The Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet was a 1911–12 production of Hamlet, produced by Konstantin Stanislavski and Edward Gordon Craig. It is particularly important in the history of performances of Hamlet and of 20th-century theatre in general.Bablet (1962, 134) and Senelick (1982, xvi). Despite hostile reviews from the Russian press, the production attracted enthusiastic and unprecedented worldwide attention for the theatre, with reviews in Britain's The Times and in the French press that praised its unqualified success. The production placed the Moscow Art Theatre "on the cultural map for Western Europe", and it came to be regarded as a seminal event that influenced the subsequent history of production style in the theatre and revolutionised the staging of Shakespeare's plays in the 20th century.Bablet (1962, 134), Benedetti (1999, 199), Innes (1983, 172), and Senelick (1982, xvi). It became "one of the most famous and passionately discussed productions in the history of the modern stage."Bablet (1962, 134).
Chronology of production The story of Craig and Stanislavski began in 1908 when the eccentric American dancer Isadora Duncan, who had a daughter with Craig, introduced the two to each other. Craig, an English theatre practitioner, had garnered interest for the symbolist and simplistic designs he brought to plays like Henrik Ibsen’s The Vikings at Helgeland. On the other end of the spectrum Constantin Stanislavski was creating a world of theatre based upon realism, the internal complexities of the mind, and the rise of psychology. As Benedetti stated, “Stanislavski hoped to use the production to prove that his recently developed 'system' for creating internally justified, realistic acting could meet the formal demands of a classic play”.Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 1988. Print. In response to the enthusiasm expressed by Isadora Duncan about Craig's work, Stanislavski encouraged the board of the MAT to invite Craig to Moscow.Bablet (1962, 133–135) and Magarshack (1950, 294). He arrived in October 1908.Each of the sources gives a different date for Craig's arrival in Moscow:
The board decided in January 1909 to mount the production during its 1910 season, with work on the project to commence immediately.
Rehearsals began in March 1909. In April, Craig returned to Russia, meeting with Stanislavski in St Petersburg, where the company was on tour.Benedetti (1999, 189). Together they analysed the play scene-by-scene, then line-by-line, and devised a meticulous production plan, which included sound, lighting, and an outline of the blocking. Since neither understood the other's language, they conducted their discussions in a mixture of English and German. This paired with the fact that Craig spent little time at rehearsal with the actors, caused the cast to say Craig was extremely difficult to work with. Craig spent more of his time with a built-to-scale replica of the set, where he used woodcuts of the actors to devise blocking. Craig was also highly demanding with Alisa Koonen, who played Ophelia, saying on his directions, “no actress could do it” (Innes 159). This had much to do with his wish of the actor to be an Ubermarionette; that is, an actor who allowed the director complete and total control. They relocated to Moscow in May and worked together until the beginning of June, when Stanislavski left for Paris.Benedetti (1999, 190).
In February 1910, Craig returned to Moscow. In the intervening period, Stanislavski had developed an important production of Turgenev's A Month in the Country, whose success had demonstrated the value of his new 'systematic' approach to the actor's work; he was keen to assay its virtues in the crucible of Shakespeare's tragedy.Benedetti (1999, 190–195). They planned to rehearse the company together until April, after which Stanislavski would rehearse alone until the summer. In August, Craig would return once more and the production would open in November 1910.
As it was, Stanislavski was diagnosed with typhoid fever in August and the production was postponed until the next season; Stanislavski was unable to return to rehearsals until April 1911.Benedetti (1999, 195). The play finally opened on .Benedetti (1999, 199).
Cast
The cast for the opening-night performance were:Senelick (1982, 154). Hamlet: Vasili Kachalov Claudius: Nikolai Massalitinov Gertrude: Olga Knipper Ophelia: Olga Gzovskaïa Laertes: Richard Boleslavsky Polonius: Vasily Luzhsky Horatio: Konstantin Khokhlov Rosencrantz: Sergey Voronov Guildenstern: Boris Sushkevich Osric: V. Tezavrovsky Ghost of Hamlet's father: Nikolai Znamensky Fortinbras: Ivan Bersenev Player King: Alexander Vishnevsky Player Queen: P. Zharikov 3rd actor/Lucianus: Boris Afonin 4th actor/Prologue: A. Bondyrev Bernardo: Boris Afonin 1st Gravedigger: Vladimir Gribunin 2nd Gravedigger: Polikarp Pavlov Priest: I. Lazarev Francisco: Nikolai Podgorny Marcellus: Pyotr Baksheev Voltimand: A. Barov Cornelius: Bolti
Aesthetic approaches
When Stanislavski extended his invitation to Craig in April 1908, he was completely overcome by his eagerness to work with progressive theatre artists. However, Stanislavski was unaware of how vastly different his vision for the future was from Craig's. Following his failed experiment with Meyerhold and the studio, Stanislavski began to emphasize the importance of the actor. He believed that “neither the set, nor the director, nor the designer can carry the play…it is in the hands of the actor”. Morgan, Joyce Vining. Stanislavski's Encounter with Shakespeare: The Evolution of a Method. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research, 1984. Print. It was this principle that drove him to significantly reconsider the approach of the actor. By the time Stanislavski became aware of Craig, he was beginning to develop the concepts that would later serve as the backbone for his “system”. He was determined that good acting came from internal motivations rather than outward shows. While Stanislavski's ideas centered almost entirely on the role of the actor, Craig's vision of a new theatre minimized the actors’ importance to that of an instrument through which the director's vision is brought to life. “The actor must no longer express himself, but something else; he must no longer imitate, but indicate”. Morgan, Joyce Vining. Stanislavski's Encounter with Shakespeare: The Evolution of a Method. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research, 1984. Print. In Craig's opinion good theatre required a unity of all elements under the control of one person.
In line with a tendency within the Symbolist movement to view Shakespeare's play as a work of poetry rather than as one for the stage, Craig wrote in his influential manifesto The Art of the Theatre (1905) that it "has not the nature of a stage representation."Bablet (1962, 133). Craig's book had been published in a Russian-language edition in 1906. The playwright Maurice Maeterlinck (whom Stanislavski visited in the summer of 1908 to discuss his forthcoming production of The Blue Bird) had argued 15 years earlier that many of the greatest dramas in the history of theatre, including Hamlet, were "not stageable."Maeterlinck also included King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra in this category; Maurice Materlinck, writing in La Jeune Belgique in 1890; quoted by Braun (1982, 40). In 1908, Craig again insisted that an adequate staging of the play was "impossible."Bablet (1962, 133). When he suggested the play to the MAT, he wanted "to test my theory that the Shakespearean play does not naturally belong to the art of the theatre."Quoted by Bablet (1962, 157).
Craig conceived of the production as a symbolist monodrama in which every aspect of production would be subjugated to the play's protagonist: the play would present a dream-like vision as seen through Hamlet's eyes. To support this interpretation, Craig wanted to add archetypal, symbolic figures—such as Madness, Murder, and Death—and to have Hamlet present on-stage during every scene, silently observing those in which he did not participate. Stanislavski overruled him.On Craig's relationship to Russian symbolism and its principles of monodrama in particular, see Taxidou (1998, 38–41); on Craig's staging proposals, see Innes (1983, 153); on the centrality of the protagonist and his mirroring of the 'authorial self', see Taxidou (1998, 181, 188) and Innes (1983, 153). Stanislavski wished the actors to accompany the text with raw palpable emotion, of course, never straying far away from his system. Meanwhile, Craig sought for the actors to not try and make their characters emotional state present. This did not mean he wanted a dead show but on the contrary he believed the text clearly stated each character's motives and feelings. He strove for simplicity that Kaoru Osanai, in the Educational Theatre Journal, calls “simplicity in expression not in content.” So in some scenes where Stanislavski wanted many actions to take place Craig wished for little to no movement to let the poetry take the lead.
Despite this apparent opposition between Craig's symbolist aesthetic and Stanislavski's psychological realism, however, the two did share some artistic assumptions; the 'system' had developed out of Stanislavski's experiments with symbolist drama, which had shifted the emphasis of his approach from a naturalistic external surface to the inner world of the character's "spirit".Bablet (1962, 133) and Benedetti (1999, part two). Both had stressed the importance of achieving a unity of all theatrical elements in their work.Bablet (76–80), Benedetti (1989, 18, 23) and Magarshack (1950, 73–74). In a letter written in February 1909 to Liubov Gurevich about his recent production of Gogol's The Government Inspector, Stanislavski confirmed his "return to realism" but expressed the belief that this would not hinder the collaboration: Of course, we have returned to realism, to a deeper, more refined and more psychological realism. Let us get a little stronger in it and we shall once more continue on our quest. That is why we have invited Gordon Craig. After wandering about in search of new ways, we shall again return to realism for more strength. I do not doubt that every abstraction on the stage, such as impressionism, for instance, could be attained by way of a more refined and deeper realism. All other ways are false and dead.Quoted by Bablet (1962, 135–136); see also Magarshack (1950, 294).
Craig's and Stanislavski's interpretations of the central role of Shakespeare's play, however, were quite different. Stanislavski's vision of Hamlet was as an active, energetic and crusading character, whereas Craig saw him as a representation of a spiritual principle, caught in a mutually destructive struggle with the principle of matter as embodied in all that surrounded him. Hamlet's tragedy, Craig felt, was that he talks rather than acts.See Benedetti (1998, 190, 196) and Innes (1983, 149).
Visual design