Theater experiment by Giedrius Mackevičius: Origin and some results

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of pantomime theater in the second half of the 20th century in the USSR/Russia and its highpoint during the 1970s, when Giedrius Mackevičius, an outstanding theater director, created the Ensemble of Pantomime in Moscow. The group became famous following the first performance “Overcoming” (1975), which was devoted to the Renaissance artist and sculptor Michelangelo. This wasn't just a pantomime — it was a mix of different dance and movement styles united by the plot and the characters. Then the ensemble was transformed into the professional Moscow Theater of Plastic Drama, which had successful tours all over the USSR and which was loved by audiences tired of state-supported, boring, socialist realist plays, formalistic classical ballet, and pseudo-folk dance, The term “plastic drama” was first used in 1915 by the theater critic Yulia Slonimskaya, who wrote about the French balletmaster Jean-Georges Noverre. In the 1970s, Mackevičius formulated a full-fledged conception of such a theater, which used “the expressive means of drama, dance, pantomime, circus and variety”, but not words, “because the language of the body is so rich that the need for words disappears”. Mackevičius repeatedly emphasized his striving for the creation of a highly spiritual art, directed towards the life of the human soul and spirit. The complicated body language, based on pantomime, allowed him and his actors to turn away from everyday life to eternal issues. After perestroika, new trends pushed aside plastic theater, which, in essence, was forgotten until the beginning of the new, 21st century.