Meyerhold and Antiquity

Vsevolod Meyerhold addressed to the ancient Greek dramas and their modern adapta- tions just for a few times in his career; but the “ancient line” can be traced through all of his creative biography starting from the role of Tiresias in Antigone in the first season of Moscow Art Theatre and up to the period of planning and unfinished project construction of Meyerhold Theatre on Triumfalnaya square in Moscow. Both ideas and images of classic antiquity are the basis of Meyerold’s artistic traditionalism. Ancient theatre, according to his belief, together with commedia dell’arte formed the basement of the professional school of any actor; that is why his classes always included exercises in ancient Greek stage practice. Meyerhold’s antiquity was not identical to the academic classicism which was the part of 19th century culture. It was very close to the new line of interpretation of antiquity which started to develop in the Russian and European art in the beginning of 20th century — the ar- chaic and ritualistic dimension of ancient harmony. Among many directions of research of “Meyerhold and antiquity” theme, the author of the article concentrates on the concepts of “idea” and “form”: Meyerhold’s interpretation of these concepts is close to their meaning in the ancient Greek classical philosophy. Studying these concepts thoroughly, leads to disa- greement of the usual interpretation of Meyerhold’s directing method as the concentration on the formal aspect of a performance, along with the usual concept of dualism of Stanislavsky’s and Meyerhold’s directing methods.