This book traces the parallel careers of the two greatest twentieth-century theatre
practitioners the Russian masters Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold. It is
particularly concerned with the simultaneous development of their two contradictory - but
perhaps also complementary - acting methods methods which dominate the best acting practice
today. From the same starting point at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898 Stanislavsky and
Meyerhold pursued very different artistic paths through the turbulent last years of tsarism
and the increasingly tormented first decades of communism. Yet by the late 1930s almost
unnoticed they had begun to work together again. However their fates under Stalin's tyranny
were diametrically opposite: while Stanislavsky was virtually deified by the state Meyerhold
was vilified tortured and executed. This is a unique story of artistic struggle as well as of
personal jealousy and affection and it illuminates the methods and potential of contemporary
acting practice.
