Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2002 - 23

RUSSIAN THEATRE DESIGN
The last
three decades
in the twentieth
century are marked
by strong
relationships
between
designers and
directors,
and between
designer/teachers
and
their students.

S P R I N G

2 0 0 2

TD & T

and lost with his 1940 production of Evgenii
Shvarts' The Dragon (fig. 23). Audiences had
to wait until 1968 to see Akimov's stylish production because the implications of the satirical parable about tyranny were deemed
ambiguous: the dictatorial Dragon bore a resemblance to both Hitler and Stalin.
On 22 June 1941, Hitler broke his nonaggression pact with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. By 8 September, Leningrad was
encircled; the blockade lasted nine hundred
days. The city suffered millions of casualties
from starvation, bombardment and disease.
The decades subsequent to the war were
typified by an initial retrenchment of socialist
realism, the growth of the Kirov Ballet into a
"classical," pre-eminent artistic force in the
Soviet Empire and post-Stalin era revisionism.
The former is dominated by designs that reinforced and glorified the ideals of the Soviet system and its victory over the Nazis. Set designs
by Viktor Ivanov (1906-1969) for The Spark
(fig. 24) (1949) and Aleksandr Bosulaev
(1904-1964) for The Lutonin Family (fig.
26) (1951) depict two locales typical of the
period: a proletarian demonstration and a factory. Ivanov began his career as a designer at
the Leningrad Theatre of Comedy where he
worked with Nikolai Akimov. The striking element of Ivanov's design, executed for a production at the Lenin Komsomol Theatre, is the
rather classical representation of revolutionary
activity. Twenty-two years after the Revolution,
the chaos of actual events have been refined
and revised to reflect order and decorum.
Bosulaev's depiction of that other great icon of
the age, the factory, is a sparklingly realistic
treatment which still shares some of the linear
characteristics of Bruni's designs for Bolt.
Two costumes from drama productions
staged in the fifties characterize the societal
transition occasioned by the death of Josef
Stalin in 1953. Aleksandr Bosulaev designed
the sets and costumes for both the 1955 revival
of Vsevelod Vishnevsky's 1934 Soviet classic,
Optimistic Tragedy and a 1958 production of
Mikhail Bulgakov's previously banned Flight.
Both costumes are emblems of Civil War era
Russia, though they represent the opposing
forces. The leather jacket worn by Vishnevsky's
tragic Woman Commissar (fig. 28) was as
much an emblem of the Reds as General
Khlydov's greatcoat (fig. 27) was of the defeated Whites. The productions were both
staged by the great Georgian director, Georgii
Tovstonogov (1913-1989). Though separated
by only three years, Tovstonogov's productions

juxtaposed characters who belonged to different worlds: a martyr to the Bolshevik revolution and an agonized officer of the destroyed
Imperial army. The agony of the defeated White
officers portrayed in Flight resulted in a ban
on performances that had been in place since
Bulgakov wrote it in the twenties. Stalin's death in
1953 and the subsequent unmasking of his behavior by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 made it possible for this and many other plays and
individuals to be rehabilitated. Tovstonogov
staged Bulgakov's previously banned play,
Moliere, in 1973. A major thread in the play is
an elaboration of the precarious relationship
between an artist and a ruler in a closed society.
Sofia Iunovich's (1910-1996) designs for
Hector Berlioz' opera Benvenuto Cellini (fig.
25) (1969) indicate a slight return to
theatricalism. Iunovich graduated from the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in
1937. During her long career, she designed in
all genres at the major theatres in Leningrad.

Act V:

Denouement-Unravelling and
Redefinition
The last three decades in the twentieth century
are marked by strong relationships between
designers and directors, and between designer/teachers and their students. The first of
these relationships is tied to the career of director Georgii Tovstonogov. He spent forty
years in Leningrad directing plays and helped
shape its cultural landscape. He specialized in
both Russian and Western classics, among
them Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters (1965,
designed by Sofia Iunovich) and the Soviet premiere of Leonard Bernstein and Arthur
Laurent's West Side Story (1967). From the
late sixties to the eighties Tovstonogov collaborated with designer Eduard Kochergin (b.
1937) on a series of productions beginning
with Shakespeare's Henry IV (a combination
and adaptation of Parts 1 and 2). Tovstonogov
provided the key to his approach to the play
when he said "it is impossible to perform
Shakespeare without theatricality in the best
sense of the word." (Tovstonogov 1972, 40)
Kochergin's costumes for Tovstonogov's
1975 production of Story of a Horse (fig. 29)
suggest a highly theatrical approach. Mark
Rozovsky adapted Leo Tolstoy's satire about a
horse's view of mankind into a play with music. The production was staged in the West in
the eighties with the title Strider.
Kochergin worked with Tovstonogov on

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2002