Anatoly Smeliansky spoke to the TCG conference on the theme “The Russian Revolution in the Mirror of Russian Theatre,” inspiring the listeners with his humorous anecdotes and startling insights. Smeliansky is the literary director of the Moscow Art Theatre, an international lecturer, and author of the acclaimed book Is Comrade Bulgakov Dead? (Routledge and Methuen) about the Stalin regime’s repression of the great Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. He is editor-in-chief of the first English-language edition of The Collected Works of Stanislavsky, which will be published in 10 volumes by Routledge beginning this year. His new book, Ordeals of Freedom: Russian Theater After Stalin, is scheduled to be published in English by Thames & Hudson in 1995. The following series of excerpts from Smeliansky’s address reveals the charm and scope of his remarks at the conference.
On seating: We discovered that in Stanislavsky’s time the Moscow Art Theatre ha very narrow seats, in which you are not very comfortable. The theatre’s not a place for sleeping. It’s a place for seeing something, for thinking, for feeling, and you touch your neighbor. You have to touch your neighbor in the theatre, because for Russians theatre is the place for togetherness. It’s the only place where you can meet each other, where you can express something, the last outlet for your social energy, your emotional life.
On acting: The main idea of Stanislavsky was not how to act, but how to be a human being on the stage, how to save your soul on the stage. When he said his favorite phrase, “I don’t believe you,” what did it mean? You didn’t find a way to express yourself. You are not a human being on the stage. Why is it that in real life, you are so beautiful, so clever, so natural, organic, and so on, whe on the stage you are immediately inorganic, unnatural, narrow, stupid, artificial?
On capitalism: It’s a paradox of freedom. Why did the bloody Utopia inspire Russian artists, and why is freedom not so inspiring? Because capitalism is the most uninspiring thing in the world. Of course. Russian classics described it, but we didn’t believe.
On freedom: If you were a Soviet artist, what did you have? Great censorship. Great police intervention in your own private life. Oh, it was horrible. But from another side, Soviet artists had the attention of the State. “I am a very important guy. They’re interested in my fate. They’re controlling my every step this super-country with millions of tanks and the biggest army in the world, they’re interested in my art.” You understand? It was the great honor. Now nobody pays attention.
On Stanislavsky’s death: He died in August of 1938 and the Soviet government organized the funeral. All representatives from all classes–workers, students, actors. Some of the actors from the Moscow Art Theatre, they made their farewel to the teacher. Some of them–because the camera was there, and you know the actor’s mind–they were acting for the camera. Some of them played very badly with special artificial gestures, just to show how they were sorry about their teacher. I had a feeling when I saw this documentary in our archive that Stanislavsky would get up from the coffin and would say something like, “I don’ believe you!”
On metaphor: Russian theatre lost its virginity, but it’s not the end of the life. Maybe it’s the beginning of a new one. How to behave in the new circumstances? What is the image of Russian theatre today? First of all, I should say, it’s the end of our metaphorical, political theatre. What was the Soviet super-theatre? It was their factory, the plant of metaphors, and in ever production there was some metaphor. We went to see the metaphor as we went to participate in a demonstration. In the darkness of the auditorium, we tried to express our social understanding, social thoughts and energy.
On Soviet theatre: In the Soviet time, theatre replaced everything. Theatre was for us the church, the family, the house, everything. This was the power of Soviet theatre. This was the phenomenon of Soviet theatre–super-theatre which had to express the soul of a nation.
On teaching the next generation: What should we teach our students? We should influence them to love the theatre, first of all. Yes, of course. But we should also teach them to hate the theatre. Ninety-nine percent of the theatre is very bad, incredibly bad and harmful, and all of Stanislavsky’s ideas were produced from his hatred of bad theatre and bad acting.
On theatre as a temple: In the beginning of the ’20s, Stanislavsky launched a new studio in the Bolshoi. He was lecturing there, and some of his students mad a transcript and wrote down his beautiful phrase. Stanislavsky said, “If the theatre were a temple, I would make the slogan under the temple in the theatre only four words: “SIMPLER, HIGHER, LIGHTER and MORE JOYFUL.”
On Russian theatre today: Contemporary theatre in Russia is the one place where people feel safe, where people can meet each other, speak to each other, and it’s consolation for the soul. Every day, from our first news in the morning–Good Morning America, Good Morning Russia they say “Everything is horrible, horrible, horrible and horrible! Awful! Tomorrow will begin the civil war. You will be killed. You will be hungry.” If you hear that every day from morning to night, what is your psychology? Theatre should not repeat such trash Life is life, and we are in the beginning of new life. We should pay for our freedom.
On America: I’ll tell you the big difference between Russian and American people. If you say to an American every morning, “How are you?” “Fine, fine, great!” It’s a normal thing in the United States. Ask a Russian, “How are you?” “Very bad. Incredibly bad!” If you answer, “I’m fine,” it’s very suspicious. Yo are a scoundrel because you’re fine. Everybody’s bad, but you are fine. It’s different in the expectation.
