ARTIFICIAL HELLS

artificial hells
bring to bear on the contemporary discourse of socially engaged art, which
is frequently characterised by an aversion to interiority and affect: it can
often seem that the choice is between the social or the solipsistic, the collective
or the individual, with no room for manoeuvre between the two. It is
perhaps telling that Bogdanov, the most fundamentalist of the Proletkult
theorists, was trained not in art but in medicine; it is tempting to ascribe his
willingness to jettison past culture, and his plodding directives for proletarian
art, to an innate lack of sympathy for the arts. (Indeed, he returned to
medicine after he left the Proletkult in 1921, and died following an unsuccessful
blood- transfusion experiment in 1928.)
But how did the results of these theoretical debates play out in the works
produced under the Proletkult’s guidance? In insisting upon the collectivism
of theatre ‘as the art closest and most comprehensible to the
working class’, the Proletkult built upon innovations in anti- hierarchical
participation that had already begun in theatre prior to the Revolution. 42
Vsevolod Meyerhold, for example, had been experimenting with such
theatrical forms since 1910: removing the proscenium, introducing different
stage levels, attempting to create a unity of action between actors and
audience. His production The Dawn (1920) featured free admission, news
bulletins, the walls hung with placards, an audience showered with political
leaflets, and a harsh white light to dispel illusionism, all of which served to
augment the content (a Symbolist verse drama about proletarian uprising
by the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren). In order to deal with the stage direction
requiring a crowd, Meyerhold suggested involving the audience itself,
which he presented as an educational mission, a way of training the populace
to be actors. Even more successful than The Dawn was Meyerhold’s
collaboration with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mystery- Bouffe, first performed
in 1918 and rewritten in 1921 to increase its relevance to events since the
Revolution. The play concerns a universal flood and the subsequent joyful
triumph of the ‘unclean’ (the proletariat) over the ‘clean’ (the bourgeoisie),
and combined folk drama and avant- garde experimentation in the service
of a revolutionary message. Once again, Meyerhold dismantled the
proscenium to reveal the scenery mechanisms; the stage was taken up by
platforms on different levels, interconnected by steps, and a big ramp
sloped down to the first row of seats. Throughout the performance, the
audience were allowed to come and go as they liked, and to respond to the
acting with interjections; in the last act, the performance spread into boxes
in the auditorium and the audience were invited to mingle with actors on
stage. 43
Although these theatrical experiments attempted to erode the distinction
between performers and audience, by contemporary standards their respective
roles always remained fairly clear. It was Proletkult theoreticians such
as Platon Mikhailovich Kerzhentsev (1881– 1940) who were instrumental in
developing a more total form of collective theatre for revolutionary ends.
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