for everything seems “dissolved” in the actors themselves and the director merely “lights them up”, helping to reveal the wealth of their inner livesfocussing the audience’s attention on what he wants them to watch at a particular moment.

p Tovstonogov is equally attentive to psychological detail in tackling a heroic drama like Korneichuk’s The Death of the Squadron. Here he presents the triumphant force of the revolutionary masses and the certain doom of the Whiteguard forces not only, and indeed not so much, in striking epic crowd scenes, as in subtle psychological details in the characters’ behaviour and relationships. The profound social theme is refracted through the prism of the characters’ thoughts, views and feelings, treated with remarkable insight.

p Y. Kopelyan is superb in the role of Baltiets. Although a small part, he manages to give it the patience bordering on heroism, the proud unbending will and complete conviction that epitomise the Communist, with no doubt as to the final triumph of his just cause.

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p Lebedev plays Kobza the kulak, cruel, sly and boorish, and full of irony in his relation with other people, and especially his masters and the officer caste. He makes no effort to hide his contempt, but rather takes a pleasure in showing it wherever possible. On the other hand he is devious and two-faced with Gaidai and the rank-and-file sailors, trying to assure them of his support for the cause he realises will triumph/ Thus the social aspects of the play are presented from within rather than from without, through the characters’ psychological make-up.

p Acting in full accordance with the producer’s wishes, P. Luspckayev in the role of the miner Gaidai does not so much insist on the anarchist illusions as on the tragedy of a man afflicted by doubt and suspicion, and lack of faith in the revolutionary awareness of the masses. His political error is presented with great penetration as an example of the way doubt in the people can corrode the spirit of an essentially brave and honest man and lead him to isolation and loneliness, and political blindness.

p Tovstonogov’s insistence on getting an actor fully exploit the psychological potentialities of a role, accounts for the very fine performance usually achieved under his guidance.

p Y. Tolubeyev gave one of his finest performances in Tovstonogov’s production of The Optimistic Tragedy, for which he was awarded a Lenin Prize. Tolubeyev’s Vozhak combined generalised features with certain accurately chosen individual qualities, and the result was a fine plastic, sculptural unity. He gave the role great human and philosophical dimension, making it an embodiment of the evil force of hatred for mankind, doomed thanks to the contempt and anger of the • sane majority.

p Tovstonogov and K. Lavrov found a very interesting psychological approach to the role of Sergei in Arbuzov’s Irkutsk Story. In many productions of this play Sergei is a static, ideal hero, a paradigm of virtue. Valya and Victor change, but Sergei remains infallible, irreproachable. Tovstonogov and Lavrov got away from this static approach and gave us a Sergei whose character develops during the play. Sergei’s love for Valya transforms him as well as her. At the beginning of the play he is honest and pure, but somewhat hard-hearted and turned in on himself, displaying youthful directness. He gradually changes to become more tolerant, more subtle and less emotionally constrained. It is no longer a question of Sergei magnanimously giving Valya the key to his spiritual treasure-house. In the course of their relationship he too is gradually enriched by her; she brings joy and spiritual generosity into his life. Thus the role acquired a new freshness, inner dynamism and truth.

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p It was under Tovstonogov’s guidance that Smoktunovsky’s remarkable talent flourished to the full. His performance as Prince Myshkin in the stage adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot made theatre history. This production brought to the stage a whole world of evil and injustice, full of tragedy and suffering, and there in the middle of it all stood a man with a gentle, hesitant, slightly puzzled smile and clear thoughtful eyes making slight, helpless gestures with his fine, sensitive hands.

p Smoktunovsky didn’t “do” anything, he didn’t “act” but merely looked tenderly, searchingly into his partners’ eyes, listening intently and slightly anxiously to what they were saying, with a caressing, almost guilty smile on his lips, yet it was startingly, shatteringly moving to watch. Nothing tragic had happened, nothing out of the ordinary even. He had done no more than walk slowly across the stage, talk quietly, smile, or stand, lost in thought. But it produced an effect of such amazing purity and goodness that you could not help loving him and suffering at the presentiment that cruel life might extinguish this pure flame of humanity.

p Prince Myshkin comes slowly forward to the front of the stage and stands for a moment deep in thought, glances nervously about him. For a second a shadow of anxiety clouds his face, then vanishes, and he walks back upstage as slowly as before. What’s the explanation for the burst of applause from the audience, not at a lively exchange, a passionate monologue or a magnificent set, but at a slow walk, a second of meditation, a fleeting glance?

p What was so extraordinary was the inner light that glowed in Smoktunovsky’s Myshkin, the tenderness that showed in his pale face, that coloured every word, every movement. His gestures might be awkward and limp, somewhat feeble, but there was such amazing grace in this awkwardness, just as in the whole of his outwardly slow, monotonous, almost impaired movement on the stage there was a captivating rhythm.

p Tovstonogov has gathered together a splendid troup of actors, all of them highly individual talents, yet at the same time speaking the same language when it comes to the essentials of their art. There is latiana Doronina with her verve and great feminine charm, Ludmila Makarova who is outstanding in lyrical and light, comic roles, the fine character actress Zinaida Sharko, with her vigorous, virile talent, Yefim Kopelyan, Yevgeny Lebedev, with his rare gift for “metamorphosis”, the delicate, sensitive Nikolai Korn, the strong, vivacious Pavel Luspekayev, the highly imaginative Sergei Yurski, and the original talent of Vladislav Strzhelchik, Kirill Lavrov, Vladimir Kuznetsov and many others.

p Tovstonogov is convinced that the theatre offers practically unlimited scope for expression and this accounts for the way he is constantly ex- 14 perimenting with new devices and techniques. This is perhaps best illustrated by his bold experimental production of The Defiant Ones, based on a film-script by N. E. Douglas and H. J. Smith.

p There are many problems involved in producing a stage version of a film, but Tovstonogov succeeded because he made no attempt to vie with the cinema, as regards authenticity and pace, but instead concentrated on the characters themselves and their inner lives.

p V. Stepanov’s sets were rather stylised making use of highly expressive imagery, but the behaviour of the characters who talk quietly from the front of the stage in close proximity to the audience is perfectly natural and realistic in every detail.

p Tovstonogov’s production served to prove that the theatre is a suitable medium for many things that we had hitherto thought of as exclusively reserved for the cinema. Our interest was sustained during long silences, when two characters sat passing a cigarette back and forth between them, or eating and drinking together without a word, for the simple reason that it was all part of a genuine expression of complex human relationships.

p The subject-the way two men, a white man and a negro, forget their mutual hatred in their common misfortune, and the best human feelings gradually triumph in their hearts-is treated in a virile, adult manner without a trace of sentimentality. Kopelyan plays the white man Jackson as possessed of a cynical, cruel, unreasonable sense of superiority, and boundless egoism. He makes no attempt to tone down the role with hints that this man may after all be capable of nobility of soul, and this serves to make the final denouement all the more convincing.

p The production abounds in psychological “discoveries”. In the fight scene, for example, the sad, sorrowful eyes of the Negro Gallen (played by Pavel Luspekayev) are unforgettable, as he goes to hit Jackson not because he wants to but because he has to.

p With his penchant for deep, bold, and sometimes even paradoxical psychological strokes, Tovstonogov has struck some very interesting new notes in his productions of the classics. He never treats the classics as museum pieces, attempting to “restore” them or simply touch them up, but manages to find in them something totally new and unexpected.

p His production of Griboyedov’s Woe from Wit was highly controversial, but there is no denying that his treatment of the events of this immortal play is so absorbing, so psychologically justified and convincing that one is prepared to forget everything one knows about it and enjoy it as a totally new experience. It is exhilarating and fresh as if it had just come straight from the author’s pen, with all the surprising novelty of a true work of art. Tatiana Doronina as Sophia, 15 Kirill Lavrov as Molchalin and Sergei Yursky as Chatsky give wholly original performances, based on an inspired understanding of the director’s brilliant, unique interpretation.

p In Maxim Gorky’s The Barbarians Tovstonogov synthesises the almost tragic dynamism of the characters and their behaviour with the slow, lazy pace of events. The monstrous contradictions, the comic and tragic realities of life in tsarist Russia, are worked up to a high pitch of tragicomedy. The ridiculous lurks in the tragic, while one has only to scratch the surface of the tragic to find the ridiculous.

p The characters are at once perfectly authentic and believable and rather fantastic in their twisted psychology. Everything about their lives is stained with pettiness and triviality. Even the most violent passions are really of the most trifling nature, as uninspiring as the characters themselves-Monakhov, that provincial Mephistopheles, played by Lebedev; Tsiganov, the empty, cynical descendant of the “superfluous man” (Strzhelchik), and the pathetic petty tyrant Redozubov (Politseimako).

p Luspekayev’s performance in the difficult role of Cherkun was likewise based on the theme of an ideological impasse, the futility of a life of unbridled egoism.

p Luspekayev plays a man who is on the whole a very attractive character, intelligent, strong-willed and unable to accept weakness and falsehood without protest. He is potentially a hero, but, alas, his energy, intelligence, will and honesty are all wasted for the simple reason that he doesn’t know what to do with them, where he is going. He is ideologically paralysed, and all his fine qualities turn sour and instead of enriching life serve only to embitter and corrode. All his energies are directed towards asserting himself and lead to cruelty and philistinism. In the long run all his efforts are either aggressive or futile.

p Strzhelchik gives an equally original interpretation of the role of Tsiganov. Here we have the sorry, pitiful successor to the long line of “superfluous men”, combining features of Pechorin, Yevgeny Onegin and Childe Harold, the sad consummation of their plight, in whom romanticism has given way to cynicism and Pechorin’s fatalism to total scepticism and moral bankruptcy.

p The whole production has a highly charged emotional atmosphere and throbs with tension. Yelena Popova’s Anna is highly strung and oversensitive to injury, while Katya (Zinaida Sharko) is as sharp as nails with her stinging, impassioned protest.

p Nadezda Monakhova is usually played as a passive character, waiting patiently for the great love her heart yearns for to dawn. Here another surprise was in store for us, for Tatyana Doronina plays her as a passionate, frankly demanding woman, who expects beauty, heroism 16 and passion from life. When we are told that she is “a dangerous woman”, we understand this to refer not so much to her womanly charms as to her strong, uncompromising and rebellious nature, and her contempt for the vulgarity of the life she sees around her.

p Her clear blue eyes are not languid but bright, enquiring and trustful, and her great dignity of bearing and outward calm conceal a passionate soul.

p One of Tovstonogov’s greatest triumphs was his production of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. He interprets the play as a drama of fine, sensitive, intelligent people, who move like planets, each in his own orbit, as though lacking the energy to help one another escape the impasse of their lives. Throughout one senses the question being asked: Where does the borderline come between delicacy, high-principled “non-interference” in other people’s lives, and self-centredness?

p Many of the monologues are treated as painful confessions, representing a plea for help, while the other characters move away and try not to listen but concentrate on themselves. This subtly orchestrated production is full of merciless criticism of inactivity as being really no more than apathy, thanks to which the characters allow one another to lose themselves and enable the arch-enemy, philistinism, to triumph.

p A documentary film, Dress Rehearsal, was made of the way rehearsals on this production were carried out. We see all the preparations for the dress rehearsal, the actors making up, the wardrobe mistress bringing round the costumes, the scenery being put up, and finally the three bells announcing the beginning of the performance. Then we are shown the birth of the production, so to speak: the first discussion round the table, the first rehearsals of separate scenes, the first runthrough. We are given the opportunity to watch the production in the making. The film brings us the atmosphere of life in a fine theatre, a serious, highly intellectual atmosphere. This is an extremely important point. Even in those painful moments of search for the best approach, and in moments of failure and frustration, or in those nervous moments before the curtain rises, the cast never lose control of themselves. They keep their sense of responsibility, their professional tact and restraint at all times and in all things-in their behaviour, in working things out, in their attitude to their partner, and last but not least in their humour.

p The film conveys a feeling of intense creative activity, concentration, and profound, inquiring thought. What we are observing is the process of comprehending life, and we are reminded of a laboratory where the complex processes of human behaviour and relationships are studied under the microscope and experimented with, where ideas are prepared, and the laws governing those unexpected “reactions” which are what 17 makes the theatre so irresistibly convincing and fresh. Yet there is nothing unnaturally ponderous and overserious about the film’s approach. The scriptwriter, director and cameraman have not worked in grim earnest with furrowed brow, but have taken a delight in capturing all the fun and humour they could spot. After all, everything is equally important in the theatre-grasping the author’s ideas and style, trying on costumes, searching for a suitable frame for Baron Tuzenbach’s spectacles, and the vigilance of the prompter safeguarding the integrity of every Chekhovian comma.

p Naturally, Tovstonogov is the central figure in the film. All the threads of the narrative lead to him, for he is the creator, inspirer and organiser of the whole process we are watching. We may have seen Tovstonogov’s productions on the stage. Here we are given a chance to see how he goes about his work. We know him as a strong-willed, firm man who has built up one of the finest theatre companies in the country. But watching him at work, we are struck not by a show of great authority and strong, despotic will, but above all by his boundless patience and tact. He docs not order people around and shout at them, but rather coaxes them, talks things over patiently, putting his ideas over as suggestions and trying to persuade them to agree with what he considers best. He lives through every moment of the performance from where he sits. As the actor recites a monologue, he sits completely absorbed in it, his lips moving, following every word, and his face assuming all sorts of different expressions as if he is testing for himself every note, every phrase of the monologue. He is completely wrapped up in it, concentrating fiercely, passionately, and yet mentally, creatively alert. One seems to grasp the special chacrri of his personality —his conviction, the way he gives himself heart and soul to his work, arid lastly his cultivation, which may well be what gives his theatre its special style.

p I feel this remarkable film is extremely interesting and useful to many people-to both theatre lovers and actors, novices and veterans alike. For it arouses interest in, and respect for, the theatre and all those who work in it, and provides a graphic illustration of what we call real theatrical art, Theatre with a capital T.

p One could go on and on describing and analysing Tovstonogov’s numerous other productions-Stein’s The Ocean, Volodin’s My Elder Sister and many, many others. Every one of them :has its triumphs, its defects, and its unique features which set it apart, yet they all have something in common, and that is the modern idiom of intelligent, vital theatre.

p Tovstonogov has a way of expressing the most exciting ideas in the special language of the theatre. His productions have a convincing 18 power of dynamism and struggle, and reveal well the dynamics of actions and events, the power that brings life and movement to the theatre.

p One never expects any of the antiquated theatrical devices from the actors of the Gorky Theatre-such as declamation, exaggerated character-acting, and slick, polished but glib recitation. Tovstonogov has made a real team of them, encouraged them to develop an ability for profound psychological penetration, without which serious modern theatre is, in my opinion, unthinkable. Moreover, it is not a question of making curious “excursions” into the labyrinths of the mind and wallowing in a psychologist’s paradise: both producer and actors investigate the mind in order to present big, important ideas more thoroughly and convincingly.

p The most interesting thing about Tovstonogov’s art is his talent for combining range and scope in a production with tremendous attention to minute psychological details in the characters. His is thus a very special kind of theatre, where the actors’ aesthetic convictions and approach to their work are unified.

p In every production at the Gorky Theatre one feels the producer’s will guiding the performance firmly and insistently in a particular direction.

p The producer’s will has nothing to do with despotism. When sensibly and correctly exerted, far from restricting or hindering, it unites the creative efforts of everyone participating in the production into a firm artistic whole.

p By his treatment of a particular play, Tovstonogov is expressing his own attitude to life. His lively creative thought, his attitude to the dramatist and the play in question, testify to his active approach to life. The clarity and incisiveness of his scenic solutions reflect the clear-cut, positive nature of his views and convictions.

p Tovstonogov’s creative will helps him express the outlook of a modern Soviet artist in the theatre, the firm belief that life and man are essentially good, that they can, must and will be good. While adopting a different approach and different methods in each new play he stages, his message remains basically the same bold, life-asserting theme.

p One chapter in this book ends: “I am simply describing how I work, and saying what I think about our profession.”

p I am convinced that many people will find his description both interesting and useful.

B. Lvov-Anokhm