This article offers a chronological list of productions directed by Konstantin Stanislavski. It does not include theatrical productions in which Stanislavski only acted.
Until he was thirty three, Stanislavski appeared only as an amateur onstage and as a director, as a result of his family's discouragement.[1] When he was twenty five, he helped to establish a Society of Art and Literature, which aimed to unite amateur and professional actors and artists.[2] His professional career began in 1896 when he co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.[3] Later in his life, he created a series of studios whose aims were primarily pedagogical but which also presented public performances.[4] This list of productions directed by Stanislavski includes amateur, professional, and studio productions.
When the sources disagree about the exact date of a production's première, that given in the most recent biography of Stanislavski—Jean Benedetti's Stanislavski: His Life and Art (1988, revised and expanded 1999)—is listed here, with the alternative date detailed in the footnotes. Prior to 14 February 1918, the Julian calendar was in use in Russia, after which the Gregorian calendar was introduced.[5] The details of productions staged before that change are given in both Old Style and New Style dates.
1891: Foma by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, adapted by Stanislavski from The Village of Stepanchikovo. Opened on 26 November [O.S. 14 November] at the German Club. Cast included Stanislavski as Colonel Rostanev and Maria Lilina as Nastenka.[9]
1894: The Governor by Victor Diachenko. Cast included Stanislavski as George Dorci. Opened on 19 February [O.S. 7 February].[10]
1898: The Sunken Bell by Gerhart Hauptmann. Revival of Stanislavski's Society of Art and Literature production from January the same year.[33] Opened on 31 October [O.S. 19 October]. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Stanislavski as Heinrich, Ekaterina Munt as the First Elf,[34]Margarita Savitskaya as Magda[35] and Georgy Burdzhalov as the Wood Demon.[29] Just over one week and 17 performances later, protests from the Russian Orthodox Church led to the production being banned on 8 November [O.S. 27 October], despite the particular translation used having been passed by the censor.[36]
1898: The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. The production was re-titled Shylock.[37] Opened on 2 November [O.S. 21 October].[38] Scenic design by Viktor Simov.[39] Cast included Mikhail Darski as Shylock,[28]Alexander Vishnevsky as Antonio, Vsevolod Meyerhold as the Prince of Aragon,[40] Georgy Burdzhalov as Launcelot Gobbo.[29] This production was the first in Russia to include the fifth act of the play, after the trial scene and humiliation of Shylock, when the intrigue of Portia's ring and cross-dressing is revealed and resolved.[37] The portrayal of Shylock prompted accusations in the press of anti-Semitism because a Jewish accent was considered inappropriate for a tragic role.[41] Though Stanislavski had planned to alternate the role with Darski, he decided against it for fear of exacerbating the hostility of the press.[42] It was played for only ten performances.[43]
1898: The Mistress of the Inn by Carlo Goldoni. Opened on 14 December [O.S. 2 December].[48] Scenic design by Viktor Simov.[39] Cast included Stanislavski as Ripafratta, Vsevolod Meyerhold as the Marquis of Forlipopoli, and Sergey Tarasov as Ripafratta's servant.[49] A special performance for factory workers on 22 January [O.S. 10 January] 1899 provoked a summons by the Chief of Police, Dmitri Trepov, for failing to seek the approval of the censor who oversaw productions for working-class audiences; as a result, the company abandoned its original name as the "Moscow Public-Accessible Theatre" and its aim to provide an "open" theatre, settling instead on Anton Chekhov's suggestion, the "Moscow Art Theatre."[50]
1898: The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. Opened on 29 December [O.S. 17 December].[51] Directed by Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.[52] Cast included Stanislavski as Trigorin and Vsevolod Meyerhold as Konstantin, Olga Knipper as Arkadnia, Maria Lilina as Masha, Maria Roksanova as Nina, Yevgeniya Raevskaya as Polina, Ioasaf Tikhomirov as Medvedenko, Vasily Luzhsky as Sorin, Alexander Vishnevsky as Dorn, and Alexander Artem as Shamrayev.[53] The production ran for 57 performances in the 1898—99 season, 13 in the next, and 9 in the 1900—01 season.[54] Chekhov disliked Roksanova's performance so intensely that he demanded that she should never be allowed to act in his plays again.[55] For more information on this production, see the article on the MAT production of The Seagull.
1899: Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. Opened on 3 March [O.S. 19 February]. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Stanislavski as Løvborg, Maria Samarova as Aunt Julia[30] and Maria Andreyeva as Hedda.[56] It played for only eleven performances.[57] Reflecting on the production years later, the critic Nikolai Efros regarded Stanislavski's performance as the best of an Ibsen character he had seen.[58]
1899: Drayman Henschel by Gerhart Hauptmann. Opened on 17 October [O.S. 5 October]. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included both Anna Aleeva-Shteker and Maria Roksanova as Hanna,[63] as well as Ekaterina Munt as Franziska Wermelskirch.[34] The play's title has also been translated as The Driver Henschel. Anna Alekseieva-Shteker was Stanislavski's sister, who used the stage name of Anna Aleeva-Shteker; see Benedetti (1991, 51) and the article on her on the Russian-language Wikipedia.
1899: Lonely People by Gerhart Hauptmann. Opened on 28 December [O.S. 16 December]. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Vsevolod Meyerhold played Johannes Vockerat until he left the company, after which Vasily Kachalov took over the role. Cast included also Maria Samarova as Frau Vockerat.[30] This production was the play's première in Russia.[66]
1900: Snow Maiden by Alexander Ostrovsky. Opened on 7 October [O.S. 24 September]. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Vasily Kachalov as Tsar Berendey (his first performance at the MAT), Ekaterina Munt as the Snow Maiden, Anna Aleeva-Shteker as Elena the Fair, Maria Samarova as Bobylikha,[30] Maria Roksanova as Kupava,[27] Margarita Savitskaya as the Sping,[35]Olga Knipper, Ivan Moskvin, Alexander Vishnevsky, Vladimir Gribunin, and . When the MAT production opened, four other productions of Ostrovsky's play also were playing in Moscow.[67]
1901: Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. Opened on 13 February [O.S. 31 January]. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Stanislavski as Vershinin, Olga Knipper as Masha, Maria Andreyeva as Irina,[12]Vsevolod Meyerhold as Tusenback, Maria Samarova as Anfisa[30] and Alexander Vishnevsky as Kulygin. This became the most popular of the MAT's productions of Chekhov's plays, remaining part of the company's repertoire for the next 18 years.[69]
1901: Michael Kramer by Gerhart Hauptmann. Opened on 9 November [O.S. 27 October]. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Maria Andreyeva as Michaelina Kramer, Stanislavski as Michael Kramer, and Ivan Moskvin as his son, Arnold. It played for twenty-six performances.[71]
1901—2: In Dreams by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Opened on 3 January 1902 [O.S. 21 December 1901]. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Maria Andreyeva as Vera Kirillovna, Maria Samarova as Zankovskaya,[30] Ekaterina Munt as m-lle Solntseva[34] and Stanislavski as Kostromskoy. It played for thirty-eight performances. This was the last of the MAT's productions presented at the Hermitage Theatre on Carriage Row.[72]
1902: The Philistines by Maxim Gorky. Opened on 8 April [O.S. 26 March] in St Petersburg, while the MAT were on tour. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Nikolai Baranov as Teterev, Vasily Luzhsky as Bessemenov, Elena Muratova as Akulina Ivanovna[73] and Vsevolod Meyerhold as Peter (until he left the company after the St Petersburg performances). Its Moscow première inaugurated the MAT's new building (in the renovated Lianozov Theatre, also known as the Omon Theatre, on Chamberlain Lane, Tverskoy District) on 6 November [O.S. 25 October]. The production played for a total of twenty-seven performances.[74]
1904: The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. Opened on 30 January [O.S. 17 January]. Directed by Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Olga Knipper as Madame Ranyevskaya, Maria Lilina as Anya, Maria Andreyeva as Varya, Stanislavski as Gaev, Leonid Leonidov as Lopakhin, Vasili Kachalov as Trofimov, Elena Muratova as Charlotta,[73]Ivan Moskvin as Yepihodov, Sofia Khaliutina as Dunyasha,[76] Alexander Artem as Firs, Nikolai Alexandrov as Yasha, Mikhail Gromov as a passer-by, and Alexander Zagarov as the stationmaster. Chekhov's last appearance at the MAT, before his death on 15 July [O.S. 2 July], was to see the first public performance of this production, which coincided with his birthday.[78]
1906: Woe from Wit by Aleksandr Griboyedov. Opened on 9 October [O.S. 26 September].[81] Scenic design by Viktor Simov. Cast included Stanislavski as Pavel Afanasyevich Famusov, Vasili Kachalov as Chatski, and Alexander Vishnevsky as Count Tugoukhovsky. Both Stanislavski and Nemirovich directed; Benedetti suggests that "Stanislavski, however, would appear to have exerted the dominant influence" whereas Worrall claims that "most of the work was done by Nemirovich, Stanislavski merely introducing minor corrections and additions to Act Three."[82] Benedetti and Worrall also disagree as to whether the text was in prose or verse.[83] The MAT revived the production in 1914 and 1925.[84]
1907: The Drama of Life by Knut Hamsun. Opened on 21 February [O.S. 8 February]. Cast included Stanislavski as Kareno.[85] Directed by Stanislavski with the assistance of Sulerzhitsky.[86] Music by Ilya Satz.[87]
1922: Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Opened on 15 June. Cast included Pavel Rumiantsev as Onegin.[136] Staged in the ballroom of Stanislavski's house on Leontievski Lane (which was known thereafter as the Onegin Room), with minimal set and no costumes or make-up. With a full orchestra the production transferred two years later to the Novi Teatr.[136]
1939: Tartuffe by Molière, production completed by Mikhail Kedrov. Opened on 4 December. Cast included Kedrov as Tartuffe and Vasily Toporkov as Orgon.[138]
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 21, 24) and Carnicke (2000, 11). The prospect of becoming a professional actor was taboo for someone of Stanislavski's social class; actors had an even lower social status in Russia than in the rest of Europe, having only recently been serfs and the property of the nobility.
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 38, 385), Magarshack (1950, 100) and Worrall (1996, 27). Benedetti gives its opening as 18 December [O.S. 6 December], while Magarshack gives it as 29 October [O.S. 17 October]. The title of Pisemsky's play has also been translated as A Law unto Themselves and Despots.
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 52, 385), Magarshack (1950, 102, 107), and Worrall (1996, 29). Benedetti and Worrall give its opening as 31 January [O.S. 19 January], while Magarshack gives it as 28 April [O.S. 16 April].
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 385) and Magarshack (1950, 102).
↑ The Polish Jew (French: Le Juif Polonais) by Erckmann-Chatrian is better known in English-speaking countries under the title The Bells, a translation by Leopold David Lewis that brought Henry Irving great success when he staged it in 1871; see Benedetti (1999a, 58).
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 385) and Magarshack (1950, 117—118). The play's title is also translated as The Dowerless Bride, The Girl without a Dowry, and The Poor Bride. Stanislavski's acting teacher, Glikeriya Fedotova, had played the lead role, Larisa, in the play's première production in 1878.
↑ Worrall (1996, 90). While Worrall and Leach give Vsevolod Meyerhold's role as Prince Vasili Shuyshy, Braun gives it as Prince Ivan Shuysky, with Worrall giving Vasily Luzhsky as the actor who played the latter role; see Braun (1995, 11), Leach (1989, 3), and Worrall (1996, 90).
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 98, 386). Benedetti gives the opening performance as 15 October [O.S. 3 October], while Worrall gives 24 October [O.S. 12 October]; see Worrall (1996, 114).
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 386), Braun (1995, 12), Gottlieb (2005, 245), and Worrall (1996, 126—127). The final performance of this production of Three Sisters took place on 4 May 1919. Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko directed a new production in 1940.
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 120—121, 126), Braun (1982, 61), (1988, xvi), and (1995, 13, 16), Marsh (1993, 14), Magarshack (1950, 230—231), Senelick (2013, 151, 186), and Worrall (1996, 72—78, 131). The title of The Philistines has also been translated as Small People, The Merchant Class, The Petty-Bourgeois, and The Artisans. It premièred in St Petersburg in early 1902 as part of the MAT's tour.
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 126–127, 386), Magarshack (1950, 233, 238–239), and Worrall (1996, 132—133). Benedetti and Worrall give the opening performance as 18 November [O.S. 5 November], while Magarshack gives 2 December [O.S. 19 November].
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 386), Gottlieb (2005, lxxxi—lxxxv, 247), and Worrall (1996, 152, 159, 212). Worrall describes the première as Chekhov's name day, which in Russia is usually distinct from a birthday; he also lists Elena Muratova as "M. V. Muratova"; see Worrall (1996, 159—160).
↑ Benedetti (1999a, 171) and Worrall (1996, 170–171).
↑ Benedetti describes the excited response of Aleksandr Lensky, Maria Yermolova and Glikeriya Fedotova "when the inexorable flow of the verse was broken up by the use of pauses in Act Three", whereas Worrall describes Vsevolod Meyerhold's sardonic response to Nemirovich's choice of a prose text; see Benedetti (1999a, 171) and Worrall (1996, 171).
Benedetti, Jean, ed. and trans. 1991. The Moscow Art Theatre Letters. London: Routledge. ISBN0-87830-084-8.
Benedetti, Jean. 1999a. Stanislavski: His Life and Art. Revised edition. Original edition published in 1988. London: Methuen. ISBN0-413-52520-1.
Benedetti, Jean. 1999b. "Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898–1938". In Leach and Borovsky (1999, 254–277).
Braun, Edward. 1982. The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski. London: Methuen. ISBN0-413-46300-1.
Braun, Edward. 1988. Introduction. In Plays: 1. By Maxim Gorky. Methuen World Classics ser. London: Methuen. xv-xxxii. ISBN0-413-18110-3.
Braun, Edward. 1995. Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre. Rev. 2nd ed. London: Methuen. ISBN0-413-72730-0.
Carnicke, Sharon M. 1998. Stanislavsky in Focus. Russian Theatre Archive Ser. London: Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN90-5755-070-9.
Gauss, Rebecca B. 1999. Lear's Daughters: The Studios of the Moscow Art Theatre 1905–1927. American University Studies ser. 26 Theatre Arts, vol. 29. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN0-8204-4155-4.
Gottlieb, Vera, ed. and trans. 2005. Anton Chekhov at the Moscow Art Theatre: Archive Illustrations of the Original Productions. London: Routledge. ISBN0-415-34440-9. Reproduction of original journal ed. Nikolai Efros, published in Moscow, 1914.
Innes, Christopher, ed. 2000. A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-15229-1.
Leach, Robert. 1989. Vsevolod Meyerhold. Directors in Perspective ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-31843-2.
Leach, Robert. 2004. Makers of Modern Theatre: An Introduction. London: Routledge. ISBN0-415-31241-8.
Leach, Robert, and Victor Borovsky, eds. 1999. A History of Russian Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN0-521-43220-0.
Marker, Frederick J., and Lise-Lone Marker. 1989. Ibsen's Lively Art: A Performance Study of the Major Plays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN0-521-61924-6.
Rudnitsky, Konstantin. 1988. Russian and Soviet Theatre: Tradition and the Avant-Garde. Trans. Roxane Permar. Ed. Lesley Milne. London: Thames and Hudson. Rpt. as Russian and Soviet Theater, 1905–1932. New York: Abrams. ISBN0-500-28195-5.
Senelick, Laurence, ed. and trans. 2013. Stanislavsky—A Life in Letters: The Missionary in the Theatre. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN1-136-34341-5.
Solovyova, Inna. 1999. "The Theatre and Socialist Realism, 1929–1953." Trans. Jean Benedetti. In Leach and Borovsky (1999, 325–357).
Stanislavski, Constantin, and Pavel Rumyantsev. 1975. Stanislavski on Opera. Trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood. London: Routledge, 1998. ISBN0-87830-552-1.
Vakhtangov, Evgeny. 1982. Evgeny Vakhtangov. Compiled by Lyubov Vendrovskaya and Galina Kaptereva. Trans. Doris Bradbury. Moscow: Progress.
Worrall, Nick. 1996. The Moscow Art Theatre. Theatre Production Studies ser. London and NY: Routledge. ISBN0-415-05598-9.
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski was a seminal Soviet Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognized as an outstanding character actor, and the many productions that he directed garnered him a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his "system" of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique.
Method acting, known as the Method, is a range of rehearsal techniques, as formulated by a number of different theatre practitioners, that seeks to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, understanding, and experiencing a character's inner motivation and emotions. These techniques are built on Stanislavski's system, developed by the Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski and captured in his books An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, and Creating a Role.
The Seagull is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. The Seagull is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplev.
Stanislavski's system is a systematic approach to training actors that the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski developed in the first half of the twentieth century. His system cultivates what he calls the "art of experiencing". It mobilises the actor's conscious thought and will in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes—such as emotional experience and subconscious behaviour—sympathetically and indirectly. In rehearsal, the actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the character seeks to achieve at any given moment.
Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold was a Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer of German descent. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre.
Aleksandr Yakovlevich Golovin was a Russian artist and stage designer. He designed productions for Sergei Diaghilev, Constantin Stanislavski and Vsevolod Meyerhold.
The Moscow Art Theatre (or MAT; Russian: Московский Художественный академический театр, Moskovskiy Hudojestvenny Akademicheskiy Teatr was a theatre company in Moscow. It was founded in 1898 by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. It was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas that were Russia's dominant form of theatre at the time. The theatre, the first to regularly put on shows implementing Stanislavski's system, proved hugely influential in the acting world and in the development of modern American theatre and drama.
Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko was a Soviet and Russian theatre director, writer, pedagogue, playwright, producer and theatre administrator, who founded the Moscow Art Theatre with his colleague, Konstantin Stanislavski, in 1898.
My Life in Art is the autobiography of the Russian actor and theatre director Konstantin Stanislavski. It was first commissioned while Stanislavski was in the United States on tour with the Moscow Art Theatre, and was first published in Boston, Massachusetts in English in 1924. It was later revised and published in a Russian-language edition in Moscow under the title Моя жизнь в искусстве. It is divided into 4 sections entitled: 1-Artistic Childhood, 2-Artistic Youth, 3-Artistic Adolescence and 4-Artistic Adulthood.
The Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet was a 1911–12 production of Hamlet, produced by Konstantin Stanislavski and Edward Gordon Craig. It is particularly important in the history of performances of Hamlet and of 20th-century theatre in general. Despite hostile reviews from the Russian press, the production attracted enthusiastic and unprecedented worldwide attention for the theatre, with reviews in Britain's The Times and in the French press that praised its unqualified success. The production placed the Moscow Art Theatre "on the cultural map for Western Europe", and it came to be regarded as a seminal event that influenced the subsequent history of production style in the theatre and revolutionised the staging of Shakespeare's plays in the 20th century. It became "one of the most famous and passionately discussed productions in the history of the modern stage."
The Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre is a music theatre in Moscow.
A Month in the Country is a play in five acts by Ivan Turgenev, his only well-known work for the theatre. Originally titled The Student, it was written in France between 1848 and 1850 and first published in 1855 as Two Women. The play was not staged until 1872, when it was given as A Month in the Country at a benefit performance for the Moscow actress Ekaterina Vasilyeva (1829–1877), who was keen to play the leading role of Natalya Petrovna.
The Fruits of Enlightenment, aka Fruits of Culture is a play by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. It satirizes the persistence of unenlightened attitudes towards the peasants amongst the Russian landed aristocracy. In 1891 Constantin Stanislavski achieved success when he directed the play for his Society of Art and Literature organization.
The Moscow Art Theatre production of The Seagull in 1898, directed by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, was a crucial milestone for the fledgling theatre company that has been described as "one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama." It was the first production in Moscow of Anton Chekhov's 1896 play The Seagull, though it had been performed with only moderate success in St. Petersburg two years earlier. Nemirovich, who was a friend of Chekhov's, overcame the writer's refusal to allow the play to appear in Moscow after its earlier lacklustre reception and convinced Stanislavski to direct the play for their innovative and newly founded Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). The production opened on 29 December [O.S. 17 December] 1898. The MAT's success was due to the fidelity of its delicate representation of everyday life, its intimate, ensemble playing, and the resonance of its mood of despondent uncertainty with the psychological disposition of the Russian intelligentsia of the time. To commemorate this historic production, which gave the MAT its sense of identity, the company to this day bears the seagull as its emblem.
Ioasaf Aleksandrovich Tikhomirov (1872-1908) was a male actor from the Russian Empire. He trained under Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, who offered "rigorous and intelligent" courses in actor training at the school of the Moscow Philharmonic Society. Tikhomirov was one of twelve students that Nemirovich brought with him to join the Moscow Art Theatre when he founded it with Constantin Stanislavski in 1898. He acted with the company until 1904 and also served as the director of the Art Theatre School. In 1904 Stanislavski sent Tikhomirov to help Maxim Gorky establish his newly founded theatre in Nizhny Novgorod, but the project was abandoned when the Russian censor banned every play that they proposed to stage.
Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich is a 1868 historical drama by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy. It is the second part of a trilogy that begins with The Death of Ivan the Terrible and concludes with Tsar Boris. All three plays were banned by the censor. Tsar Fyodor is written in blank verse and was influenced by the work of William Shakespeare, Casimir Delavigne, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It dramatises the story of Feodor I of Russia, whom the play portrays as a good man who is a weak, ineffectual ruler. The trilogy formed the core of Tolstoy's reputation as a writer in the Russia of his day and as a dramatist to this day. It has been considered Tolstoy's masterpiece.
Armoured Train 14–69 is a 1927 Soviet play by Vsevolod Ivanov. Based on his 1922 novel of the same name, it was the first play that he wrote and remains his most important. In creating his adaptation, Ivanov transformed the passive protagonist of his novel into an active exponent of proletarian ideals; the play charts his journey from political indifference to Bolshevik heroism. Set in Eastern Siberia during the Civil War, it dramatises the capture of ammunition from a counter-revolutionary armoured train by a group of partisans led by a peasant farmer, Nikolai Vershinin. It is a four-act play in eight scenes that features almost 50 characters; crowd scenes form a prominent part of its episodic dramatic structure. Near the end of the play a Chinese revolutionary, Hsing Ping-wu, lies down on the railway tracks to force the armoured train to stop.
Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man is a five-act comedy by Aleksandr Ostrovsky. The play offers a satirical treatment of bigotry and charts the rise of a double-dealer who manipulates other people's vanities. It is Ostrovsky's best-known comedy in the West.
The Ascension of Little Hannele, also known simply as Hannele, is an 1893 play by the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann. In contrast to Hauptmann's naturalistic dramas, The Assumption of Hannele adopts a more symbolist dramaturgy and includes a dream sequence. The play is the first in recorded world literature with a child as its heroine. The play tells the story of a neglected and abused peasant child, who, on her deathbed, experiences a vision of divine powers welcoming her into the afterlife. It was first published in 1894. Hauptmann was awarded the Grillparzer Prize in 1896 for the play.
Vasily Ivanovich Kachalov, was one of Russia's most renowned actors. He worked closely and often with Konstantin Stanislavski. He led the so-called Kachalov Group within the Moscow Art Theatre. It was Kachalov who played Hamlet in the Symbolist production of 1911.
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