Yevgeny Vakhtangov

A Critical Portrait

Andrei Malaev-Babel

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136979545
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Médias et arts de la scène
• Categoría: Interprétation et audition

Yevgeny Vakhtangov was a pioneering theatre artist who married Stanislavski's demands for inner truth with a singular imaginative vision. Directly and indirectly, he is responsible for the making of our contemporary theatre: that is Andrei Malaev-Babel's argument in this, the first English-language monograph to consider Vakhtangov's life and work as actor and director, teacher and theoretician.

Ranging from Moscow to Israel, from Fantastic Realism to Vakhtangov's futuristic projection, the theatre of the 'Eternal Mask', Yevgeny Vakhtangov: A Critical Portrait:

• considers his input as one of the original teachers of Stanislavsky's system, and the complex relationship shared by the two men;
• reflects on his directorship of the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre and the Habima (which was later to become Israel's National Theatre) as well as the Vakhtangov Studio, the institution he established;
• examines in detail his three final directorial masterpieces, Erick XIV, The Dybbuk and Princess Turandot.

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Lavishly illustrated and elegantly conceived, Yevgeny Vakhtangov represents the ideal companion to Malaev-Babel's Vakhtangov Sourcebook (2011). Together, these important critical interventions reveal Vakhtangov's true stature as one of the most significant representatives of the Russian theatrical avant-garde.

Part I
Vakhtangov’s theatrical youth

1
The city of Vladikavkaz

Fathers and sons

When trying to fathom the roots of some of his younger contemporaries’ art—the art that seemed to have distorted the world— Konstantin Stanislavsky wrote:

I think that organically I can no longer understand much in the aspirations of present-day-youth. One must have courage to admit this. […]

We spent our youth in a Russia that was peaceful; in which there was plenty for few. The present generation has grown up in the midst of war, hunger, world upheavals, transitional era, mutual misunderstanding and hate. […] The new generation almost does not know the joy that we knew, it seeks and creates joy in new environments, and tries to make up for those years of youth that it has lost.

(Stanislavsky 1953: 464–65)

Yevgeny Vakhtangov’s childhood and youth fell in the period of Russian history when the dividing line of the revolution was sensed in every aspect of society’s life. Vakhtangov himself will speak of this fateful line in one of his articles:

The red line of the Revolution divided the world into the “old” and the “new.” There is no corner of human life through which this line has not passed, and there is no person who has not felt it in one way or another.

(Sourcebook 2011: 165)

Needless to say, the dividing line of the revolution did not bypass a Russian family, creating a dramatic gap between “fathers and sons.” Vakhtangov’s family was not an exception. Vakhtangov belonged to the generation of the theatre artists born in a turbulent time when art, theatre, was no longer considered the domain of wealthy connoisseurs. The dividing line of the revolution made art a powerful weapon in a struggle between the new and the old. At that time, art almost exclusively became a domain of the new progressive middle class, or rather of a “social stratum,” known as the Russian intelligentsia.

Yevgeny Bogrationovich Vakhtangov was born on February 13, 1883, in the southern Russian City of Vladikavkaz¹ into the family of wealthy Armenian tobacco manufacturer Bograt (Bogration)²

Vakhtangov. Bograt came into his tobacco factory and his fortune through his marriage to Yevgeny’s mother Olga (née Lebedeva). Vakhtangov’s biographers disagree on the atmosphere of Vakhtangov’s childhood. One thing is certain—Bograt Vakhtangov was a tyrannical person, accustomed to being the master, both in his business and in his home. Bograt’s harsh treatment of his own father Sarkis, Yevgeny’s grandfather, led to the proud old man’s suicide— this tragic childhood memory must have left a deep imprint on Vakhtangov. A house painter, proud of his background and of his Armenian heritage, Sarkis could not accept his son’s rusification—the price of doing serious business in the Russian empire.

In his childhood and youth, Vakhtangov seemed to be more sympathetic with his father’s factory workers than he was with his father’s business. He became a member of Arzamas—a secret circle, named after the progressive Russian author Maxim Gorky. (The tsarist government sentenced Gorky to exile in the southern city of Arzamas.) Members of the circle gathered at a private home to further their social, political and philosophical education. Together they read and discussed the works of Gorky, Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Marx and Lenin.

Much to his father’s disappointment, Yevgeny showed no interest in learning to manage the family tobacco factory, and dedicated all his time free from studies to amateur theatricals. Bograt disapproved of his son’s theatrical aspirations; in fact, he did not accept them until after Vakhtangov won his acclaim as the famed Moscow Art Theatre’s director and actor.

Some of Vakhtangov’s biographers (Smirnov-Nesvistsky 1987: 13) insist that there is no evidence that Bograt’s actual treatment of Yevgeny was cruel (see Figure 1.1). Despite the old man’s frequent threats and open disapproval, the young Vakhtangov, this Prince Royal, still enjoyed freedom and the means to do what he wanted. Trying to avoid angering his father, however, he undertook some of his theatre projects in secret (or under an assumed name).

Vakhtangov’s literary talents became apparent rather early. Besides poetry and articles written for his high school newspaper, he wrote several autobiographical sketches. Two such sketches, written by a 19-year-old Yevgeny, give us insight into the Vakhtangov family atmosphere. They describe an unalterable routine of family life, where every activity, every relationship and even every conflict are reenacted with ritualistic precision.

One of Vakhtangov’s sketches describes a family gathered for a traditional noontime coffee. In the sketch, the high school student Yasha (recognizably Vakhtangov) revolts against the senseless and onerous gathering. Even this revolt, however, appears to be routine and predetermined. Vakhtangov-the-author stresses that all the participants in the family scene, including his rebellious self, play permanently established roles.

Characters’ behavior, as described by Vakhtangov, appears programmed—every human impulse steeped in the forever routine. Members of the family seem to be deprived of free will—wound-up mechanical toys that think and feel:

In the next instant, Yasha’s sister will appear from the next room, wearing her long loose housecoat. Silently, she will sit at the table … Having sat there for awhile, she will get up, and then bring a book. She is nearsighted, and she holds the book close to her eyes, and never hunches.

Yasha waits for his other sister, Nina, to come in. He waits angrily, while biting his cigarette holder.

“Let her come ahead of me, so that not to disrupt the routine domestic harmony, created by our family”—he thinks, while holding himself to his chair.

(Ivanov 2011 vol. I: 36)

In another sketch, we encounter a father delivering “a daily talk” to his son. The father, recognizably Bograt, reproaches Yevgeny for avoiding his duties as an heir. He accuses his son of acting a role. In the father’s view, Yevgeny is only preaching “non-exploitation,” and

Figure 1.1 Vakhtangov’s family, 1895. Vakhtangov standing next to his father Bograt, second from the left. Courtesy of Vakhtangov Theatre Museum.

neglecting to help the factory workers in practice, while eating their bread. Once again, the theme of the social role-acting appears in the sketch:

Yasha’s father pretends that he is reading a lecture on worldly wisdom in front of an entire audience of youth, who are lost, and whose life forces are going to waste.

(Ivanov 2011 vol. I: 37)

Vakhtangov’s sketches give us more than a glimpse into his youth. They provide an understanding of the origins of Vakhtangov’s model of theatre, and his acting methods. At the essence of Vakhtangov’s observations of life, there lies a perception that people are seldom free to fully express their true selves in their daily life. Instead, they hide behind social masks (progressive or regressive) and engage in senseless social rituals. Their true, essential life remains a secret, almost entirely buried behind daily disguises. Already at the age of 19, Vakhtangov was capable of perceiving the deathly, mechanical essence of human routines. He felt the stagnant, constricting nature of “social masks” worn by everyone.

Vakhtangov’s father remains alone at the end of the sketch—his son just made his theatrical exit. “The audience” is gone, and the mask of the “educator of youth” is shed. Bograt becomes his real self—he withdraws into his bedroom to nonchalantly read his Stock Exchange Journal; he thinks his sacred, deep thoughts about his son. A completely different, real man looks out from behind the mask.

Vakhtangov’s writings of the period reveal the many-layered, multifaceted personality of the author. The theme of social protest appears next to insightful and witty psychological observations. Elegant humor and irony, including self-irony, is juxtaposed against the theme of complicity with the sufferings of those less fortunate. Dreams of a great destination, of rising above the earth, are found alongside the sense of utter despair, of the futility of human existence.

At this youthful stage of his development, Vakhtangov can not foresee the deathly horror in the mundane—the characteristic tendency of some Russian authors, such as Pushkin, Gogol and especially Dostoyevsky. Instead he describes the tedium of the pointless daily routine; in that, he is closer to Chekhov’s perception. As late as 1910, having watched rehearsals for Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov at the Moscow Art Theatre, Vakhtangov wrote in his diary:

There is a reality of Dostoyevsky, and then there is a reality of Chekhov, for example—yet the same life served as a source [for both of these realities]. Everything I saw on the stage from Brothers Karamazov, is still further removed from the life I understand than what Chekhov gave us.

(Ivanov 2011 vol. I: 205)

Even in the Dostoyevskian soul, “wrecked by today’s time and conditions,” “sunk into baseness and perversion,” Vakhtangov longs to see the “bright spots,” the inner “tenderness” (Ivanov 2011, vol. I: 205). Romantic perception of the earthly life as essentially tragic, and yearning for the creative realm, are present in Vakhtangov’s youthful poetry. Earthly existence, as perceived by the young Vakhtangov, may be futile, cruel. However, a man is capable of shedding his vulgar earthly skin in the higher spheres of creativity:

To kick away the earthly sphere, to step into the new world, to embrace the mysterious beauty.

Cursed be the flowers, cursed be the sun, cursed be the fruits, cursed be the ice.

To embrace beauty—the mysterious beauty that is beautiful with its mystery.

To plunge my thought into the creative sea. To adorn the Thought’s regal head with the immortal crown; to create, and, having created—to fall down at the feet of your creation. To soar in the realm of free thought, to glide among the stars, to caress the particles of light. To tear out my heart, to squeeze out my brain …

The thought of my soul! My life belongs to you. Take it and live. Extinguish the earthly hell with your mighty hand.

(Ivanov 2011 vol. I: 83)

Vakhtangov’s literary experiments reveal a powerful inner life, with a mind and heart capable of reconciling seemingly opposing phenomena. Polarities, such as life and death, the singular and the global, the comical and the tragic, the heroic and the mundane, were embraced by Vakhtangov as opposite parts of one entire whole. As an example, a literary portrait of a high school Greek teacher betrays Vakhtangov’s ability to perceive tragedy behind the pathetic mask. At the same time, this portrait is clearly written by a man with a sensitive heart, capable of complicity.

The influence of the Russian literary tradition, with its compassion toward “the little man,” is evident in the sketch. The Greek teacher, who is perpetually disobeyed, mocked and humiliated by his students, because of his meekness, resembles the low clerk Bashmachkin—the main character of Gogol’s tale, The Overcoat. As Vakhtangov projects his teacher’s thoughts, one can almost hear Bashmachkin’s heart-wrenching cry: “Why do you offend me?”

What is going on in his soul? What does this little man feel? What does he think of, as he nervously fiddles with his watch chain? He does not hear the noise, yelling, and witty remarks … He is deaf … He thinks how little they understand him, and how little they respect his human dignity …

(Ivanov 2011 vol. I: 41)

A human face, and an aching heart peep from under the impenetrable mask of an educator. Vakhtangov exhibits a gift, rare for his age, to see the human being in “an authority.” Similarly, the glimpse of his father Bograt’s inner self, evident in Vakhtangov’s youthful literary portrait, reveals a mature understanding. The old man’s loneliness, his inability to connect with his own family, the misunderstood heart behind the mask of a despot—all this is present in a short sketch.

Vakhtangov will continue “reaching” to his father through several of his theatrical works, including the character of the family patriarch from Hauptmann’s The Festival of Peace (Vakhtangov’s first professional production). In 1913, Vakhtangov will create the role of Dickens’ cruel toy manufacturer Tackleton in the First Studio of MAT’s production of The Cricket on the Hearth. In the role, he will rise to the art of t...