ABSTRACT
If Taïrov rejected the theories of both Meyerhold and Stanislavsky, it was Evgeny Vakhtangov's unique achievement to fuse the contributions of these two great directors and thereby point the way to a richer and more varied form of theatre.
For Meyerhold [wrote Vakhtangov, who called Meyerhold ‘dear, beloved master’] a performance is theatrical when the spectator does not forget for a second that he is in a theatre, and is conscious all the time of the actor as a craftsman. Stanislavsky (to whom Vakhtangov once wrote, ‘I thank life for the opportunity of knowing you.... I do not know anyone superior to you’) demands the opposite: that the spectator become oblivious to the fact that he is in a theatre and that he be immersed in the atmosphere in which the protagonists of the play exist.
