Today we improvise: The “Skarskaya method” in the context of amateur theatre in early Soviet Russia

Abstract

The paper focuses on a method developed by the Russian actress and teacher Nadezhda Skarskaya and her husband — the famous actor and director Pavel Gaideburov. Skarskaya and Gaideburov became well known as co-founders of a theatre at the Ligovsky People's House (1903) and of the Mobile-Popular theatre (1905). But their work with the studios which were established shortly after the October revolution (some of them were created specifically for workers) still remains relatively unknown. The same is true of their approaches and methods of teaching instructors of amateur theatre in villages and the Red Army. The “Skarskaya method” (as the authors labelled it) was developed for amateurs without any acting experience, and it provided them with the instruments to express themselves through improvisation. Later, it played a significant role in the development of both amateur and agitation theatres in early Soviet Russia. Colleagues and followers of Skarskaya and Gaideburov — directors Nikolai Vinogradov, Dmitry Shcheglov and others — became prominent figures in the amateur theatre movement of the 1920s. The “Skarskaya method” was the instrument many of them used in their work. Analysis of the method (itself heavily influenced by Stanislavsky's approaches to actors' training) and the ways it was used by Skarskaya, Gaideburov and their followers provide a new perspective on the development of applied theatre in early Soviet Russia and the ways it described itself.