Description
The Routledge Companion to Michael Chekhov brings together Chekhov specialists from around the world - theatre practitioners, theorists, historians and archivists – to provide an astonishingly comprehensive assessment of his life, work and legacy.
This volume aims to connect East and West; theatre theory and practice. It reconsiders the history of Chekhov’s acting method, directing and pedagogy, using the archival documents found across the globe: in Russia, England, America, Germany, Lithuania and Switzerland. It presents Chekhov’s legacy and ideas in the framework of interdisciplinary theatre practices and theories, as well as at the crossroads of cultures, in the context of his forays into such areas as Western mime and Asian cosmology.
This remarkable Companion, thoughtfully edited by two leading Chekhov scholars, will prove invaluable to students and scholars of theatre, theatre practitioners and theoreticians, and specialists in Slavic and transcultural studies.
Marie-Christine Autant-Mathieu is Director of Research at the National Center For Scientific Research, and Assistant-Director of Sorbonne-CNRS Institute EUR’ORBEM. She is an historian of theatre and specialist in Russian and Soviet theatre.
Yana Meerzon is Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa. Her book publications include Adapting Chekhov: The Text and Its Mutations, co-edited with Professor J. Douglas Clayton, University of Ottawa (Routlegde, 2012).
Table of Contents
Introduction: Michael Chekhov - Actor, Director, Pedagogue
MARIE-CHRISTINE Autant-Mathieu and YANA MEERZON
PART I
Michael Chekhov in context: theory, practice, pedagogy
1 Michael Chekhov’s Work as Director
LIISA BYCKLING
2 The Theatrical System of Michael Chekhov
ANDREI KIRILLOV
3 Georgette Boner and Michael Chekhov. Collaboration(s) and Dialogue(s) in Search of a Method
CRISTA MITTELSTEINER
4 Meditation and Imagination. The contribution of anthroposophy to Michael Chekhov’s acting technique
MONICA CRISTINI
5 Michael Chekhov and the Cult of the Studio
MARIE-CHRISTINE AUTANT-MATHIEU
6 The Dynamics of Psychological Gestures
JOHN LUTTERBIE
7 Chekhov’s Notion of Radiating: From conception to concrete
Andrew R. White
8 Staging the Spectator in Michael Chekhov’s Acting Theory
YANA MEERZON
PART II
Michael Chekhov on stage: collaborations and encounters
9 Brief Encounters: Michael Chekhov and Shakespeare
LaUrence Senelick
10 Michael Chekhov, Homo Ludens
MARIA IGNATIEVA
11 Michael Chekhov and Yevgeny Vakhtangov
A Creative Dialogue
ANDREI MALAEV-BABEL
12 Michael Chekhov’s Legacy in Soviet Russia
A Story about Coming Home
SHARON MARIE CARNICKE
13 Michael Chekhov in England
Outside the Magic Circle
FRANC CHAMBERLAIN
14 Contrasting Modernities
The Rural and the Urban in Michael Chekhov’s Psychological Gesture and Meyerhold’s Biomechanical Études
JONATHAN PITCHES
15 "Prying Behind the Curtain(s) of the Creative Process"
Eugenio Barba’s Principles and Michael Chekhov’s Technique
IAN WATSON
PART III:
Michael Chekhov’s heritage and interdisciplinary performative practices
16 Michael Chekhov and the Visual Arts
Influences, Synergies, Collaborations
Julia Listengarten
17 Russian Delsartism and Michael Chekhov
The Search for the Eternal Type
Rose Whyman
18 "As the Shadow Follows the Body"
Examining Chekhov’s Creation of Character through "Eastern" Practices
Jerri Daboo
19 Cycles of Creation
Michael Chekhov and the Yinyang Wuxing Cosmology
DANIEL MROZ
20 Michael Chekhov in German Film
Oksana Bulgakowa
21 Michael Chekhov the Hollywood Actor
Jacqueline Nacache
PART IV
Michael Chekhov’s theatre system and acting pedagogy today
22 Chekhov’s Lithuanian Lessons
Gytis Padegimas
23 Developing the Imagination: Michael Chekhov in Actor Training
Lionel Walsh
24 Michael Chekhov’s Five Guiding Principles and Theatre Practice Today: The Case of "Tender Napalm" by Phillip Ridley
Cynthia Ashperger
25 The Legacy of Michael Chekhov: Then and Now
Joanna Merlin
