ABSTRACT
Sulerzhitsky is also responsible for giving Vakhtangov a wider perspective of the world. Vakhtangov was one of the most cosmopolitan of the early twentieth-century Russian theatre directors, with a repertoire almost exclusively concentrated in Western drama. If not for Sulerzhitsky, however, Vakhtangov may never have traveled outside of Russia. In the winter of 1910–11, Sulerzhitsky took Vakhtangov to Paris as his assistant in the staging of the European premiere of Maurice Maeterlinck’s new play The Blue Bird. (The world premiere of the play was entrusted by the author to the Moscow Art Theatre and directed by Stanislavsky and Sulerzhitsky.) This was one of Vakhtangov’s two trips outside of Russia.
