A History of The Theatre Laboratory

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A History of the Theatre Laboratory
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A History of the Theatre
Laboratory
The term ‘theatre laboratory’ has entered the regular lexicon of theatre artists,
producers, scholars and critics alike, yet use of the term is far from unified, often
operating as a catch-all for a web of intertwining practices, territories, pedago-
gies and ideologies. Russian theatre, however, has seen a clear emergence of lab-
oratory practice that can be divided into two distinct organisational structures:
the studio and the masterskaya (artisanal guild).
By assessing these structures, Bryan Brown offers two archetypes of group or-
ganisation that can be applied across the arts and sciences, and reveals a complex
history of the laboratory’s characteristics and functions that support the term’s
use in theatre.
This book’s discursive, historical approach has been informed substantially
by contemporary practice, through interviews with and examinations of practi-
tioners including Slava Polunin, Anatoli Vassiliev, Sergei Zhenovach and Dmitry
Krymov.
Bryan Brown is an artist-scholar, currently a Lecturer at the University of

Exeter and co-director of visual theatre company ARTEL (American Russian
Theatre Ensemble Laboratory). Recent writing includes “Educating the Direc-
tor”, a co-authored, extended chapter on Meyerhold for The Great European Stage
Directors Vol. 2.
A History of the
Theatre Laboratory
Bryan Brown
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Bryan Brown
The right of Bryan Brown to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book.
ISBN: 978-1-138-67999-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-68000-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-56360-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
for Olya Petrakova
who has led the marches,
cleared the roads
and been my co-conspirator
in a curiouser and curiouser life
Contents
List of figures x
Transliteration & translation xii
Acknowledgements xiii
Abbreviations xv
Glossary xvii
Part I
Introduction 1
1 An organisational history 3
2 What’s in a name 17
3 Why Russia 29
4 Retracing the name 38
PART II
The prototype 43
5 The skete 45
viii Contents
Part III
The studio 51
6 From study to studio 53
7 The studio in visual art: Cobra, a collective vitality 56
8 The studio in science: the Copenhagen Spirit 63
9 The studio in Russian theatre 72
10 Creating a commune: the First Studio’s theatre-obshchina 76
11 Oases of curiosity: the holidays of Slava Polunin 94
12 A new camaraderie in faith: the Theatre Art Studio 111
13 For the sake of what? The studio as laboratory of communion 124
Part IV
The masterskaya 127
14 From workshop to masterskaya 129
15 The masterskaya in visual art: Rembrandt, the master as auteur 133
16 The masterskaya in science: Thomas Edison and the

contradictory positions of his invention factory 139
17 The masterskaya in Russian theatre 147
18 The visionary authority of Vsevolod Meyerhold 151
19 I need them to fear me: Anatoli Vassiliev and the

School of Dramatic Art 168
20 The ecstasy of togetherness: the Dmitry Krymov Laboratory 183
21 For the sake of what? The masterskaya as laboratory of authority 194

Contents ix
Part V
Conclusion 197
22 The value of a theatre laboratory 199
Bibliography 203
Index 213
Figures
1.1 David Teniers the Younger, “The Alchemist”, c1650. Provided

by Mauritshuis, The Hague 2
5.1 An alchemical furnace from the manuscript “Lullius,
Raymundus”, c1235–1315. Provided by the Wellcome Collection 44
6.1 A scholar in his study. Line engraving probably by G.L. Heitel
after Longhi, 1634. Provided by the Wellcome Collection 52
7.1 The house of Erik Nyholm, painted by three members of
Cobra. The signatures above the door appear as a singular
name. Provided by the Cobra Museum of Modern Art 56
8.1 Niels Bohr and colleagues celebrating festively in his bucolic
setting of Tisvilde. Provided by the Niels Bohr Archive 63
11.1 Slava Polunin at “Moulin Volant”, a theatre-life celebration at
Le Moulin Jaune. Photo by Olya Petrakova 94
12.1 The Theatre Art Studio’s domestic atmosphere in the former
Alexeyev Factory. Provided by the Theatre Art Studio 111
14.1 A Goldsmith’s Workshop. Engraving by Etienne Delaune.
© The Trustees of the British Museum 128
15.1 For his teaching and his own curiosity, an entire room of
Rembrandt’s house was devoted to wonder. Rembrandt’s
Art Cabinet. Provided by The Rembrandt House Museum,
Amsterdam 133
16.1 Edison and his “muckers” in Menlo Park. The organ is in
the background. Provided by the US National Park Service,
Thomas Edison National Historical Park 139
19.1 The theatre temple become manifest. Anatoli Vassiliev’s
purpose-built rooftop Orthodox chapel (centre) for use by his
company, the School of Dramatic Art. Photo by John Freedman 168
Figures xi
20.1 “Demon. View from Above” by The Dmitry Krymov

Laboratory at the School of Dramatic Art. Photo by
Natalia Cheban 183
22.1 The performance of it all. The Queen’s Conjuror, John Dee,
performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I by Henry
Gillard Glindoni. Provided by the Wellcome Collection 198
Transliteration & Translation
Transliteration is at best a negotiation of symbols. There is, in my opinion, no

perfect system, although I have chosen to adhere, with a few exceptions, to the
British Museum scheme. I have rendered names familiar to English-speaking
readers in their common anglicised forms throughout (e.g. Stanislavsky, not
Stanislavskii; Meyerhold, not Meierkhold). Similarly, when a living practitioner
prefers their name to be transliterated in an exceptional way, such cases will be
observed (e.g. Anatoli Vassiliev). The diacritic mark ‘'’ for the soft sign ‘ь’ has
been omitted and all Russian words italicised, i.e. studiinost, for ease of recogni-
tion. Similarly, when introducing Russian words into English, I anglicise them
in the plural, i.e. masterskayas or rezhissers rather than masterskie or rezhisserui.
I have been greatly assisted in translation work by Olya Petrakova. Although
I have been the sole author of this study, Petrakova did the foundational work
of all new translations within this book. Collaboratively, we refined the transla-
tions, aiming to capture the specific language of the author(s) while conforming
to contemporary discipline-specific terminology. Thus, if used elsewhere, credit
for these translations should be cited as Petrakova and Brown.
Needless to say, all mistakes are the sole responsibility of the author.
Acknowledgements
This project grew out of practice, from mutual seekings and strivings with Olya
Petrakova in the creation of a theatre company and performance incubation
house. As the practice developed into historical research, Petrakova tirelessly
aided in the translation of Russian texts, acted as oral consecutive translator dur-
ing interviews and as cultural interlocutor on numerous occasions. Her support,
provocations and contributions are an invaluable part of this research.
This book began as a doctoral thesis under the dedicated supervision of
Jonathan Pitches and Tony Gardner at the University of Leeds. I am indebted
to them both for the many hours of spirited discussion and sage guidance. I am
equally grateful to Professor Pitches and the School of Performance and Cultural
Industries for the scholarship and bursary that provided the foundational funding
for my studies.
Duncan Jamieson and Adela Karsznia provided the initial catalyst and have
remained involved in the experiment, providing support and rough translations
of Polish texts at key moments.
I am deeply grateful to all of the practitioners who have allowed me into
their studios, labs and homes, onto their stages and into their processes. Slava
Polunin and his family have been the most gracious of hosts, seconded only by
the Russian laboratory Teatrika, which has not found its way onto the written
page here but has informed much of the thinking and deserves a future study.
I am especially beholden to ARTEL and all of the practitioners that have gone
searching with me.
Furthermore, the following scholars and practitioners have graciously pro-
vided conversation, provocations and texts at prescient moments throughout:
Birgit Beumers, John Britton, Sharon Marie Carnicke, Judie Christie, John
Wesley Hill, Maxim Krivosheyev, Oleg Liptsin, Dick McCaw, Maria Punina,
xiv Acknowledgements
Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva, Natasha Tabachnikova, Rosa Tolskaya and Valery

Trishin.
Four chapters of this book have been developed from previous publications:
“The Emergence of Studiinost: The Ethics and Processes of Ensemble in the
Russian Theatre Studio” and “As Important as Blood and Shelter: Extending
Studiinost into Obshchnost” in Encountering Ensemble, ed. John Britton (London:
Bloomsbury Methuen Drama 2013) and “In Search of the Idea: Scenography,
Collective Composition, and Subjectivity in the Laboratory of Dmitry Krymov”
in Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance, eds Kathryn M. Syssoyeva and
Scott Proudfit (Palgrave Macmillan 2013). I am deeply grateful to the editors and
publishers for the opportunity to explore and develop these earlier works.
I am also indebted to Rob Sunderland from the Niels Bohr Archive for use of
the photo and clarification on Kazimierz Grotowski as well as the following gen-
erous people and institutions who provided photos and permissions for artwork:
John Freedman, Andrey Klimak, British Museum, Cobra Museum of Modern
Art, Mauritshuis, Rembrandt House Museum and Wellcome Collection.
Lastly, The Laboratory Theatre Network (2012–5) organised by the Centre
for Performance Research provided an excellent testing ground for the elabora-
tion of the ideas herein.
Abbreviations
CTLS Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies, a joint initiative

between Aarhus University and Odin Teatret where it is
located.
ETI Eksperimentalnogo Teatralnogo Instituta, or Experimental
Theatre Institute, an unrealised professionalisation
programme conceived by Meyerhold and Soloviev around
1919.
ETP Eksperimentalnogo Teatralnogo Proekt, or Experimental
Theatre Project, a joint masterskaya run by Evgeny
Kamenkovich and Dmitry Krymov at GITIS.
G osudarstvennuie Eksperimentalnuie Teatralnuie Masterskie, or
GEKTEMAS
the State Experimental Theatre Masterskayas. 1923–6.
GITIS The institution officially known today as the Russian
University of Theatrical Arts (Rossiisky Universitet Teatralnogo
Iskusstva – GITIS) has gone through a series of names and
accompanying acronyms over the last hundred-plus years
of its existence. However, for the majority of Soviet rule, it
was known as Gosudarstvennuii Institut Teatralnogo Iskusstva
(GITIS). Its present nomenclature has not transferred
to contemporary Russian vernacular and therefore
the numerous practitioners and teachers I interviewed
continue to refer to the institution as GITIS. Moreover,
the institution itself seems to have adopted GITIS as an
addendum to its name. Therefore, this study refers to this
institution simply as GITIS.
GOSTIM G osudarstvennuii Teatr Imeni Vs. Meyerholda, or the State
Theatre of Vsevolod Meyerhold. August 1926–c1939.
xvi Abbreviations
GVYRM G osudarstvennuie Vuisshie Rezhisserskie Masterskie, or State

Higher Directors’ Masterskayas. October 1921–January
1922.
GVYTM G osudarstvennuie Vuisshie Teatralnuie Masterskie, State Higher
Theatre Masterskayas. January 1922–July 1922.
MAT Moskovsky Khudozhestvenuii Teatr, or Moscow Art Theatre.
Founded in 1898, ‘Academic’ was added to the name during
the period (1919–2004) when the organisation was given
this specific government subsidy and status; however, for
ease of comprehension, ‘academic’ has been dropped from
any references to the institution during said period.
Kursy Masterstva Stsenicheskikh Postanovok, or Courses in
KURMASTSEP
the Mastery of Staging, the first explicit professionalisation
training for rezhissers, organised by Meyerhold, Soloviev and
others in St Petersburg in 1918.
Proletarskaya Kultura, or Proletarian Culture, specifically
Proletkult
this abbreviation signifies an organisational division which
promoted culture as an essential element of the Bolshevik
Revolution.
Narodnuii Komissarat Prosveshcheniya, or the People’s
Narkompros
Commissariat for Enlightenment.
NIL Nauchno-Issledovatelskii Laboratorii, or Scientific Research
Laboratory.
SDA Shkola Dramaticheskogo Iskusstva, or the School of Dramatic
Art, conceived and directed by Anatoli Vassiliev
from 1986–2006. Since 2006, it has been operated by
government appointed managers with Igor Yatsko (a long-
standing actor with Vassiliev) serving as artistic director.
Glossary
Glasnost openness; a period when government repression is lessened and

policies are more transparent. Two important historical manifestations oc-
curred in c1860–81 (under Tsar Alexandr II) and 1986–91 (under Mikhail
Gorbachev).
Hesychasm originally a specific branch of mysticism within the Greek Ortho-
dox Church dating from the fourteenth century; it has become equated with
the contemplative tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy.
Hesychast A member of a movement that stresses silence and believes contem-
plation rather than logic or rationalism leads to truth; a hermit.
Igrovoi teatr performance making processes based on game (or play) struc-
tures developed by Mikhail Butkevich and Anatoli Vassiliev. Butkevich’s
version is more improvisational and ensemble based, whereas Vassiliev’s is
more philosophical and inverts the classical interpretation of Stanislavsky’s
conception of the Inciting and Main Events. Both versions use a distancing
effect between the character and the actor (persona and person), which is
indebted to the work of Michael Chekhov and Mariya Knebel.
Iskanie equivalent to the English searches, but with the poetic sense of quests.
There is an accompanying signification that what is being searched for is not
known, nor is the way clear. The contemporary Russian is poisk, yet poisk
tends to exclude the lyrical from its association, particularly in such early
twenty-first-century contexts as an Internet search.
Izobretatel inventor.
Kaif ecstasy; the term entered Russian from the Arabic and was used often in
nineteenth-century literature. It then fell out of favour after the 1917 Revo-
lutions only to return in the 1960s as part of an alternative culture. It is used
in this study to delineate the pleasure of doing what you love, particularly
the pleasure found between a group. It is, in this sense, related to studiinost.
xviii Glossary
Khudozhestvennuii Rukovoditel artistic director or master teacher; primarily

used throughout this study to refer to the master of a masterskaya in GITIS.
Kruzhok literally, a circle. Membership only, non-hierarchical groups that usu-
ally meet in a house to passionately debate artistic, scientific and political
concerns. Deeply influential in the history of Russian philosophy, politics
and the intelligentsia.
Lichnost personhood; an essential concept for understanding the individual
and her/his relationship to the larger collective.
Masterskaya an artisanal workshop with the structure of authority being
central; a place where students come to learn from a master as well as to
become masters. As an archetype for this study, it centres on the rezhisser as
auteur, pedagogue and researcher.
Muzhik diminutive of the masculine gender-specific word for man that implies
a tough man or a man’s man.
Obshchina a commune; conceived by Slavophile philosophers as the ideal
Russian social structure based upon the peasant village assembly.
Perestroika a period (1986–91) of economic and political reconstruction which
led to the reforms in theatre policy whereby independent control of theatres
and the creation of new theatres were made possible.
Prazdnik holiday or celebration.
Radi Chego “for the sake of what”; a question intended to provoke the essential
reason an action is taken for an individual or collective.
Rezhisser commonly translated as director; the Russian term more properly
indicates the person who combines the functions of auteur, researcher and
pedagogue.
Samodeiatelnost essentially meaning Do-It-Yourself. The term evokes the
amateur love of doing something but has the same ethical connotations as
DIY practice in Anglophone cultures.
Skete a monastic community formed of hermits who gather at prescribed times
to share in the benefits of communal prayer, labour and food. Originally as-
sociated with the Coptic Desert Fathers, the Old Believers and other R ussian
Orthodox variants are organised in such a fashion. The Russian is skit.
Slavophiles Russian intellectuals and philosophers of the early nineteenth-
century who identified Russia’s historic destiny as unique. They advocated
that Russia’s development as a nation lay in following its own path, rather
than aligning itself with the West, which was perceived as morally bank-
rupt. Slavophiles embraced Russian Orthodoxy, particularly its hesychastic
emphasis, and idealised the Russian peasant mir (or village assembly) as
the model for community capable of inspiring the national quests then
taking place in the urban centres.
Sochinenie composition.
Sochinitel deviser.
Sokrovennuii razgovor innermost conversation.
Glossary xix
Soobshchestvo essentially meaning an association, the word has taken on the

sense of obshchina for some contemporary Russians as the two are related
etymologically.
Studiinost essentially meaning “the spirit of the studio”, the term refers to the
ethical agreements or relations of exteriority made and renewed each day by
members of a studio.
Tselnost wholeness or integrity; an essential aspect of the studio archetype
is the integration of the actions, words and beliefs of the individual and
collective.
Vospitanie upbringing or the nurturing of a human being to her/his full po-
tential. As part of a broader organic philosophy and discourse, the term is
similar to, and can be translated as, cultivation.
Part I
Introduction
Figure 1.1 avid Teniers the Younger, “The Alchemist”, c1650. Provided by
D
M auritshuis, The Hague
1
An organisational history
The term ‘theatre laboratory’ has become a keyword in twenty-first-century

performance discourse. Fulfilling cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ two pri-
mary criteria, the term holds a “significance” for practitioners, critics and schol-
ars alike, and presents a “difficulty” by not straightforwardly evoking a shared
sense, value or even referent.1 Since the early 1900s, ‘theatre laboratory’ has been
used variously to refer to a theatre company, an approach to theatre-making or a
small, often secondary, theatre venue. Within and between these uses are a mul-
titude of others, including continuous training regimes, research-led intensives
and ad hoc rehearsal processes; pedagogical programs envisioned as catalysts for
“the theatre of the future”;2 centres and residencies with an avowed experimental
raison d'être to “do what no one else is doing”;3 as well as funding and marketing
strategies that attempt to attract support through diverse means for vastly differ-
ent types of performance. Often the claim of being a laboratory establishes an
enterprise as markedly different, thereby implying an exalted status. In keeping
with Williams’ notions of keywords, the explicit and implicit connections gener-
ated within a performance context that impact the term’s formation of meaning
are representative of broader cultural processes.
Such a proliferation of uses should come as no surprise given the predomi-
nance of the word in twenty-first-century discourse itself. Laboratory has, with
its siblings – curiosity, innovation, incubation and hub – become a catchword for
the ‘creative economy’ and the digital age. In keeping with technological, eco-
nomic and cultural shifts, the arts have seemingly borrowed the term laboratory
to frame their work in a discourse that allows for more value and therefore more
funding to be allocated to them. However, as this book aims to show, theatre
and the arts have not borrowed anything. Rather, the history of the term labo-
ratory crosses and infuses a range of historical and cultural disciplines, practices
and artefacts – the majority of which lay claim to an experimental approach.
4 Introduction
The history of how the laboratory developed from a “dark and smokey”4 place
with a furnace and expanded its discursive currency is the theme of this book.
I have coined this development and expansion the discursive elaboration of the
laboratory, by which I mean the process whereby laboratory not only entered the
discourse of numerous disciplines but became a defining organisational structure
that shaped the practices therein.
For many practitioners and researchers of performance, the term ‘theatre lab-
oratory’ immediately conjures the association of Jerzy Grotowski and his Polish
colleagues. The Polish Laboratory Theatre or Teatr Laboratorium 5 is consist-
ently, if erroneously, considered to have invented the term.6 While the com-
pany had an undeniable impact on the mid-twentieth-century re-examination
of the value and purpose of theatre, Grotowski and his close associate Eugenio
Barba perpetuated and encouraged historical interpretations that served their
agendas.
Shortly after leaving Poland, Barba started his own theatre laboratory, and
over the subsequent decades the Polish Laboratory Theatre and the Odin Tea-
tret Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium7 became iconic representatives of a particular
approach to performance making and organisation, influencing numerous prac-
titioners as well as being authors and subjects of many scholarly works. In recent
years, Barba has been telling a few hagiographic versions of how the term ‘theatre
laboratory’ was some “bureaucratic” mistake on a form Grotowski signed.8 This
mistake is the subject of this book.
Despite the wide influence and associative currency of Grotowski and Barba,
for other practitioners and scholars the term ‘theatre laboratory’ evokes foremost
a Russian tradition.9 The early twentieth-century studios of Stanislavsky and
Meyerhold provide the predominant context for this association. While neither
practitioner is widely known for placing laboratory directly in the name of their
company, Stanislavsky’s 1924 passage in My Life in Art calling for a “special in-
stitution” is frequently cited as one of the earliest mentions of a laboratory for
the theatre. In this passage, he is retroactively commenting on the first studio he
created with his former disciple and colleague Vsevolod Meyerhold:
But in what form and where were we to realize our dreams? First of all
they demanded full realization in laboratory work. For this there was no
place in the theatre with its daily performances, its complex duties and its
severely economical budget. We needed a special institution, which we
named very happily [the Theatre-Studio].10 This was neither a ready-made
theatre nor a school for beginners, but a laboratory for more or less mature
actors.11
Yet, for all his and Meyerhold’s innovation, Stanislavsky’s use of laboratory
in this passage is in fact a reflection of the discourse of his times, one that was
prevalent in post-1917 revolutionary Russia but was by no means unique to that
country.
An organisational history 5
Still other cultures, particularly the French, have their own theatre laboratory
tradition. The Théâtre du Soleil directed by Ariane Mnouchkine and the Centre
International de Recherche Théâtrale12 directed by Peter Brook are well-known
contemporary examples. Both companies are more commonly referred to by the
French term ‘research theatre’ (théâtre de recherche), a tradition frequently traced to
Jacques Copeau and Charles Dullin. In expressing the rationale for creating the
Atelier Theatre, Dullin explicitly stated:
The Atelier is not a theatrical business; it is a laboratory for dramatic ex-

perimentation. We chose this word [atelier] because it seems to express
our notion of an ideal corporative organization, one in which the strong-
est of individual personalities submits to the greater requirements of
collaboration.13
In this statement, Dullin, like Stanislavsky before him, highlights the impor-
tance of the organisation. Both men used the word laboratory to describe what
they perceived as a new type of activity within the field of performance. This
new activity required an alternative model for theatrical organisation, one that
emphasised the experimental approach of their endeavours.
In these examples, laboratory has two distinct functions. It is used as no-
menclature, or the name of an organisation, and as an adjectival noun. These
functions are mirrored in the discourse of other disciplines and further reinforce
the premise of the discursive elaboration of the laboratory. When the word lab-
oratory operates as nomenclature, it strengthens the hegemonic concept of “the
important places in which new empirical knowledge is created [… and] titled
‘Laboratory’ with a capital ‘L’”.14 When operating as an adjectival noun, labo-
ratory indicates an approach more than a place. It is this latter use that is often
perceived as mere metaphor when the word operates in an artistic context.
This book grew out of thinking about how the theatre laboratory is more
than just a metaphor – how it is in fact an activity. The centrality of doing was
similarly identified by historian of science Owen Hannaway in a seminal article
on the appearance of the scientific laboratory and its concomitant impact upon
our conceptions of knowledge.
The appearance of the laboratory is indicative of a new mode of scientific

inquiry [… which brought about] a shift in the meaning of science itself:
science no longer was simply a kind of knowledge (one possessed scientia); it
increasingly became a form of activity (one did science). That there should
have arisen in this period a place specially set aside for such activity and
bearing a new name serves to measure the force of that shift.15
It is my contention that the emergence of the theatre laboratory also marks a

shift in the emphasis on doing, one that, similar to the scientific shift, resituates
knowledge in a Western context within an embodied practice. Just as Hannaway
6 Introduction
argues that the laboratory is a space of labour where knowledge cannot be di-
vided from the act of producing it, the theatre laboratory has reconstructed dis-
course around the practice and craft of making theatre, increasing its value for
the performance maker, even challenging the boundaries and conceptions of
performance itself by questioning the need for and relationship to the spectator.
Of course, the theatre laboratory was only part of a much larger epistemic shift
occurring in the twentieth century whereby the body became again a site of
knowledge and value.16 Within a theatrical context, this manifested most appar-
ently in the development of new performer training regimes. And here is often
the strongest associative link for the theatre laboratory, where it is perceived as a
place of training, and particularly performer training. Yet, a theatre laboratory
is also a resource centre, an archive, and a cultural intermediary, functions that
are not always seemingly related to performer training but are important compo-
nents of how the theatre laboratory has shifted perceptions of the value of theatre
itself. In order to untangle the proliferation of referents for the theatre laboratory
as well as the many activities it has become associated with, this study focuses on
the organisational structures, referred to herein as the studio and the masterskaya,
that have informed its emergence.
This book is conceived as a history of the theatre laboratory, not the history.
It is not intended to be a catalogue or inventory of practitioners and practices
that comprise the laboratory theatre tradition. Some readers, therefore, may
be surprised that canonical practitioners of that tradition, such as Konstantin
Stanislavsky and Jerzy Grotowski, are not focused on within these pages. This is
in part due to the status these practitioners hold in theatre history and the many
pages already committed to their examination, but it is primarily due to the fo-
cus on Russian theatre as the clearest emulation of the organisational structures,
therefore excluding Grotowski. In focussing on organisation, Stanislavsky did
not have the impact (either discursively or managerially) that his collaborators
Vsevolod Meyerhold and Leopold Sulerzhitsky did, and therefore the latter are
prioritised for this history.
Additionally, readers whose conception of the theatre laboratory as indicative
of research into performer training may be surprised by this study’s lack of de-
tailed descriptions of such technique. A proper interrogation of any one of the
training regimes conceived by a practitioner examined herein would require
a book in itself. While such an endeavour remains a necessity for many of the
practitioners discussed within these pages, who are not well known in English, it
is not the remit of this book. Rather, what follows is an attempt to state why the
theatre laboratory exists, how the term came into being and how the organisa-
tion of a theatre laboratory is reflective of a broader history of the collaborative
generation of knowledge.
Although a wealth of scholarship has been produced on the various practi-
tioners associated with the theatre laboratory, there has been surprisingly little
attention paid to the organisation of the laboratory itself.17 This absence has led
to a lack of nuance in conceptions of the term ‘theatre laboratory’, further leading
to a proliferation of the term. While such a proliferation may be in keeping with

the history of the word laboratory, this study aims to refine conceptions of a the-
atre laboratory to better inform understandings of its emergence and continued
rationale. In doing so, I draw upon the field of laboratory studies,18 an overar-
ching term used throughout this book for the abundance of scholarship on the
history of the laboratory and its various spaces, functions, practices and products.
Laboratory studies encompasses research from the field of science studies,19 the
history of science and the history of art. In situating the theatre laboratory within
the broader discursive elaboration of the laboratory, this study aims for a more
comprehensive view of the laboratory theatre tradition and to offer new tools for
discussing the intents and rationales of practitioners within that tradition. Identi-
fying what is meant by a theatre laboratory remains a complex task.
At the turn of the millennium, Eugenio Barba gathered prominent scholars
whose research often brought them within the environment of the International
School of Theatre Anthropology and proposed to them the provocative ques-
tions: “Why a theatre laboratory?” and “What is a theatre laboratory?”20. Out of
this questioning arose the creation of the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Stud-
ies (CTLS), a joint endeavour by Odin Teatret and the University of Aarhus,
Denmark. The CTLS symposium produced significant scholarship on the theatre
laboratory by gathering some of the foremost scholars in the field to discuss prac-
titioners within a laboratory framework. The choice of practitioners – made by
Barba, Janne Risum and Erik Christoffersen – followed a fairly canonical inter-
pretation of twentieth-century theatre by examining Stanislavsky, Meyerhold,
Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Brook, Mnouchkine and Odin Teatret, with
what were referred to as “irradiations” of the phenomenon in Latin America,
Asia and the USA. This present study is similarly limited in its scope. It is rec-
ognised that this history is decidedly Western and almost exclusively Northern
European. There is not space in one monograph to trace a global elaboration
of the laboratory into theatre. In order to condense the “broad, heterogeneous,
and scattered environment”21 that is the contemporary theatre laboratory into a
definable research context, this book by necessity focuses on Russia. It is hoped
that a future study will find sufficient merit in the organisational archetypes
present herein to use them for further investigation into global theatre practices
and histories.
In 2009, the detailed scholarship from the inaugural CTLS symposium
was compiled into the publication Alchemists of the Stage: Theatre Laboratories in
Europe, within which Mirella Schino proposes a useful term for laboratory the-
atre scholarship: “laboratoriality”.22 Intended to encapsulate the activities and
epistemologies that drive and give value to a theatre, Schino introduces labora-
toriality to evoke the Russian term studiinost 23 – introduced fully below – which
she equates with the theatre epidemic in Russia during the first few decades of
the nineteenth century. Schino is, however, building upon a theatre history not
well known in English scholarship, and often Alchemists of the Stage is blinded by
its own contexts. This book aims to step back from those contexts and examine
8 Introduction
more fully the histories and discourses that led to the prevalence of the term
‘theatre laboratory’.
The phrase “theatre epidemic” can be traced to Nikolai Gorchakov’s 1957
survey of Russian and Soviet theatre, where, as Schino indicates, it is used to
describe the period between 1917–25 when, despite the brutal conditions, there
was a fervent desire to create the new theatre. Gorchakov frames the epidemic
in a zealous language reflective of the spiritual discourse of early laboratory
practitioners:
The studios were almost like hermitages or monasteries, and the devotees
who worked in them were a mendicant order of the militant faithful of the
theatres. [… T]hey performed a great service in maintaining the burning
flame of pure love for the pure art of the theatre – especially among the
young.24
In 1994, Robert Leach took up the phrase but shifted the discourse by equating
the theatre epidemic more concretely with the Revolution. While Gorchakov
focused on the hermetic aspect of the theatre studio, Leach broadened the epi-
demic to the numerous instances of the “urge to theatricalise”25 that led to street
parades, agitprop theatres, mock tribunals and mass spectacles. For Leach, the
theatre epidemic was the pinnacle of what he terms revolutionary theatre and
its larger goal of creating “theatricalised life”.26 In keeping with this propulsion
towards growth, laboratoriality then is indicative of “everything going on in the-
atre laboratories, as well as the propensity to create new laboratories recognising
their value and importance”.27
Interestingly, Italian scientists have begun using laboratoriality in recent
years as well, particularly as it relates to pedagogy. In such usage, laboratorial-
ity is both a “place of observation” and a “methodology [capable of creating]
a network of learning”. 28 Laboratoriality is therefore, in the functions of the
word laboratory discussed earlier, an adjectival noun: an approach, or what
members of the Odin Theatre consider a “way of thinking”. 29 It is a useful
term that is beginning to be picked up by more performance scholars and, with
its cross-disciplinary usage and historical associations, points at the direction
taken by this study: namely the need for a more discursive understanding of
the term laboratory, one that articulates clearly an organisational rationale for
its use.
The precedent for laboratoriality – studiinost – will, as mentioned, be almost
wholly unfamiliar to the majority of readers of Alchemists of the Stage, and Schino
does very little to provide context for it. It is in fact much more than a referent for
the propensity to create theatre studios. It is an atmosphere and an ethical code.30
In unpacking its usage in Russian theatre, two distinct organisational structures
have been identified that form the basis for this study’s contribution to the labo-
ratory theatre tradition and that are robust enough to be applied to organisational
analysis in other disciplines: the studio and the masterskaya.
Two archetypes
This study identifies and describes two organisational structures: the studio and
the masterskaya. A distinct choice has been made to present these structures as
archetypes. Unlike the term ‘model’, which indicates a concrete form to be im-
itated, the term ‘archetype’ emphasises a non-prescriptive approach. The arche-
types in this study are theoretical frames analysed through their instantiation in
practice. As with most practical application of theory, there is no strict either/or
demarcation but rather a tendency for overlap and cross-pollination. Although
elaborated from Russia and focused on theatre, it is argued that these structures
are applicable to the organisation of most creative groups, thereby aiding under-
standings of laboratory practice in its many forms and disciplines.
The studio
The studio is organised around the interdependent relations or ethical bonds be-
tween the people who comprise it. It is therefore inherently collective and com-
munal. Family and home are important tropes for this archetype, as are circle and
hearth. The holistic or integrated referents of a circle apply equally to the group
and the individual. The warmth and openness of a hearth, with its historical con-
text of a space for sharing stories, encourage an informal atmosphere. In this way,
the studio is anti-authority, insofar as authority limits the freedom and rights
of the collective to develop according to its own organic sensibilities, and anti-
institutional, insofar as institutions limit the ease of expression, warmth and care
between members of the collective. The studio therefore generates its own cul-
ture and is, in this, a utopic enterprise.
Etymologically, the word studio implies a retreat, often with a spiritual
inflection, such as a monk’s chamber. Not surprisingly then, there is a more-
than-material focus for the archetype, with a studio’s leader often perceived as a
“spiritual guide”31 mentoring the studio members towards their own personal
potential. Leopold Sulerzhitsky, the spiritual guide of the First Studio of the
Moscow Art Theatre, epitomised the utopic vision of the studio archetype when
he stated that theatre must “be in service to the perfecting of the human be-
ing”.32 In this, he presages Ruth Levitas’ concept of utopia as method, which
claims that utopia is a necessary imagining of social possibilities in order to affect
historical processes.33 Utopia, then, for the studio, is not a non-place but rather a
generative force for reimagining and remaking the world.
This practice of perfecting is, however, never without a certain jocularity,
one grounded in naiveté. Sincerity and festivity not only form the foundation
of discursive tropes for the archetype but become mechanisms for maintain-
ing the ethical relations of the studio. These mechanisms are instantiated in the
studio’s adjectival noun, studiinost. A term widely known in Italian, Polish and
Russian scholarship as well as a reference point for many Eastern European the-
atre practitioners, studiinost does not have a referent outside of theatre. A possible
10 Introduction
translation is ‘studioness’ or ‘studiality’, but neither of these terms has any imme-
diate currency in English; neither evokes a clear association in the reader. Past
translators have chosen to turn the word into a phrase: “the spirit of the studio”,34
a choice that aptly summarises how the adjectival noun encapsulates the atmos-
phere of the archetype. An atmosphere is not a fixed and unchanging condition;
rather, like spirit, atmospheres are related to ‘breath’ and the intransitive verb
‘to breathe’. Anthropologist Tim Ingold has argued that intransitive verbs such
as ‘to grow’, ‘to hope’ and ‘to dwell’ indicate a primacy of action or the process
of becoming – “Growing into the world, the world grows in them”.35 With this
in mind, studiinost could be translated more aptly as ‘the spiriting of the studio’,
but this is a terribly cumbersome phrase. Therefore, I have chosen to transfer
rather than translate studiinost in the hopes that English-language scholars and
practitioners will adopt and begin to use the term regularly, as many of their Eu-
ropean colleagues have already done. The choice to leave the term untranslated,
however, should not dissuade the reader from bearing in mind that studiinost, like
the ethics and bonds it maintains, is the continual breathing, hoping and growing
of the studio.
The masterskaya
A Russian word indicating an artisan’s guild workshop, the masterskaya is or-
ganised upon a master-apprentice relationship. It is a skills-based learning envi-
ronment where the individual takes precedence over the collective. The aim of
a masterskaya is to make masters of its apprentices from a detailed programme of
study while simultaneously encouraging the discovery of new forms that serve
the vision of the master. While the term could be, and has been, translated as
‘workshop’, English speakers readily perceive ‘master’ in masterskaya; thus, the
choice to leave the designation untranslated for the purposes of this study high-
lights what sociologist Richard Sennett has succinctly identified as the central
tenet of any craftsman’s workshop: “a productive space in which people deal
face-to-face with issues of authority”.36
The master embodies that authority. Within twentieth-century Russian the-
atre, the master was the director, or more properly the rezhisser, a tradition that
is largely still applicable in the twenty-first century, although challenged within
this book. Commonly translated as ‘director’, the term rezhisser captures the ideal
nature of the role within the masterskaya context as the person who combines the
functions of auteur, researcher and pedagogue. The position of the rezhisser and
the validity of the masterskaya are reinforced by the propensity in Russian culture
to defer to the cult of personality, a propensity that was also relied upon and
manipulated by the Revolutions of 1917. It is not surprising, then, that the mas-
terskaya rose to prominence within the years directly following those revolutions.
Linguistically, masterskaya is related to masterit, meaning ‘to master’. Thus,
when Vsevolod Meyerhold and Vladimir Soloviev envisioned a new training
institute in 1918, they stated: “Masterskayas have as their goal the preparation of
masters in the art of theatre”.37 This solidifies the archetype’s concentration on

doing, on skills-based training and development. Such a focus, however, is not in
contradiction to Sennett’s central definition. Authority is deeply related to skill.
The consistent acquirement of skill through daily practice aimed at the creation
of product is maintained by a disciplined structure of authority. The masterskaya,
then, is the domain of the rezhisser, who directs the training of the artist-
apprentices working under him. Focused on aesthetics, a masterskaya works
towards the development of new forms that represent the vision of the master.
This book
This book is primarily organised around the two archetypes: the studio (Part III)
and the masterskaya (Part IV). Each part begins with a brief description of the
archetype supported by an etymological discussion. Each part will then present a
manifestation of the archetype from the visual arts. For the studio archetype, this
will be the international art collective Cobra, whose challenge to the modernist
conception of the individual artist advanced a philosophy of wholeness funda-
mental to the studio archetype. The workshop of Rembrandt, with its unique
relationships to authority and authenticity, will be the basis for examining the
masterskaya archetype. The theatre has been immeasurably influenced by the
trends and innovations of the visual arts, but the organisational influences have
rarely been examined.
Moving from the world of painting, each part will then present a parallel
manifestation from the world of science. It has been widely recognised how sci-
ence has permeated performer training, particularly the regimes of Stanislavsky
and Meyerhold.38 Less recognised is the organisation of science and its relation
to theatre practice. In order to develop the organisational similarities between
science and theatre, Niels Bohr and his Copenhagen Spirit will be analysed for its
instantiation of the ethics and mechanisms of the studio archetype, while Thomas
Edison and his Menlo Park Invention Factory offer a perspective on how the mas-
terskaya archetype balances a product-oriented necessity and a research-oriented
desire. These interdisciplinary analyses support the archetypal nature of the or-
ganisational structures and exemplify the foundational tropes, mechanisms and
referents of the elaboration of the laboratory.
Each part will then move into the specific territory of the theatre laboratory
in Russia. The discussion will begin with an overview of how the archetype
has been perceived in scholarship to date. The intent is twofold: to justify the
particular rationale for this study’s conception of the archetype and to increase
knowledge of Russian theatre through the addition of new information that
challenges previous scholarly distinctions.
From the wider historical perspective, the archetype will then be specifi-
cally examined through its manifestation in three different theatre practitioners.
These will follow a chronological pattern for both parts: the early twentieth-
century, the later twentieth-century and the early twenty-first-century. The
12 Introduction
choice of these time periods is intended to highlight a clear emergence of the

terms in theatrical usage and investigate their contemporary rationale.
The first of the three manifestations for the studio archetype will be the First
Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre. The majority of scholarship on the First Stu-
dio centres on Stanislavsky’s use of it as a place for analysis and discovery of the
actor’s processes. This chapter will provide a different perspective on the First
Studio’s creation and its philosophical rationale. Sulerzhitsky was the pedagogue
and leader of the studio as cultural experiment, dedicated to creating a commune
of artists that would revitalise the act of communion with an audience. Drawing
on primary Russian sources from the First Studio as well as the Vakhtangov Stu-
dio,39 the organisational ideals of the studio archetype will be examined through
the generation and maintenance of its adjectival noun studiinost.
The late twentieth-century manifestation will focus on Slava Polunin, whose
performance Slava’s Snowshow continues to tour internationally twenty years af-
ter its creation. Snowshow developed from Polunin’s St Petersburg studio Licedei.
Within the drab context of the late Soviet era, Polunin’s approach to studiinost
furthered an essential trait of the studio archetype, what Mel Gordon has called
the First Studio’s “intense feasts of love”.40 Developing this book’s understand-
ing of improvisation and festivity, Polunin organises his creative endeavours as
a holiday. These holidays are not only for the performers but for the audience as
well. Polunin’s studio turns holiday into the central mechanism of studiinost, and
in so doing expands the concept of communion.
The final analysis of Part III focuses on the Theatre Art Studio and its director
Sergei Zhenovach. Officially created in 2005, the Theatre Art Studio grew out
of another type of experiment in the creation of communion. Whereas Polunin
raises the studio archetype’s discourse of holidays into an organisational prin-
ciple, the Theatre Art Studio has formed itself around the archetype’s primary
domestic structure of a hearth. Zhenovach’s theatre is one of sharing intimacies
through conversation, where the expression of thought becomes revelation if
done sincerely and between ‘blood friends’. Such an atmosphere is fragile and
requires a guide to enable its creation and maintenance. Coupled with the fact
that the Theatre Art Studio is comprised of his former GITIS students, Zheno-
vach provides an interesting example of how the conception of the pedagogue as
a spiritual guide operates in a twenty-first-century studio.
The first manifestation of the masterskaya archetype in Russian theatre will
be an examination of Vsevolod Meyerhold, who expanded the theatrical context
of the word masterskaya and made it the domain of the rezhisser – the Russian
conception of director as auteur, pedagogue and researcher. Meyerhold used mas-
terskaya similarly to his revolutionary colleagues in other disciplines that equated
it with a school; however, a school in this context implied a group of artists
learning and working together under the supervision of a master. As part of the
new Bolshevik government’s Theatre Department, Meyerhold was responsible
for creating educational programmes that would develop the next generation of
theatre masters. The consummate rebel, Meyerhold used this position to foster
his own agenda of discovering new theatrical forms while in turn helping to
establish the pre-eminent professional theatre training institutions that continue
in Russia today. This chapter will primarily focus on Meyerhold’s realised and
unrealised plans for these institutions and the complex relationship to authority
that they present.
The late twentieth-century manifestation will focus on Anatoli Vassiliev and
his School of Dramatic Art (SDA). Although he is an important figure in modern
understandings of the theatre laboratory, there remains little access to Vassiliev’s
work in English. This chapter will examine Vassiliev’s organisation of SDA as a
reinterpretation of Meyerhold’s early twentieth-century conceptions of the re-
search institute. It will also consider how Vassiliev has reconfigured the trinity as
Laboratory-School-Theatre. Equally, Vassiliev offers an opportunity to address
issues of lineage and tradition that are an important discussion within the mas-
terskaya archetype. Like Eugenio Barba, who claims that “Meyerhold was my
grandfather”,41 Vassiliev has constructed his own artistic genealogy, an examina-
tion of which problematises the rezhisser as ultimate authority.
The final analysis of Part IV will be taken from within the SDA itself. The
Dmitry Krymov Laboratory presents a unique challenge to the conception of
the masterskaya as constructed within this study. An internationally recognised
scenographer and painter, Krymov turned to creating his own performances in
the early twenty-first century. Unlike amateur practitioners or companies, such
as AKHE Theatre Engineering, who from the margins have been radically chal-
lenging traditional conceptions of what theatre is and how it is made, Krymov
has contested these areas from within the tradition. A master teacher at GITIS,
Krymov used his students to explore his own vision of a designer-led theatre.
Although praised by the Moscow theatre world, the engagement of students in
professional performances led Krymov to split with the Scenography Faculty.
The Directing Faculty, however, was willing to incorporate his unorthodox
methods and established a new course called the Experimental Theatre Project.
Krymov challenges conceptions of the rezhisser in contemporary Russian practice
while his pedagogy directly embodies the methods outlined by the rezhisser par
excellence Vsevolod Meyerhold.
Before entering fully into an examination of the archetypes and their man-
ifestations, it is necessary to turn to the missing component in the majority of
theatre laboratory studies to date: an investigation of the term laboratory itself,
an investigation that precipitates a dialogue with the history of science.
Notes
1 Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Oxford: Oxford
University Press 1983), 15.
2 Heiner Goebbels, Aesthetics of Absence: Texts on Theatre (Abingdon: Routledge 2015),
94.
3 Robert Wilson as quoted on The Watermill Centre website: www.watermillcenter.
org/support/.
14 Introduction
4 Robert Boyle, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. In Six Volumes. To Which Is
Prefixed the Life of the Author (London: Rivington 1772), 461.
5 It is acknowledged that this organisation went by numerous names throughout its
twenty-five-year existence. For ease of comprehension, I shall refer to it throughout
as the Polish Laboratory Theatre.
6 Even at the concluding conference of the Laboratory Theatre Network, a L everhulme-
funded gathering of European and North American scholars and practitioners organ-
ised by the Centre for Performance Research, pre-eminent theatre historians were
regularly stating Grotowski “invented the term”.
7 When Odin Teatret moved to Holstebro in 1964, it became known as the Nordisk
Teaterlaboratorium for Skuespillerkunst (the Nordic theatre laboratory for the actor’s
art). Twenty years later, Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium became the name of the larger
umbrella organisation housing Odin Teatret, various other theatre companies, pub-
lishing and film companies and other projects.
8 Mirella Schino, Alchemists of the Stage: Theatre Laboratories in Europe (Holstebro; Wrocław;
Malta: Icarus Publishing Enterprise 2009), 49, 50. Schino presents Grotowski’s de-
cision to use the term theatre laboratory as nomenclature in two different versions:
first, “Laboratory was a name that Grotowski had invented, together with Flaszen, to
prevent his theatre from having to be a run-of-the-mill repertory theatre, forced to
produce performances at a rate established by external forces”; and second, through
Barba’s memory “that the term laboratory had been affixed to Grotowski’s theatre quite
unexpectedly and almost by chance, one day when he had had to quickly fill in a ques-
tionnaire”. Barba expanded upon this latter interpretation at the second Laboratory
Theatre Network gathering (27 October 2012) where he commented that an “anony-
mous Polish bureaucrat” was responsible for making ‘theatre laboratory’ a category on
government forms.
9 The Laboratory Theatre Network, a three-year project on the traditions and histories
of the theatre laboratory, states: “The laboratory theatre tradition, which can be dated
from the studio theatres of Russia in the 1920s, has long embraced a complex matrix of
concerns – societal, ideological, political, philosophical, psychological, aesthetic – and has
played a key role in the worldwide development of knowledge and practice in the theatre,
and across the cultural industries”. www.thecpr.org.uk/projects/conferences.php.
10 The 1905 organisation on Povarskaya Street has been referred to by many variants in
English-language scholarship. I prefer ‘Theatre-Studio’ as it most clearly resembles
the original Russian (Театр-Студия).
11 Constantin Stanislavski, My Life in Art (London: Methuen 1980), 430.
12 Brook created CIRT with Micheline Rozan and together in 1974 they moved into
the Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris, simultaneously changing the name to the Cen-
tre International de Créations Théâtrale.
13 Edward Baron Turk, The French Theatre Today: The View from New York, Paris, and
Avignon (Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press 2011), 19.
14 Graeme Gooday, “Placing or Replacing the Laboratory in the History of Science?”
Isis 99 (2008): 786.
15 Owen Hannaway, “Laboratory Design and the Aim of Science: Andreas Libavius
versus Tycho Brahe”, Isis 77, no. 4 (1986): 585–6, emphasis in the original.
16 See Harold B. Segel, Body Ascendant: Modernism and the Physical Imperative (Baltimore,
MD: John Hopkins University Press 1998); Felicia M. McCarren, Dance Pathologies:
Performance, Poetics, Medicine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 1998); Stanton
B. Garner, Jr., “Physiologies of the Modern: Zola, Experimental Medicine and the
Naturalist Stage” in Modern Drama: Defining the Field, eds Ric Knowles, Joanne
Tompkins and W.B. Worthen, 67–79 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2003).
17 The major English-language studies that have begun an investigation into the labora-
tory itself are Robert Leach, Revolutionary Theatre (London: Routledge 1994); Robert
Leach, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold (Bern: Peter Lang 2003); Jonathan Pitches, Science
and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting (Abingdon: Routledge 2006); Schino, Alchemists
of the Stage; and Jonathan Pitches, Simon Murray, Helen Poynor, Libby Worth, David
Richmond and Jules Dorey Richmond, “Performer Training: Researching Practice
in the Theatre Laboratory”, in Research Methods in Theatre and Performance. Research
Methods for the Arts and Humanities, eds Baz Kershaw and Helen Nicholson, 137–61
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2011).
18 Laboratory studies generally refers to a specific branch of Science and Technology
Studies that arose in the late 1970s, primarily involving direct observation of the
people and places where scientific knowledge is produced, and exemplified by Bruno
Latour, Steve Woolgar, Karin Knorr-Cetina and others. I have broadened the mean-
ing for this book to include the historical evaluations of laboratories exemplified by
Hannaway, Shapin, Newman and Principe as well as the excellent work of Peter
Galison, Caroline A. Jones and Emily Thompson that incorporates the history of art
and architecture.
19 Science studies is a broad term denoting sociological and philosophical approaches to
studying the practice of science. Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality
of Science Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1999) is an excellent
introduction.
20 There are various accounts of this event. See Erik Exe Christoffersen, ed., “Why a
Theatre Laboratory?” Peripeti 2 (2004): 1–88, and Schino, Alchemists of the Stage.
21 Janne Risum, “Introduction: Opening Speech at the International Symposium of
CTLS, Why a Theatre Laboratory? in Aarhus 4–6 October 2004” (Holstebro: CTLS
Archives).
22 Schino, Alchemists of the Stage, 24.
23 I have previously introduced studiinost into English in John Britton, ed., Encountering
Ensemble (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama 2003).
24 Nikolai A. Gorchakov; trans. Edgar Lehrman, The Theater in Soviet Russia (New
York, NY: Columbia University Press 1957), 244.
25 Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 36.
26 Ibid., 37.
27 Schino, Alchemists of the Stage, 24.
28 Checcheti Andrea, Fantini Alessandro, and Jessica Lanzo, “A Gradual and Interdis-
ciplinary Proposal for the Teaching of Atomic Structure: Reflections on Concep-
tual Issues”, European Journal of Research and Reflection in Educational Sciences 3, no. 5
(2015): 2.
29 Adam Ledger, Odin Teatret: Theatre in a New Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave M acmillan
2012), 35.
30 Marie-Christine Autant-Mathieu, “Michael Chekhov and the Cult of the Studio” in
The Routledge Companion to Michael Chekhov, eds Marie-Christine Autant-Mathieu
and Yana Meerzon, 82–95 (Abingdon: Routledge 2015), has written about studiinost
in a similar vein to Schino. Translating it as the “cult of the studio”, A
utant-Mathieu
primarily sees studiinost as a propensity for creating new centres of theatre. While
she addresses important ethical and utopic aspects of the studio, she conflates the
two archetypes and their discourses, which this book argues are separate.
31 First Studio actress Lidiya Deikun refers to Sulerzhitsky as dukhovnuii voshchd, which
can be translated as ‘spiritual leader’ or ‘spiritual guide’, in Elena Polyakova, ed.,
Leopold Antonovich Sulerzhitskii (Moscow: Iskusstvo 1970), 599. This appellation is
directly repeated by Gorchakov, The Theater in Soviet Russia, 245; Ruffini in Schino,
Alchemists of the Stage, 103; and Andrei Malaev-Babel, ed. and trans., The Vakhtangov
Sourcebook (Abingdon: Routledge 2011), 36.
32 Mariya Polkanova and Sergei Andrusenko, eds, I Vnov' o Khudozhestvennom. MXAT
v Vospominaniyax i Zapisyax. 1901–1920 (Moscow: Avantitul 2004), 11.
33 Ruth Levitas, Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan 2013).
34 Lyubov Vendrovskaya and Galina Kaptereva, eds, Evgeny Vakhtangov (Moscow: Pro-
gress Publishers 1982), 82.
16 Introduction
35 Tim Ingold, Being Alive (Abingdon: Routledge 2011).

36 Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press
2008), 54.
37 Vsevolod Meyerhold, Lektsii, 1918–1919 (Moscow: OGI 2000), 203.
38 See Joseph Roach, The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting (Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press 1993); Pitches, Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of
Acting; and Rose Whyman, The Stanislavsky System of Acting: Legacy and Influence in
Modern Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008).
39 For ease of comprehension, and following Malaev-Babel, The Vakhtangov Sourcebook,
52, the Vakhtangov Studio shall be used throughout this study. It is acknowledged
that this organisation has had numerous names throughout its history.
40 Mel Gordon, The Stanislavski Technique: Russia (New York, NY: Applause 1987), 43.
41 Eugenio Barba, “Grandfathers, Orphans, and the Family Saga of European Theatre”,
New Theatre Quarterly 19, no. 2 (2003): 108.
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A History of the Theatre Laboratory

Book · October 2018

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Bryan Brown is an artist-scholar, currently a Lecturer at the University of

ISBN: 978-1-138-67999-3 (hbk)

4 Retracing the name 38

6 From study to studio 53

7 The studio in visual art: Cobra, a collective vitality 56

8 The studio in science: the Copenhagen Spirit 63

9 The studio in Russian theatre 72

10 Creating a commune: the First Studio’s theatre-obshchina 76

11 Oases of curiosity: the holidays of Slava Polunin 94

12 A new camaraderie in faith: the Theatre Art Studio 111

13 For the sake of what? The studio as laboratory of communion 124

14 From workshop to masterskaya 129

15 The masterskaya in visual art: Rembrandt, the master as auteur 133

16 The masterskaya in science: Thomas Edison and the

17 The masterskaya in Russian theatre 147

18 The visionary authority of Vsevolod Meyerhold 151

19 I need them to fear me: Anatoli Vassiliev and the

20 The ecstasy of togetherness: the Dmitry Krymov Laboratory 183

21 For the sake of what? The masterskaya as laboratory of authority 194

22 The value of a theatre laboratory 199

1.1 David Teniers the Younger, “The Alchemist”, c1650. Provided

20.1 “Demon. View from Above” by The Dmitry Krymov

Transliteration is at best a negotiation of symbols. There is, in my opinion, no

Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva, Natasha Tabachnikova, Rosa Tolskaya and Valery

CTLS  Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies, a joint initiative

GVYRM  G osudarstvennuie Vuisshie Rezhisserskie Masterskie, or State

Glasnost openness; a period when government repression is lessened and

Khudozhestvennuii Rukovoditel artistic director or master teacher; primarily

Soobshchestvo essentially meaning an association, the word has taken on the

The term ‘theatre laboratory’ has become a keyword in twenty-first-century

The Atelier is not a theatrical business; it is a laboratory for dramatic ex-

The appearance of the laboratory is indicative of a new mode of scientific

It is my contention that the emergence of the theatre laboratory also marks a

to a proliferation of the term. While such a proliferation may be in keeping with

masters in the art of theatre”.37 This solidifies the archetype’s concentration on

choice of these time periods is intended to highlight a clear emergence of the

35 Tim Ingold, Being Alive (Abingdon: Routledge 2011).

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CTLS Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies, a joint initiative

GVYRM G osudarstvennuie Vuisshie Rezhisserskie Masterskie, or State