In embarking on this book I wanted to pose some questions which I thought, initially, were straightforward. Why in British minds is Russia pictured as an endless forest (of birch trees) with the odd clearing containing an aristocratic country estate? Why do the inhabitants endlessly drink tea (admittedly from strange glasses rather than china cups), wear flowing skirts and lace decorated blouses or white linen jackets (the kind beloved of English country vicars a generation or three ago)? And why do these inhabitants mull (endlessly) their own mortality and/or the future of Russia? This description probably represents a run-of-the-mill production of any Chekhov play. In their turn, other questions soon emerged: why is Chekhov so dominant in British theatre culture? Does his presence even exceed that demanded by his world stature as a dramatist? Experience of theatre in Russia had also demonstrated to me that Chekhov is probably not as dominant there as we imagine. And what about all those other writers I was busily introducing to students of Russian drama? Many of them are very different from Chekhov: in their works there are few birch trees, and even fewer country estates, and a complete absence of elegantly clad ladies and gentlemen in the informal clothing worn by vicars, country or otherwise. These queries resolved themselves into a key question thanks to a review by Susannah Clapp of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country1: have the British staged a “Russia of the theatrical mind”?
Consequently, when I turned to an analysis of Russian theatre in Britain, I wished to discover how dominant Chekhov is and exactly who the other Russian members of the British repertoire are. Dorothy Barlow, an indefatigable research assistant, and I set about building a database for our own purposes of the British Russian repertoire. Even though much of the work on locating the Chekhov repertoire had been done by Patrick Miles,2 it quickly became clear we had launched ourselves on a gargantuan task by choosing to examine the other dramatists. Russian theatre is popular and the number of productions of Russian plays in total is quite high, higher we suspect than for other national repertoires, though we shall leave the assembly of these comparative figures to others. Much of this material was not digitised, when we began our investigation just before the millennium. I shall be eternally grateful to Ms. Barlow for her willingness to travel to regional theatres and archives as well as for her many trips to the old Theatre Museum in Covent Garden and then to its new home as part of the Victoria and Albert collections housed in Olympia, London. Work has been done by others, notably Laurence Senelick, Stuart Young and Ros Dixon3 on Chekhov4 and Kate Sealey Rahmen on Ostrovsky,5 but no broad picture of Russian theatre in English in the British repertoire in the post-WW2 period has been generated. An earlier context for this work has come more recently from Laurence Senelick. He has researched views of Russians on the nineteenth-century British stage in drama written in English, and traced the first direct arrivals and adaptations from Russia herself.6 The growing interest in modernism has initiated exploration of the early decades of the twentieth century. It has provided access to the story of Russian theatre in Britain up to our starting point in 1945. For example, Stuart Young has begun to examine writers other than Chekhov in the period of modernism.7 His 2013 article confirms trends I have found in the post-war period, and together our work gives a comprehensive view of Russia’s dramatists apart from Chekhov since they became popular at the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet another branch to the modernist approach comes in a recent study by Claire Warden. Through the prism of modernism, she has traced British discovery of Russian writers and companies, their different theatrical practices and theories, in her study Migrating Modernist Performance.8 She locates herself principally in the disciplines of theatre studies and performance in distinction to translation studies which drive the present work, and stays within the period of British modernism.
Projects have to be finite, and Ms. Barlow and I defined the post-war period as our field of search. The period 1945–2005 was identified early on, largely because data is more readily available than in the first half of the twentieth century, and sixty years provided a good spread of time for sufficient variation to be revealed. However, in this new digital age locating material has become less complex than when we started in the late 1990s. Creating some considerable delay to publication, the database was extended to 2015 providing a somewhat ‘biblical’ seventy-year stretch of reference, but a representative survey. As we built up this reference source, we appreciated its value more and more. It is included as an Appendix to this present book.
We sensed a paradox lurking in the background of such a project. On the one hand, was the uncomfortable, even hostile British attitude to texts not in English, and yet on the other, an evident love affair with Russian theatre, as part of the British admiration for classical Russian culture. In the original project, it was decided that, given the work that had already been done, and the size of his production repertoire in Britain, focus on Chekhov’s plays would not be central to this study. However, productions of his plays do figure in the database. There is inevitable and recurrent discussion of them since they are most frequently taken as the standard for perceptions of Russia, as the opening paragraph of this Prologue suggests. Discussion of the impact of Chekhov’s work, particularly on British reception of the Russian nineteenth-century repertoire, is included in its appropriate chronological place as a bridge between the two centuries in Section 5.
As the book was assembled, it quickly became evident that treating individual dramatists as the structuring device was impractical. Such an approach would have produced a dictionary-type work of, if not gargantuan, at least of encyclopaedic proportions and style, where some of the most challenging facets could not be addressed. It is also important to explore the differences in attitude afforded to writers from the nineteenth century from those to writers from the twentieth century. Exploration of such difference would give the study historical as well as cultural impact. A further original intention was to focus on English language staging. However, I was fortunate enough to receive a very relevant collection of materials from Martin Dewhirst on his retirement from the University of Glasgow. Dr. Dewhirst had frequently worked as a translator and interpreter for visiting Russian theatre companies and consequently had amassed an archive. As a result, material relating to productions visiting from Russia in the original language has also been included. The impact of this visiting theatre on British understanding of Russian theatre has been considerable. It has led to collaborative work between British and Russian companies, notably, for example, between Cheek by Jowl and the Russian Chekhov International Theatre Festival.9
As a consequence, I have taken a topic-based approach in writing this book. The result may seem idiosyncratic to some, partial to others. The selection has been guided by an academic career in Russian Studies (specialising in drama and literature), by long term practical experience of theatre directing, experience of translating drama and by being a member of many audiences. Section 2 literally ‘Sets the Scene’ exploring the contexts, theoretical and practical, for this study. My aim was to introduce the key concepts from translation studies and its modern descendent, cultural translation, and a steer from contemporary adaptation studies, since a significant proportion of the staged material is adapted from Russian novels and stories. I was determined not to allow these interventions make the account heavy with theoretical language. This theoretical approach enabled me to ‘read’ the mass of information provided by the reviews, often my main source of response to individual productions. Equally, I wished to consider some of the practical issues concerning choice of texts, and the work of the different practitioners engaged in production and adaptation. I also wanted to explore the implications of utilising review material, to underpin the analyses. I have included a case study of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country in this opening section as a demonstration of how the study of each author was undertaken.
Analysis of the database indicated the following categories. The majority of productions are of nineteenth-century plays, so two sections were allocated to their staging: ‘Gogol’s Russia’ and ‘Gentry Russia’ (Sections 3 and 4). The former deals with the ‘long’ eighteenth century up to and including Gogol, and the latter treats the period 1850–1895. Section 5 opens with a discussion of the reasons, for Chekhov’s immense popularity at the expense of the other writers. Gorky’s plays date from the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century up to the 1930s and provide an effective bridge into the very different type of theatre which emerged in the Soviet period. His works were taken as models for Socialist Realism. Accordingly, Section 6 deals with plays of the modern Soviet period and reference to the new work, both texts and performances, emerging from post-Soviet Russia, which has been seen in Britain 1945–2015. Finally, Section 7 deals with British and Russian adaptations from Russian prose and stories as a separate genre with its own issues. It includes works which come from the whole historical period covered in Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6.
The Epilogue draws together observations on British perceptions of staged Russian writing 1945–2015 in the light of the preceding sections, and reconsiders the question posed in this Prologue: what kind of Russia have the British staged for themselves? Then follows the Appendix of located productions which it is hoped will be a useful point of reference and consultation for professionals, scholars and students alike. New items emerge all the time as archives become accessible. The difficult aspect is often the tracing of the review...