‘The Proletcult Theatre’, Chaoter VII from The New Theatre And Cinema Of Soviet Russia by Huntly Carter. International Publishers, New York. 1925.

IN the preceding chapter I have considered the section of the Left Group theatre under the direction of the old anarchist intelligentsia. There are three small organisations belonging to this section which are dealt with in the concluding chapter of the Left Group.” I next come to the section of the Left Group theatre under the direction of the workers themselves, who seek self-expression and are excluding professionalism in favour of voluntaryism. At the head of this division is the Proletcult theatre. This theatre is second in importance to the Meierhold theatre, from which it derives a great deal. As its name implies, it belongs to the proletarian culture movement which sprang up after the Revolution. This movement was designed to promote culture among the workers, and to encourage gifted young men and women from the common people, largely factory workers, to express themselves freely in art, drama, poetry, literature, etc. It was the culture of a class striving for self-explanation and self-publication. The founders rightly assumed that the Russian people are naturally gifted, and the common people have a rich store of natural abilities and apparently inexhaustible physical health.

At the head of the Moscow organisation is V.F. Pletnev, a gifted workingman author and organiser. He has written plays and essays, and has closely concerned himself with the cultural problems of a class to which he belongs who struggle to free themselves from the tyranny of the monied classes, and seeks to make institutions, including a theatre, for their own use.

The Proletcult theatre was then conceived of as a theatre for the special use of the working-class and for promoting working- class culture. It was organised by representatives of the workers, to be controlled and directed by workers, and to admit certain instructors drawn from the old anarchist intelligentsia and the Right theatre. Its methods were designed to superimpose the modern industrial will upon the traditional will of the theatre, and thus to make the theatre, as far as possible, a party instrument and a State and a national one; to make the workers understand that their destiny was in their own hands, and they must no longer support the ruling and subjecting of their own lives by others; and to develop them as citizens and defenders of their country. According to the latter purpose acting was based on a system of physical drill, and at one time the Proletcult theatre was largely a recruiting ground for the army. This attempt to drill the workers through the theatre into cannon fodder and to use the drilled for every passing war whim of the military governors has died down. Physical drill still forms the basis of the method of acting followed by the workers, because it is necessary to the expression of the spirit of a vital life.

Viewed historically, the Proletcult theatrical movement started in 1918, as a part of a general working-class cultural movement. It attracted the support of many able thinkers and workers, theorists and practitioners, who ever since have continued to speak and write on the ideas, ideals and methods to be pursued. Moreover, they have urged on every possible occasion that the utmost encouragement should be given, and every facility offered to the workers to express themselves, whether in literature, art, drama, or any other high form. The columns of the Press were to be thrown open to them, publication made easy, and paths of communication of all sorts opened up. They recognised the urgent need of self-explanation and self-publication by the working-class. We have only to turn to the Proletcult Bulletins published since 1917 to see the amount of time, trouble and thought expended in this endeavour to express and propagate proletarian cultural ideas. Among the many theorists one notes A. Lunacharsky, with his workers’ aesthetic; P, Kergentseff, with his encouraging ideas on the self-expression of the working-class in new forms of theatre and plays, and emphasis on the importance of the Socialist Mass theatre and plays; and V. Smyschlaiev, with his carefully elaborated system for training the worker-actor. The object before all three writers was the common one of the workers themselves in building their theatre. They saw (1) that the workers were conscious of a new life; (2) that a new culture was needed; (3) that new conditions of life were likely to determine its form; and (4) that a new social synthesis must, inevitably follow.

Evidently all this was borne in mind by Lunacharsky when he wrote his essay on “The Beginning of a Proletarian Aesthetic.” He was aware that a new working-class aesthetic was coming. He had learnt that there were different kinds of aesthetic suited to different historical periods and to different classes, according to their economic structure. By aesthetic he doubtless means style. Each age has its style, today it is perfectly clear that Russia is rapidly developing a proletarian style. But let us keep to Lunacharsky’s term, “aesthetic.” He is of the opinion that the bourgeois and proletarian aesthetics overlap and cannot very well be separated. By the bourgeois aesthetic he means the esthetic of (a) the rich merchant and his class; (b) the old aristocracy; and (c) the individualistic intelligentsia and the little bourgeoisie. By the proletarian aesthetic he understands something that has not yet had time to take definite form. But he thinks it will be the art and craft, “style or “spirit,” of the new mechanistic thought and action — machinolatory, as I have termed it. The culture of the worker must go on the occupational lines of the worker.

In this way he sees the proletarian unavoidably falling under the influence and expressing himself in some degree after the manner of these four groups. For instance, the bourgeois engineering imperialism in the work of Kellerman, who wrote some verse in honour of the Machine and Big Industry, finds a reflection in the proletarian verse praising machinery and industry. The difference is that whereas the capitalist and his circle of writers see the Machine as a machine contributing to the profit, vanity and aggrandizement of the monied class, and are unable to see it as a great aid to humanity, an instrument of construction in the world of justice and liberty, the proletariat have come to regard it as a moral and aesthetic factor in the struggle for freedom. In his preoccupation with the Machine the proletarian is nearer to the Big Business bourgeoisie than to the aristocracy or little bourgeoisie.

Lunacharsky also sees a relation between the proletariat and the anarcho-romantic intelligentsia during revolutionary periods and periods of reaction. In the first period he finds the intelligentsia poets and painters protesting in groups against the brutal actualities, and calling on the insurrectionists to take action. In the second period they are quick to realise the horrors of the Revolution for which they clamoured and the first to flee from them. This actually occurred during the Russian Revolution. Representatives of the old intelligentsia called for a revolution, sang in its praise when it came, and fled like scared sheep when they saw the colour of its blood. Perhaps this behaviour is not surprising when it is considered that these particular representatives form a class that exists in their own little world of suffering, hysteria and idealism, isolated from humanity. On the other hand, the proletariat lives in a world containing the definite, vital elements of human existence. Simply, while the old intelligentsia are individualistic and wrapped up in themselves, the proletariat are collective and act and think through each other and the mass.

What is the proletarian esthetic? It is an aesthetic of the Machine in which Lunacharsky sees reflected that moral side which he affirms in human beings. To the bourgeoisie the Machine is an instrument for exploiting the worker and for enriching themselves. To the proletariat it is the greatest instrument of future advance and happiness. Accordingly, they attribute to the Machine all their own social and moral attributes. In this new god they see their own vitality, strength, courage, cleanness, steel nerves, persistency, precision, language, rhythm, endurance, their love of science, moral justice and liberty; and finally, a justification for their belief in collective justice, collective creation, and collective life. Justice, creation, and life acquire the widest and deepest significance in the collective sense. Collectivism is a big thing. So is the Machine, Morally considered, is it not a symbol of Collectivist Society? And Collectivist Society is Society Unbound. With such ideas before them, is it any wonder that the workers have turned resolutely towards thought and action resting mainly on the morality and truth of the Machine?

P. Kergentseff’s theories of a new theatre and form of drama are no less informative. He is all for voluntaryism and spontaneity, for the great Mass theatre, for bringing the stage into the open, and for letting the ’workers interpret their own spirit in their own way.

V. Smyschlaiev’s proposed school for communistic actors embodies some of the ideas supported by Meierhold. He wants the actor to be a citizen, a communist, and a social politician. He must pass through the communist party school, take an active part in the work of the party organisation. He must undertake social work which unites him to the party. He must learn to be a part of the collective mass, both in the Theatre and out of it. So the Studio must prepare not only the new actor prepared to merge his personality in that of the spectator, but the communist. Remove this new thing in actor-training, and Smyschlaiev’s carefully-thought-out system may be applied to any theatre in Western Europe and America. Its five divisions, diction, voice, declamation, improvisation, aesthetic, are calculated to turn out the actor worthy of his hire.

The Proletcult theatre developed with such aids as these, forming as it did so its own notable body of enthusiastic builders. Its theorists included Lunacharsky, Kergentseff, Tichonovisch, Smyschlaiev, Meierhold, Gan, and Arvatov. Its playwrights, Lunacharsky, Kergentseff, Pletnev, Maiakovsky, Reisner, Wermischev, and Kamiensky. Its producers, Smyschlaiev, Tichonovisch, Eisenstein, Meierhold, Foregger, Prosvietov, and Radlov. Its ‘‘decorators,’’ Konchalovsky, Altmann, Chagal, Shtevchenko, Lentulov, Shterenberg, Kandinsky, Rodchenko, Pevchner, Jakoulov, and Fedorovsky; while sculptors of the ability of Konenkov, Rievdel, Lavinsky, and Tchaikov contributed valuable ideas. As for the proletarian and revolutionary plays, great and small there is a very significant repertory in the making formed of such plays as “Mysteria-Bouffes,” ‘‘Stenka Rasin,” ‘‘Don Kichot” (Lunacharsky), “The Mexican,” ‘‘Incredible,” “Impossible,” “The Avenger” (Pletnev), “Lena” (Pletnev), “God Asleep,” ‘‘Strikes” (Pletnev), and many others.

An idea of the plays in circulation may be gathered from the following particulars of the general work of the Proletcult theatre and its studios. In 1920 the Proletcult became an established theatre, and the Studio was transferred to the 1st Workers’ State Proletcult. In the new theatre were produced “ The Mexican,” by Jack London; “ Lena,” a story of the strike at the big works on the Lena, by V. Pletnev; ‘‘ Fleto,” an episode from the French Commune; “ The Dawn of Proletcult,” a piece composed of the work of different proletarian poets; and “Over the Top,” a social comedy by V. Pletnev; “Master,” adapted from Gofman; and “The Red Star,” an utopia, by Bagdanaf. In the summertime the Studio goes to the Don Basin, the Ural mines, and Turkestan, to instruct workers and exhibit new plays. Provincial Studio companies occupy its theatre. Among them is the Studio of the Ribensk Proletcult, with the improvised play, “ Do not Go,” the Smolensk Proletcult with “Serve,” and “King Arlekin,” and Ivanovo-Voznesensky Proletcult with “The Master” and ‘‘Insurrection” by Verharn. The Provinces are active with many plays. Twer prepares “Bartel Touraser” and ‘‘The Tower,” both by Gastev; “Ekaterinburg, ‘ It was so, but it will be so Igevsky Works, ‘‘Fleto” and the “Dream of the 1st May” Ivanovo-Voznesensky, “The Enchanted Blacksmith” and “The Awakening,” by the worker playwright, Gandurin; “The Shark,” by Sinitzen, another worker playwright. In 1921 the Centro-Studios took a new direction with “Tonatno-plastique.” They performed the tableau, ‘‘Labour,” with chorus declamation. The Workers’ theatre is busy with many other plays, including Georg Kaiser’s ‘‘Gas,” Sinclair’s “King Coal,” and “The Prince of Hagen,” Gladnov’s “Vataga,” and “The Wise Man.” In 1921 the producers’ schools, laboratories, and studios were organised.

Anyone who studies the productions by the Proletcult theatre from the start in 1918 will find they mark definite stages of development. Thus, first of all, they fall into two main divisions, (a) The Period of Revolution, with the ideas it brought, (b) The Period of Transition, with its suffering and the sacrifices made by the Russian workers for their ideas, and the relief that came with the end of war, especially civil. The vast forces at work during the two periods gripped, absorbed, and actuated the playwrights, poets, and painters among the workers themselves Then there are five sub-divisions:

1. The Period of Preparation for taking possession of the new world. This began in 1918, when the central and district Proletcult theatres were organised. This was the beginning of the systematic work. The district theatres were formed of newly established or reorganised dramatic circles. The principle followed was that of forming the companies of representatives of heavy and light industry. That brought out the fact that the existing circles were composed of clerical staffs, and not of workers. This was remedied by the inclusion of the latter. The productions at this time were of a revolutionary character, designed to be played at the Front at a time when Mamontoff was making his advance. A piece that passed through all Russia was ‘‘The Red Truth,” by Vermicheef, who also wrote “The Festival of the Devil.” He was hanged by Mamontov. Plays by Verharn and others drawn from the works of proletarian poets were popular.

2. Period of Military and Revolutionary plays. This was during the civil war, when provincial Studios were in danger of being involved in fighting, and worker-actors often stepped straight from the theatre to the trenches to fight and to agitate. In spite of many difficulties, imitative forms of art were produced, and art and craft were busy with backgrounds.

3. Period of Semi-Relief. The strain begins to pass. Pieces now exhibit the spirit of sport and play. There is a start at acrobatic performances. Initiative and creation turn to the circus with a view to transfer the circus to the theatre. The workers want to let off steam, and seek full self-expression. Creative forms of art emerge.

4. Period of Full Relief. Satire and Parody. The workers are letting off steam at a great rate. Both acting and training are imbued with the true spirit of sport and parody. Great development of circus creative ideas.

5. Period of Construction. The workers now enter upon the real business of construction. They become preoccupied with mechanical problems. Chiefly the problem of a mechanical structure according to which the New Russia is to be built. They use machine forms and tools on the stage as symbols of the new industrial civilization. These periods have been marked throughout by a powerful heroic impulse which has manifested itself in two ways. First, there was Patriotism aiming to possess, to strengthen, and to perfect Russia. Second, there was Laughter directed at the vanities, follies, and weaknesses of the old and new order alike. Throughout there has been an expression of romantic heroism symbolical of Labour’s struggle with Destiny.

What is the present-day organisation, aim, and method of the Proletcult? The organisation is based upon voluntaryism and co-operation. The members of Workers’ theatres and studios are volunteers drawn from factories and workshops and other Trade Unions organisations. They give all the time they can spare from their bread-and-butter work to the theatre. Often they study and play till the early hours of the morning. They receive no pay from the theatre, and do not expect it. Money necessary for the upkeep of the theatres and studios is drawn from a fund to which all subscribe. It should be said that the workers have no rent to pay for theatrical accommodation. Owing to the transference of private property to the Government and the working-class population, there is no lack of suitable buildings and rooms for theatrical purposes. In Russia you do not find that queer thing, a scarcity of theatrical accommodation, owing to avaricious landowners and speculative lessees and sub-lessees five and six deep. Genius and initiative are not frozen out of the theatre by profiteering landlords. Thus the economic problem of the Proletcult theatre is fairly solved.

The Moscow Proletcult theatre is established at the Villa Morossoff, a somewhat gorgeous Spanish palace, built by a millionaire just before the war. It is an imposing but tasteless piece of architecture, with a mixture of styles, Gothic, Moorish, and Renaissance, and an excess of ornamentation that would send some architects mad. Probably its eccentricity and tastelessness reflect the characteristics of the man who occupied it. At any rate, it provides a commodious centre for the proletcult actor volunteers. A very large ball-room, with a gallery at one end, has been converted into a stage and auditorium, which I will describe presently.

The aim is twofold, social and technical. On the one hand, to establish a centre of collective self-expression for the workers; on the other, to break down specialization in the theatre. The conventional theatre is like a modern factory in which everyone has his special job. Thus there is the author, the producer, the actor, the painter, the composer, and so on. Each is specialized off. There is the leading juvenile, the character actor, the comedian, and so on. Each keeps to his special line, and no other.

The Proletcult volunteers want to be all-round men. To them the theatre is a collective institution, and the actor must be a synthesis of all activities. This is the meaning of Smyschlaiev’s comprehensive system of training. They have definitely entered the theatre with the avowed aim of shaping it after their own likeness as far as possible. Today they are engaged in a struggle to free it completely from all the old hindrances to free creative expression, to remove those objects and agents of representation and interpretation which do not belong to their own mode of expression of the collective life, and to replace them by others which belong peculiarly and particularly to them and to the theatre as a part of themselves.

This means that they have discovered the actor in themselves, and, beyond this, the stage most suited to communicate their experiences. All they ask for is leisure to play in the new playground in such a way as to become understood by each other and all. In doing so they want to be frankly theatrical. They seek to do away with the large hole through which the spectator views the play, and to come out into the open and freedom of the circus arena. They believe this is the true stage, the stage of the future, which will replace the picture-frame stage. Here actors can play to their hearts’ content, quite free from the literary, the pictorial, and the individualistic restrictions. Free, too, from the restrictions of the separation set up by lighting and setting. In short, liberated from all things that interfere with or exclude freedom and clog up the springs of natural spontaneous expression.

So in accordance with sane principles of acting construction they have invented, through their representative, Eisenstein, an arena platform with just such surroundings and accessories as are necessary to give their movements the maximum degree of intensity, and to mark the difference, a very important one, between play and performance. The fact is they do not want to perform, they do not want to be distorted into the living lie called the professional actor, who is produced by a process common to the theatres of Western Europe and America, where the actor is an automaton pressed into standardised shape, like creased trousers, to supply stupid standardised entertainment to the most idiotic persons in a conventional audience.

A regard for the proper construction of this stage and its equipment has led them to sweep away all the cumber of actualists and abstractionists alike. The vast mechanical aids, revolving and adjustable stages, movable platforms, pulleys, and all the rest of the lumbersome stuff have gone overboard. The pretty picture composition, mostly the outcome of paint-pot and paint-pot brains, and the lighting tricks by which the new stage conjurer sought to demonstrate the superiority of the swish-board over the paint-pot, has also walked the plank. Now nothing remains but the bare stage and a wooden structure. They have given this stage a circus form as though drawing a mystic ring round it. On this stage they have placed a platform with a frame and curtains through which the players enter and make their exit.

But let me put the progress of the Proletcult actors in proper order.

1. They looked within themselves, and found an abundant source of dramatic material. They needed an instrument to dig this out of themselves. So they took up improvisation. All that need be said of this here is that the improvised form of drama pleases, attracts, and corresponds to the expression of the workers, and is one to which all the workers contribute. It ignores the set rules of playwrighting, and demands that the play from the beginning must shape itself and move along, and this by the aid of all present. I will come to it presently. This method made a clean sweep of the bricks and limitations of the literary, photographic, and pornographic schools, with their habit of binding the actor to the experience of the author and of the actual persons in his play. The workers, then, improvised and produced plays which were entirely their own.

2. Next they invented a stage on which to construct the new form of drama. This form was to be a mould into which the workers could pour their experience according to the experience of the times. Hence the circus form of stage.

3. Next they established a system of training the actor which they considered likely to help him express the new form of drama. It would both develop his spontaneity and fashion the citizen in him. This training was based on the spirit of sport, which was really meant to be a reaffirmation of life. It seemed to say that its instructors and supporters had come to the conclusion that forms of art, drama, literature, and science were living under an isolating cloud. Art was cut off from life, literature was seeking sustenance at the dried-up well of introspective thought, science was more concerned with murdering men than with liberating them, and so on. Sport alone had an uplifting grace. Alone it contained a method of producing those qualities of character and conduct which are absolutely necessary to a tolerant form of society. In short, to them it appeared as the most promising idealism. This much is, I think, borne out by a brief description of the elements of actor training which I take from a Moscow Labour paper: “A big training of proletarian actors is taking place. In the first place, it is a physical training, embracing sport, boxing, light athletics, collective games, fencing, and bio-mechanics. Next it includes special voice training, and beyond this there is education in the history of the class struggle. Training is carried on from ten in the morning till nine at night. The head of the training workshop is Eisenstein, the inventor of the new circus stage.”

The result of all this is a theatre of spontaneous co-operation designed to give the widest scope to the social play-spirit. Its principles are simplicity, spontaneity, improvisation, concentration, and co-operation. I will give one illustration of its work as I actually witnessed it. This particular work consisted of the performance of a satire built on a framework made out of Ostrovsky’s play, “Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man.” On entering the” theatre,” I saw a large, elaborately decorated ballroom with a gallery at one end. A third of the room was used as a stage. This stage was in the form of a small circus. It had a platform and a frame with curtains. On either side of the platform were two curved approaches resembling segments of a circus ring, which helped the imagination to complete the circus construction. Facing the platform were rows of seats rising to the gallery. The floor of the arena was covered with a soft carpet. Scattered about was the usual circus apparatus, a trapeze, rings, horizontal poles, vaulting horse, slack wire, and other instruments not usually associated with the representation of social satire. But it soon became apparent that Ostrovsky merely provided a frame for a very witty parody made by the workers themselves. They had left only sufficient of the writer to allow anyone who knew his work to recognise him. I daresay a good many of the workers present did not recognise him, and were not much troubled by this. They could feed on the eccentric and exciting circus acrobatics. It was a parody on number two Russia and the emigres who believe that they represent real Russia. The revue also made sharp attacks on well-known foreign politicians and militarists, Mussolini, Joffre, etc., and it had its anti-religious moments. For instance, there was a procession of caricatures carrying candles, chanting a church service and bearing boards, with the inscription, “Religion is opium for the people.” On the whole, it was very witty and gay, and went at a great speed, almost too quick for some spectators. It took many shapes and colours like a kaleidoscope. Undoubtedly it had a great deal of propaganda value, as its attack on the emigres and White Army in the unfavourable shades of meaning given to their behaviour was very effective. But perhaps the most amazing thing was the vitality of the players. Many of them were working men who had been toiling hard all day in the factory and workshop, and on top of this were putting in four or five hours” very hard work, by which they maintained an intensity of satirical expression that the spectator could hardly keep abreast with. Probably the success of the performance meant that the various forms of representation were passing from the circus to the conventional stage. Will the circus be the future theatre?

The New Theatre And Cinema Of Soviet Russia by Huntly Carter. International Publishers, New York. 1925.

A wonderful, comprehensive look at the world of film and theater in the first years of the Soviet Union by Huntly Carter. Only this edition was printed in the US. Heavily illustrated with 68 photographs and 17 woodcuts, it also includes an invaluable appendix of performances from Msocw and Petrograd from 1917-23. Huntly Carter (1862-1942) was a British journalist and arts critic of the performing and visual arts. He served as international editor and reviewer for the modernist periodical The New Age and was a member of the 1917 Club. He regularly participated in cultural exchange programs between the Soviet Union and Great Britain and spent much time and extensive travels in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s, meeting luminaries such as Vsevolod Meyerhold, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Igor Stanislavsky, Alexander Rodchenko, and Sergei Eisenstein. 372 pages.

Contents: Preface, The Origin of the New Theatre, Historical Limitations, State Conception and Organisation, The Three Groups and a New Threefold, Classification of Theatrical Activities, The Three Representative Personalities, THE LEFT GROUP) Meierhold’s Theatre or The Theatre of Revolution, The Proletcult Theatre, The Club and Factory Theatres, The Open-Air Mass and Street Theatres, Street Pageants and Workers’ Cafes Chantants, The Little Theatres of Revolutionary Satire, THE CENTRE GROUP) Lunacharsky’s Theatre, The Kamerny (Chamber) Theatre, The Central Jewish Theatre (The Jewish Kamerny, etc), The Old Jewish Theatre (The Gabima), The Children’s Theatre (State, Club, School, etc), The State Circus, THE RIGHT GROUP) Stanislavsky’s Theatre, The Studio Theatres, The Post-N.E.P. Theatres, THE CINEMA: ITS FOUR DIVISIONS) The Gos-Kino, The Prolet-Kino, The Revolutionary Kino, The Bourgeois or Commercial Kino, Summary and Criticism, APPENDICES) The Theatrical Situation in Soviet Russia in 1922 A Statement From A. Lunacharsky, Symposium on the New Russian Theatre, The All-Russian Union OF Art Workers, A Typical Moscow Weekly Theatre Poster, List of Productions in Moscow and Petrograd 1917-1923, Notes on the Illustrations. 277 pages.

For a PDF of the full book: https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.166125/2015.166125.The-New-Theatre-And-Cinema-Of-Soviet-Russia_text.pdf