Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Travesty Actors: Self and Theater in Stalinist Culture

Travesty Actors: Self and Theater in Stalinist Culture

Morrison, Simon
Wolfson, Boris

Paperback

Series: Studies in Russian Literature and Theory

Literary CriticismTheater History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0810149249
ISBN13: 9780810149243
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Published: Sep 15 2025
Pages: 232
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.39 Width: 5.98 Depth: 8.98
Language: English
Examining theatrical performance under Stalinist cultural mandates

Talk of Joseph Stalin's show trials, the public prosecutions in Moscow's Hall of Columns in the late 1930s, is so familiar as to obscure the relationship between actual shows--in the Soviet Union's major theaters--and politics. Travesty Actors: Self and Theater in Stalinist Culture examines theatrical performance within the context of the Soviet cultural establishment's fashioning of a genuine Soviet person. Boris Wolfson focuses on prominent and controversial plays by artists including Aleksandr Afinogenov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Yuri Olesha, and Natalia Sats and the efforts of theater companies, like the Moscow Arts Theater, the Meyerhold Theater, and the Central Children's Theater, to adhere to this cultural mandate while grappling with repression, censorship, and conflicting interpretations of its aims. Drawing on archival materials, diaries and memoirs and eyewitness accounts, Wolfson greatly illuminates the achievements of Soviet theater during this harsh period and the cultural significance of artistic theories and practices for articulating and enacting ideological programs.

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