ABSTRACT
In her book Schauspielkunst (1988), Georgette Boner defines Michael Chekhov’s acting technique of characterization as a complex process of simultaneous stretching and distancing of the actor’s “I.” Boner employs the image of a “two-faced Janus” (the Roman god with two faces, one turned to the past and the other to the future, one turned to the East and the other to the West) as a metaphor for Chekhov’s personality, artistic practice, and spiritual quest when projected onto the historical and cultural context (170-248). The essence of the two-faced Janus – the god of entrances and exits, protector of roads and travelers, and guardian of fortunes in times of war – lies in his flexibility and vigilance. This metaphor aptly illustrates the dynamics of Chekhov’s world perception and suggests how the artist was in a state of constant motion. Inner and outer mobility were characteristic of Chekhov’s art, which was rooted in a complex unity of oppositions: for him an actor’s body and imagination were inseparable. The present volume develops this metaphor further, examining Michael Chekhov’s acting, directing, and pedagogical legacy in the multifaceted context of theatre history and today’s performance practices. It examines Chekhov’s creative practices in the context of historical and contemporary intercultural and multidisciplinary theatre and analyzes his pedagogical and philosophical thought in broader geographical and temporal contexts, tracing its sources not only to European and Western schools of theatre but also to Asian and Eastern cosmologies. This collection was conceived in the wake of an international conference on
Michael Chekhov’s life and art held in Paris in 2007, which resulted in a 2009 collection of articles, Mikhaïl Tchekhov/Michael Chekhov. De Moscou à Hollywood. Du théâtre au cinéma, edited by Marie-Christine Autant-Mathieu. The current volume continues the work begun by the 2009 publication, bringing together theatre scholars and practitioners from the countries where Chekhov lived and taught: Russia, Germany, France, Lithuania, the UK, and the USA. It also extends the geographical scope of the subject by including contributions by theatre specialists from Finland, Italy, and Canada, where Chekhov’s ideas are well known and widely taught today. Parts I and II examine how Chekhov’s personal theatre utopia reflected many similar theatre innovations of his time; Part III considers the role of his practice within concurrent interdisciplinary theatre experiments, while Part IV traces the influence of his theories and pedagogy in contemporary methods of actor training. Although some previous publications on Chekhov’s method have already suggested mapping such
geographical and historical traces (Black 1987; Byckling 2000; Chamberlain 2003; Marowitz 2004; Meerzon 2005; Daboo 2007; Ashperger 2008), this collection seeks to present a comprehensive picture of the historical, theatrical, and cultural contexts in which Michael Chekhov’s theatre method originated as well as its legacy today.
