The author chose the winter of 1917–1918, while the Bolshevik revolution was in progress, for a study of the Russian theatre. It was a time when the theatre had not significantly survived either in England or France or even in neutral New York and war had revealed it as being only too clearly a luxury, a pastime and an industry. But the Russian theatre is one of profound introspection and inspiration. “Out of their sorrows the Russians have builded all their art. And in the days of their profoundest gloom, they return to it for the consolation which nothing else affords.” In Moscow and Petrograd, the author testifies, the modern theatre has been carried to its finest achievement. Among the contents are: Plays within a play; The world’s first theatre; The plays of Tchehoff at the Art theatre; From Turgenieff to Gorky at the Art theatre; The Russian ballet in its own home; The deeper roots of the Russian theatre; The Kamerny, a theatre of revolt; Meyerhold and the theatre theatrical; Yevreynoff and monodrama; Russian theories of the theatre. There are numerous illustrations and an index.
Booklist 16:194 Mr ’20
“Interesting and remarkable book. It is a valuable contribution to the literature of the theatre.” N. H. D.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Ag 4 ’20 800w Cleveland p32 Mr ’20 170w
“A book so eager, so cordial, so intelligent, so frankly the expression of a personal appetite that one would like to think of it as typical of a new dispensation.”
+ Freeman 1:70 Mr 31 ’20 280w + − Nation 110:596 My 1 ’20 1250w
“He seems overstimulated by the shock of strangeness and the pervading atmosphere of idealism and experiment so different from the atmosphere of Broadway. Nevertheless, his book is tonic for the knowledge it brings us of theatrical theories, experiments and striking achievements in a land which is far ahead of ours so far as the theater is concerned.” W. P. Eaton
+ − N Y Call p10 My 2 ’20 420w
“The author presents his material in such a way that not only will those interested in the theatre be attracted to it, but also those who are drawn to the puzzling topic of the Russian revolution.”