ABSTRACT
This chapter on Anatoly Efros begins a suite of brief impressions of four Russian directors who have played major roles in the genealogy of Analysis through Action: Anatoly Efros, Lev Dodin, Yuri Butusov, and Dmitry Krymov. Efros, a star student of Maria Knebel’s at GITIS, became renowned for his use of her Étude Method with her at the Central Children’s Theatre. Efros, a fervent journal writer, penned a great many of his thoughts about directing, acting, and plays he was working on. Fortunately, four editions of these journals were published in Russia and translated into English by James Thomas (who condenses them into three volumes); these are regularly cited ahead. But for all his exceptional stage successes, including truly radical and era-relevant revisions of Chekhov’s plays (among other classics), Efros was vigilantly observed by the censorial apparatus; many of his Moscow performances were banned despite wide public enthusiasm. He was pitched about by the authorities. serving successive incomplete terms at four different Moscow theatres; he never had his own theatre for any duration. A beloved workaholic prone to heart attacks, he also directed in theatres abroad and in film, television, and radio at home. He died prematurely in 1987 and was memorialized with reverence by his peers and still remembered with adoration by many artists and scholars alive today.
