ABSTRACT
The New Theatre (TNT) is one of many lesser-known companies that I could examine at this point to show the proliferation of contemporary interest in commedia dell’arte technique by those performers seeking a physical theatrical style as an alternative to the pervasiveness of text-based realism. The group has an English origin, but has developed an international perspective which is reflected both in personnel and in repertoire. In 1980 they created a manifesto production entitled Harlequin, which began from the premise: ‘if Meyerhold were to construct a theatrical autobiography what would it be like?’ coupled with a 1905 statement of his that ‘every serious dramatist should be forced to write a pantomime’. The starting point of TNT’s play was Meyerhold’s production of Blok’s Fairground Booth. Harlequin remained in their repertoire, touring Great Britain, Sicily, Switzerland and Germany, until 1984. In 1989 the company reworked the play, adding a German dancer, Inge Kammerer, as Columbine, using an Italian actor, Enzo Scala as Meyerhold/Harlequin and changing the title to Glasnost Harlequin. They toured West Germany, Poland, the USSR (twice), East Germany, and Great Britain:
Spanning 1897–1940 it centres on the struggle of actor/director Meyerhold to resist firstly the stage realism of Stanislavsky, later the icy grip of Socialist Realism from Stalin, his eventual murderer.
The underlying question is how art relates to politics, the form is commedia dell’arte, a simplification of great political issues and times which risks the short-comings of agit-prop, but also stops us falling asleep. 1
