Vsevolod Meyerhold

Biography

Vsevolod Meyerhold was born Karl Theodor Kazimir Emil Meyerhold in 1874, in Penza, Russia, into the Russian-German family of Emil Meyerhold. He converted to Orthodox Christianity on his 21st birthday and took the name of Vsevolod in memory of the Russian writer Vsevolod Garshin. After conversion Meyerhold married Olga Mikhailovna (nee Munt) and the couple had three daughters. Vsevolod Meyerhold dropped out of Moscow University Law School to become an actor and director. He studied acting under Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and worked for him at the Moscow Art Theater from 1898 to 1902. Meyerhold moved to St. Petersburg, where he became the leading advocate of Symbolism. He introduced new experimental staging methods into classical plays. After a successful gig as a chief producer at the Vera Komissarzhevskaya theatre, he was invited to the Imperial Directorship of Thatres. Meyerhold worked for Imperial Theatres in 1907-1917, staging both plays and operas. He published a book on innovations in theatrical productions, titled "On Theatre" (1913), that also included his theory of 'conditional theatre'. His acting method was different from that of Stanislavsky's. Meyerhold focused on gestures, poses, and movements in expressing the outward emotions. He argued that physical feel and looks will automatically cause emotional expression. His casting approach was applied by the Russian film directors Sergei Eisenstein, Sergey Gerasimov, Mikhail Romm. For portrayal of the Bolshevik revolutionaries they would cast athletic and attractive actors, while the bourgeois capitalists were played by obese and unattractive actors. Actors from the Meyerhold's theatre were in demand by film directors. Meyerhold accepted the Russian revolution and joined the Bolshevik Party. But he strongly opposed to Socialist realism and was against censorship and political control of art. His famous productions included "The Dead Souls" (1926) by Nikolay Gogol and "The Bedbug" (1929) by Vladimir Mayakovsky. In 1930s Joseph Stalin started the Great Terror of brutal repressions against intellectuals and experimental artists. Vladimir Mayakovsky was found dead of a gunshot wound. Meyerhold was proclaimed "alien to the Soviet people". He was arrested and imprisoned on false accusations. His theatre was closed down in 1938 and actors became unemployed. His wife, actress Zinaida Raikh was mysteriously murdered in their Moscow apartment in 1939. His neighbors Vitali Golovin and Dmitri Golovin were exiled to Siberian prison-camps. His friends Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturyan, Anna Akhmatova and many others were banned from publications and performances. Meyerhold was executed by the firing squad in February of 1940 (the exact date of his death is still unclear). He was rehabilitated posthumously by the Soviet government order that cleared him of all charges, 15 years after his execution.