Revolutionary Theatre is the first full-length study of the dynamic theatre created in Russia in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution. Fired by social and political as well as artistic zeal, a group of directors, playwrights, actors and organisers collected around the charismatic Vsevolod Meyerhold. Their aim was to achieve in the theatre what Lenin and his comrades had achieved in politics: the complete overthrow of the status quo and the installation of a radically new regime.
Until now the efforts and influence of this idealistic group of theatrical avant-gardists have been largely unacknowledged; the oppressive reign of Stalin condemned many of them to death and their work to oblivion. In this enlightening work Robert Leach uncovers in fascinating detail their roots, their achievements and their legacy.
Biography
Robert Leach is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham, and a freelance theatre director. In 1990 he directed the Russian premiere of Sergei Trekyakov's I Want a Baby in Moscow, and in 1994 was artistic director for the Lichfield Mysteries. He is the author of a major study of Vsevolod Meyerhold and is editing a forthcoming history of Russian theatre.
`Illuminating and challenging...it will introduce a great number of readers to this extraordinary period of creativity and innovation in theatre.' - Richard Gough, Centre for Performance Research
