Anatomy of hatred : Constituents of theatrical failure

Abstract

Article aims to reconstruct the pattern of criticism, which was evoked by Mikhail Chekhov's productions in Kaunas State Theatre, Lithuania (Hamlet: 1932, The Twelfth Night: 1933 and The Government Inspector: 1933). The almost univocal hatred that these productions were received demand a closer examination, as Chekhov's creative work in Lithuania appears to be an unchallenged confront for its eyewitnesses. For this aim hereby as a theoretical framework shall firstly be employed a notion of mystification, as it is outlined in Roland Barthes' early writings, which proves to be useful for understanding position theatre inhabited in the structure of interwar Lithuanian culture. Secondly, the notion of political myth of the Golden Age, elaborated by Raoul Girardet in his book Mythes et mythologies politiques, 1986 (Myths and Political Mythologies) shall contribute to clarification of intellectual atmosphere within right wing Lithuanian intelligentsia, the main opponents to the Chekhov's work at the State Theatre. Thirdly, Pierre Bourdieu's remarks on connection between the changes within the field of artistic production and those within the field of power outlined in his Les regles de l'art, 1992 (Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field) shall help to explain the general uneasiness if not hostility to that, what in the context of Lithuanian interwar culture could be termed a "modernization". Thus the pattern of criticism under investigation reveals the very principles, which governed the reception of the theatre and of the art in general and were common for Lithuanian opinion-makers of the Interwar period. Chekhov's failure to find a compassionate auditorium, in its turn reflects the difficulties in emancipation the field of theatrical production could possibly meet with.[...]