Cologne, 1927: Carl Niessen had been running the Institute for Theatre Studies at the university since 1920, collecting everything relating to the theatre – and later even had his own museum on Salierring. He worked with the Hänneschen Theatre’s stage, as well as other local, national, and international theatres. At one point he realised he was missing stage sets from revolutionary Soviet theatre, and contacted Alexander Tairov, Director of the Moscow Chamber Theatre. Tairov shipped the stage models over by train. The valuable cargo had to be moved over to trains with a normal track width at the Polish border before continuing on to Cologne. Tairov allowed for some of the models to be replicated in Cologne before being returned. Niessen was very excited and grateful, as Soviet stage designs had “obtained global significance”.
Niessen was allowed to keep the originals of others, such as those by Georgian set designer Irakli Gamrekeli from the oldest theatre in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in Tbilisi.
But wherein lies the “global significance”, what is so radically new about Soviet theatre? It started before the Revolution. Russian did not have a long tradition of the theatre like Western countries did. Sometimes this is an advantage, because there was no baggage to get in the way of free experimentation. Konstantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Artists Theatre shaped the avant-garde. Before the First World War, the world had become aware of Russian performances, the “ballets Russe” were celebrated in Paris, and in 1913 the abstract painter Kasimir Malevich drafted his first stage sets. Yet the archaic model of the “viewing box” was still dominant. This showed interiors or landscapes, while all the mechanisms underlying them remained hidden. It was a complete illusion, strictly separated from the passive, bourgeois audience. The Russian Revolution in 1917 turned everything on its head: bourgeoisie and art. The time was ripe to radically redefine the stage as a place of interpretation. For Lenin and the Bolsheviks who were now in power, theatre served as a means of political agitation. The “agitprop movement” held mass spectacles, including on the street and in factories. The theatre was to become a part of the people, and the people were to be active participants. Previously, Russia only had 82 theatres before the Revolution – now Moscow alone had 150 Red Army theatres.
At first, many creatives welcomed the Revolution and were happy to assist the Bolsheviks. At the Moscow Chamber Theatre, Tairov developed a modern theatre aesthetic with "emotional action": The new type of "master actor" would now be "dancer, artist, clown, singer, mime, and actor in one". Tairov also experimented with the performers' nude, painted bodies, on stages that were composed freely of colours and geometric shapes. The Stenberg brothers and architects like Alexander Vesnin drafted the stage designs.
Tairov's rival, director Vsevolod Meyerhold, ran the Theatre Department of the Commissariat of Education and Enlightenment. The slogan "Theatre October" served as the basis for his contribution to the Revolution, and he acquired painter Lyubov Popova as a stage designer. She was part of the Russian avant-garde and is known for her Cubist and Constructivist imagery.
Popova finished her first complete, Constructivist stage set in 1922: a red, black, and white object for the piece The Magnanimous Cuckold. The board construction with three giant, rotating slabs catches the eye, and the mechanisms are visible. In its entirety it looks like a mysterious machine with uncertain spatial parameters. There are no naturalist illusions to be found - making it ideal for Meyerhold. According to his theory of biomechanics, the "actor of the future" is to be a part of this machine, all wearing the same clothing and serving as a prototype and role model for the proletarian audience. Meyerhold also applied this to his performances of Russian classics. In 1930 he held the satirical piece The Bathhouse by Vladimir Mayakovsky. The poet - originally a staunch revolutionary as well - used this piece as a vehicle to criticise the Soviet regime. Meyerhold fell into disfavour, and Tairov was targeted as well but he was able to escape by touring through Europe. Bauhaus and the theatre of the Weimar Republic have him and the Soviet stage experiments to thank for much of its inspiration. In Berlin, Tairov won praise from director Erwin Piscator, who used new equipment like film projectors, moving belts, and lifts in his theatre.
When the stage models came to Cologne in 1927, the zenith of the new theatre in the Soviet Union had already passed. The era of experimentation was over, and artists now had to follow the rules of socialist realism. Tairov had to denounce himself. Meyerhold’s Theatre was closed down in 1936, and he was arrested and executed in 1940. Niessen began to work for the Nazis.
The new Soviet leader, Stalin, presented himself as brutal, populist, and – much like the current dictator of North Korea – kitschy. State appearances and political presentations by current Russian president Vladimir Putin no longer bear any resemblance to the former aesthetic boldness of the early Soviet Union. What remains? The famous Actor’s Studio in New York is still reminiscent of Stanislavski’s innovations that served as the basis for Russian avant-garde. All else that remains of the revolutionary upheaval is nostalgia, and models of stage sets that once shaped the theatre world – now in collections in Moscow, Vienna, and Schloss Wahn in Cologne.