ABSTRACT
Meyerhold’s life was abruptly brought to an end in the basement of a prison in Moscow over sixty years ago. Meyerhold began reading for a degree in law at Moscow University in 1895, after graduating with some effort from his school in Penza. Meyerhold graduated from the Moscow Philharmonic in March 1898, sharing the top prize for acting with Olga Knipper – Anton Chekhov’s future wife and soon-to-be star of the Moscow Art Theatre. From the Symbolism of Maeterlinck Meyerhold had found a distinct physical approach to performance, an expressive mode of non-naturalistic acting which characterised much of his later work. Whilst Meyerhold developed this laboratory of actor training, he was continuing in his role as Imperial Theatre director, overseeing highly elaborate, some might say extravagant, theatrical spectacles. But for all its grandiose indulgence, Meyerhold’s production bore the hallmarks of his earlier work in the experimental theatre.
