Yevgeny Vakhtangov

Book excerpt: Yevgeny Vakhtangov was a pioneering theatre artist who married Stanislavski’s demands for inner truth with a singular imaginative vision. Directly and indirectly, he is responsible for the making of our contemporary theatre: that is Andrei Malaev-Babel’s argument in this, the first English-language monograph to consider Vakhtangov’s life and work as actor and director, teacher and theoretician. Ranging from Moscow to Israel, from Fantastic Realism to Vakhtangov’s futuristic projection, the theatre of the ‘Eternal Mask’, Yevgeny Vakhtangov: A Critical Portrait: considers his input as one of the original teachers of Stanislavsky’s system, and the complex relationship shared by the two men; reflects on his directorship of the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre and the Habima (which was later to become Israel's National Theatre) as well as the Vakhtangov Studio, the institution he established; examines in detail his three final directorial masterpieces, Erick XIV, The Dybbuk and Princess Turandot. Lavishly illustrated and elegantly conceived, Yevgeny Vakhtangov represents the ideal companion to Malaev-Babel’s Vakhtangov Sourcebook (2011). Together, these important critical interventions reveal Vakhtangov’s true stature as one of the most significant representatives of the Russian theatrical avant-garde.