ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with Stanislavsky’s and Meyerhold’s invocation, appropriation, and refraction of Alexander Pushkin and with Meyerhold’s Pushkinization of Mei Lanfang’s art. It investigates Stanislavsky’s and Meyerhold’s interpretations and appropriations of Pushkin’s ideas on dramatic art and their uses of the hallowed authority of the most venerated Russian poet-dramatist in constructing and legitimating their respective theories. Meyerhold’s “intercultural” invocation of Pushkin and Mei Lanfang constituted part of his mission of developing a theatrical language conforming to the language of the Soviet era and of constructing an expressive art of Socialist Realism for the future of the Soviet theatre. This chapter also provides a case study of Meyerhold’s 1935 new version of his 1928 production of Alexander Griboedov’s comedy, Woe to Wit. It deals with Meyerhold’s aesthetic-political approach to the traditions represented by Griboedov’s comedy, Pushkin, and Mei Lanfang’s art that Meyerhold incorporated into his new production.
