ABSTRACT
A number of recent Soviet premieres compel us to pose, and possibly to answer anew, a question that has seemed trivial, that of the effect of cinema on current theatrical technique and style. In certain broad outlines this problem became self-evident quite a long time ago. The cinema's technique of intensive lighting (floodlights and spotlights) has already made its presence strongly felt in its use in innovatory theatre, displacing traditional diffused light. Spot lighting has made possible a rapid and frequent movement of light and this has facilitated the break-up of the single dramatic act into a series of abruptly changing episodes. Thus 'episodic' structure became the basis for the structure not merely of the innovatory performance but of the new dramaturgy by stipulating its new canons. The episodic composition of new plays and the reorganisation of classical plays (The Forest, The Inspector General) into 'episodes' has become a recognised phenomenon so that the direct influence of cinema on this reform cannot be disputed. But this influence is still somewhat outward and superficial. Let us go further and deeper. The problem has arisen of the direct use of the cinema screen as one of the constituent elements of the contemporary performance. To a significant degree this remained a theoretical problem for our theatre until very recently and it was only by hearsay that we came to learn of the exceptional stage effects achieved in this respect by the revolutionary theatre in the West and, in particular, by the theatre of Piscator. All the recent anniversary
productions in Leningrad and Moscow have provided a number of examples of the use of the cinema screen both in indoor performances (The Storming of the Trench, Ten Octobers) and, especially, on open-air occasions (the local Leningrad district productions). It is already obvious that the impression made by fragments of film cutting through the thread of the theatrical action can be extremely powerful but this impression is very specific and its limits are apparently very narrowly confined. The introduction of the cinema screen breaks the direct links of theatrical action so crudely and sharply that it is possible only in productions where the varied provenance of the material introduced becomes a principle, where no illusionist turns are being staged, where the effect on artistic integrity is second to the general impression. In short, this device is primarily and perhaps even exclusively employed in mass spectacles - demonstrations, agitmontages that consciously deploy every medium of intellectual and emotional influence - and, in particular, in street performances. Thus, cinema, moving beyond the frontiers of its immediate possibilities, enters the sphere of the synthetic arts.
