What is Meyerhold biomechanics?

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Among the great theater directors, the name of Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold stands somewhat apart. Perhaps the reason for this is a certain misunderstanding and an overly bright individuality. Or the Soviet authorities tried to retouch mistakes and tried not to mention the name of a talented person who was shot in 1940. But he made a grandiose contribution to the development of the theater. The system of training actors created by the great creator has forever entered theatrical use under the name "Meyerhold's biomechanics".

Changing Traditions

Developed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, biomechanics is not just one of the most important systems for training an actor, which appeared at the beginning of the 20th century and found its development in the work of numerous successors and students. By its nature, the biomechanics of V. Meyerhold is a complex and intriguing creative process that should be interpreted in a broader aspect. In the dual space of the semantic component of the preparation of the actor, there are several hypostases. One of them is interested in the exactthe mechanical functioning of the human body - rational and predictable. Another component seems to be trying to push the natural limits, raise the bar for development, achieve the ideal.

The very revolutionary nature of the method known as Meyerhold's biomechanics lies in the fact that its creator considered the work of a playwright and director only a preparatory stage. The entire emotional load of the performance had to be carried out jointly by the most active parties - the actor and the audience.

Meyerhold (1874-1940): short biography

It is impossible to understand the origins of a method without knowing the life of its creator. He was born into a Russified Catholic family. He was educated at the Moscow Theater and Music School (class of V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko). He worked at the Moscow Art Theater, and later organized a theater troupe in Kherson.

From 1905 he worked in Moscow. As a director, he was invited by K. S. Stanislavsky (Theater-Studio on Povarskaya), and later by V. F. Komissarzhevskaya (Drama Theater). During this period, Meyerhold staged a number of performances in a conditionally symbolic manner - the characters were not developed, and the plot was transmitted conditionally.

In the early 1920s, a new author's concept was formed, which Meyerhold began to vigorously promote - biomechanics. The exercises used during the rehearsals made it possible to achieve a well-coordinated, clear work of a group of artists. The basis of the method was not the interaction of individuals, but the state of the whole society. He was looking for the embodiment of the ideal of collectivism. The stated laws of constructivism and biomechanics denied the movement from the inner world to the visual display. Meyerhold believed that external factors play a decisive role, and through them it is necessary to convey to the viewer the experiences and inner world of the characters. A trained all-around actor, who owns the rhythm and perfectly controls his body - that's what the director needed to realize his ideas. The director worked on the implementation of his idea until the last days.

In June 1939, V. E. Meyerhold was arrested by the NKVD on false charges. Under torture, he confessed to anti-Soviet activities, but was later able to retract his testimony. The verdict was delivered on February 1, 1940. Executed the next day. In 1955, Vsevolod Emilievich was rehabilitated (posthumously).

Following the footsteps of the puppets

Meyerhold's work was greatly influenced by the works of the German playwright and writer Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), especially his essay on puppet theater. The author believed that human capabilities do not exist independently, but are controlled by higher forces. All people in his understanding were only puppet beings, subordinate to God. Breaking this connection could lead to the liberation of man and his return to a state of complete primitive harmony. Although the author admitted that such an event could give rise to unimaginable chaos. Meyerhold's biomechanics relies heavily on the judgments made by Kleist.

The director managed to form a systemtraining, in which the actor could achieve perfection, disciplined his body. To be both a creator and a material for embodiment, to control and be controlled in one's plasticity - this is the task that Meyerhold's theatrical biomechanics sets for itself.

Not only theater

The unique method of preparing actors has been forgotten for many years and has not been studied by specialists. This can be seen as the political reasons for the persecution that accompanied the brilliant director at the end of his life: the Stalinist purges, as a result of which the Meyerhold Theater was liquidated, his arrest and execution in February 1940. In principle, Meyerhold's biomechanics could not have reached our days. The method, expunged from the official history of the theatre, has temporarily disappeared from professional discourse.

Despite the declassification of the archives, in the 90s all the subtleties of the original technique were lost. Some details were preserved only in the works of students and followers who, during the life of the director, attended a master class on Meyerhold's biomechanics. He himself did not leave explanations about the principles and foundations of his system in his notes, and the methods used in our time are based solely on the recollections of eyewitnesses.

Social Aspects

The influence of biomechanics on the artistic development and growth of the actor's capabilities is enormous. But its potential is not limited to this. It is possible that the system has not only an artisticvalue. Although Meyerhold himself never lost sight of theatrical reasons, he believed that the potential of biomechanics is much more extensive. In order to understand this point of view, it is necessary to consider what Meyerhold biomechanics is, in a historical context.

The system was created as a result of the director's experiments with traditional theatrical genres: comedy dell'arte or Japanese kabuki theater. But at the same time, the methodology was created at a time when Meyerhold fully supported communist ideas. He wanted to convey not only the artist's perception of the world by means of theatrical art. The class struggle, social problems, the creation of a new human type - Meyerhold de alt with these issues. Biomechanics briefly and concentratedly reflected the revolutionary ideas of its time - joint management, collective labor and others. But at the same time, she did not cease to be a genius in the artistic sense, excellent physical training and theatrical method.

Biomechanics and sociomechanics

To fully understand the essence of the process under consideration, it is necessary to return to the time when Meyerhold's biomechanics was formed. One of his opponents was the bright ideologist of the revolution and the new theater, A. V. Lunacharsky, a theater critic, critic and the first people's commissar of education in Soviet Russia. He was often critical of the director's experiments, but considered him undoubtedly a talented and original creative person. It was Lunacharsky who introduced the concept of "sociomechanics" into everyday life -a system designed to study human nature in its natural social environment and thereby create real stage images of a contemporary.

Despite the obvious opposition of the two schools, Vsevolod Emilievich largely agreed with his counterpart. Their views on the duty and purpose of art coincided. Both agreed that a person is best characterized by class consciousness and position in society, and not by the individual qualities of psychology. Biomechanics, developed by Meyerhold, became a reflection of the revolution on the stage. This is how the creator of the system imagined its purpose.

Scientifically

On what basis did Meyerhold's biomechanics appear? The theatrical system was partly based on knowledge that was far from the realm of art. It was founded on the research of the American engineer Frederick Taylor (1856-1915). His theory of efficient labor organization was applied on the stage. The accuracy of the actors' movements and their ergonomics were achieved by exhausting exercises and divisions into game cycles: intentions, actions, reactions. This is a direct analogy with Taylor's "work cycles".

Meyerhold's biomechanics used a whole range of advanced knowledge of its time. The system of exercises for preparing actors was based on research on psychology by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), and used the work of V. M. Bekhterev (1857-1927) in the field of reflexology. The psychological state of the hero of the play as a setreflexes can be traced in the production of the play "The Forest" by A. N. Ostrovsky: the hero's feelings are replaced by jumps. Each new rise of a lover is higher than the previous one. This performance premiered at the Meyerhold Theater in 1924.

Biomechanics Studio

The attempts of director Meyerhold to find a suitable room for classes according to his own system were reflected even in the cartoons of those years. On one of them, the four-armed Meyerhold grabs all the buildings that he can reach. These were the Alexandrinsky Theatre, and Suvorinsky, and the film studio in which he wanted to create his workshop. As a result, the premises were found and entered the history of the theater as the Studio on Borodino.

The curriculum included boxing, fencing, gymnastics, classical and modern dance, singing, diction, juggling. In addition to this, theater history, economics and biology were taught. Given the variety of subjects studied, we can safely say that Meyerhold's biomechanics is a complete system for training an actor.

A new type of actor

Requirements for the actors were tough. They were supposed to combine drama and Chinese opera, choreography and tightrope walking, gymnastics and clowning on stage. These were the tasks set by Meyerhold. Biomechanics briefly and in a short time allowed to achieve the desired effect. Thanks to her, each of the actors could constantly improve and improve the baggage of their expressive means. Vsevolod Emilievich believed that the theater does not tolerateimmobility, always in a hurry and recognizes only modernity. And a theater actor should not mindlessly keep up with the times, but should seek and experiment.

Experiment

The created studio was not supposed to become the basis of a new theater and did not take on the tasks of an acting school. Its purpose was different - to become a kind of theatrical laboratory. The biomechanics of Vsevolod Meyerhold required the study of acting plasticity and stage movement, improvisation and strict adherence to the director's intention.

Creative experiments under the new system were not limited to working with actors. Drawing inspiration from the aesthetics of the circus, fair theater, comedy dell'arte, the director redesigned the interior space. He abandoned the backstage and the division into stage and auditorium. For the actors he created three-dimensional metal structures, which he called "game machines". As an illustration - the production of the play "The Magnanimous Cuckold" based on the play by F. Krommelink (1886-1970). Dressed in blue overalls, the actors played on the stage without scenery, surrounded by gymnastic equipment. Other performances have used multi-level platforms, scaffolding, stairs and scaffolding connected to the auditorium.

Practical implementation

With one of the proposed exercises, the director impressed his students. "Jump on the chest" is a well-known exercise that illustrates the possibilities provided by the biomechanics of V. E. Meyerhold. Its simplest embodiment is already reflected in the name itself. One of the actors in a static pose is standing on the stage with one foot in front of the other. The second student runs and jumps right at him. At the same time, he puts his legs bent at the knees forward and grabs his partner's neck. The first actor manages to catch one or both hands under the jumper's knees.

The analysis of this study shows how the two actors should be coordinated in space. Their movements are brought to automatism. The power of the jump, dynamics and flight trajectory are completely subordinated to the logic of the collective fulfillment of the goal set by the director. At the same time, each of the actors performs his individual task aimed at achieving a common, joint result. This was the main teaching load that the biomechanics of Vsevolod Meyerhold carried.

Today

Despite the past years, Meyerhold's system of training actors has not lost its appeal. It is still the subject of discussion and study in theatrical circles. It can be said that with its appearance, the biomechanics of V. E. Meyerhold was significantly ahead of its time. Many of the students who absorbed the system of Vsevolod Emilievich in his studio became famous actors and directors. Through their efforts, the ideas of the illustrious master were passed on to subsequent generations of actors and were not interrupted in time along with the fatal shot that sounded hollowly in the basements of the Lubyanka in the winter of 1940.