[29] "Proletkul't," LEF , no. 2 (1923), p. 173.
― 240 ―
ued to object to the label "futurist," the Proletkult nonetheless became an ally of the avant-garde.[30]
Theater, always the most popular art form, became the arena for the Proletkult's greatest experimental successes. By 1927 the organization supported workers' theaters in six Soviet cities outside of the capital.[31] The First Workers' Theater in Moscow, opened in 1921, shaped an interesting repertoire. The offerings were still eclectic, ranging from Dawn of the Proletkult , a compendium of proletarian poetry first composed in 1918, to Pletnev's realistic Lena . However, standard prerevolutionary classics disappeared entirely. In their place came the inventive work of Sergei Eisenstein, who became active in the Proletkult theater in 1921.
A student of Vsevolod Meyerhold, one of the most innovative directors of the early Soviet years, Eisenstein introduced many new techniques to the Proletkult. The most fruitful was Meyerhold's system of biomechanics. Advocates of this system argued that it would work like Taylorism in industry and make acting into a controlled, scientific process.[32] From his mentor, Eisenstein also took a love of the circus, pantomime, parody, and the grotesque—"minor forms" that Meyerhold believed were rooted in popular theater and culture.
Working together with the futurist writer Sergei Tretiakov, Eisenstein directed three striking experimental plays in 1923–1924. The first was an adaptation of Ostrovsky's Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man , completely rewritten by Tretiakov.[33] This production moved the setting to contemporary émigré Paris and employed circus techniques, buffoonery, and even film (Eisenstein's first) to surprise and engage the
[30] On this shift see John Willett, Art and Politics in the Weimar Period, 1917–1933: The New Sobriety (New York, 1978), p. 42.
[31] V. Pletnev, "Za rabochii teatr," Rabochii klub , no. 41 (1927), pp. 3–8.
[32] See Marjorie L. Hoover, Meyerhold: The Art of the Conscious Theater (Amherst, 1974), pp. 100–110, 311–15.