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The first-ever English translation of this dramatic work by Nikolai
Evreinov. In the 1910s the Russian theater director and theorist
Nikolai Evreinov (1879-1953) insisted on the theatricalization of
life. Twenty years later, Evreinov, who had left Russia in 1924,
was in exile in Paris when Stalin staged three elaborate political
show trials in Moscow. Evreinov then meticulously read the
transcripts of the trials in the Russian-language press, collected
material on Nikolai Bukharin and the other defendants, consulted
with experts, and finally wrote a play, his response to the staging
of a judicial farce. With this response, he also wanted to
rehabilitate his idea of the theatricalization of life. After all,
the theatricalization of life does not mean performing false
confessions, constructing conspiracies, fabricating facts, or
casting hired witnesses. In his theatrical theory, Evreinov was
careful not to make the theater of life invisible. His play is
therefore not a historical reconstruction, but an imaginary look
behind the scenes, in which the Stalinist perpetrators confess to
the real crime in the end: the theater. Expertly translated into
English for the first time by Zachary King, The Steps of Nemesis
brings a fascinating play to a whole new world.
2013 Reprint of 1927 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original
edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Evreinov
argued that the role of theatre was to ape and mimic nature. In his
estimation, theatre is everything around us. He pointed out that
nature is full of theatrical conventions: desert flowers mimicking
the stones; mouse feigning death in order to escape a cat's claws;
complicated dances of birds, etc. He viewed theatre as a universal
symbol of existence. Evreinov promoted an underlying aesthetic: "To
make a theatre of life is the duty of every artist. ... the stage
must not borrow so much from life as life borrows from the stage."
The director sought to reinvigorate the theatre (and through it
life itself) through the rediscovery of the origin of theatre in
play. He was influenced by the philosophies of Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche and Bergson, and, like Meyerhold, the aesthetics of
symbolism and the commedia dell'arte (particularly in its use of
mask and spontaneity). Evreinov developed his theatrical theories
in An Introduction to Monodrama (1909), The Theatre as Such (1912),
The Theatre for Oneself, and Pro Scena Sua (1915).
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