Eugene ONIL. Eugene O'Neill - Huey

Only the tragic has that meaningful beauty that is truth. Tragic is the meaning of life and hope. The noblest has always been the most tragic.

Y. O'Neill

The most accurate definition of Eugene O'Neill is "the father of American drama." For a long time, dramaturgy was considered the "weakest link" in US literature. Theater in the USA in the 19th - early 20th centuries. was openly commercial entertainment in nature, the repertoire was dominated by "well-made" plays - light comedies, melodramas, for the most part of European origin. Eugene O'Neill updated and reformed American drama and theater. He personified those fruitful quests that characterized new drama in different literatures of the world (Ibsen, Shaw, Hauptmann, Strindberg, Maeterlinck, Chekhov, Gorky). He revealed its American variety. True, O'Neill spoke later, and his heyday falls at the time of the "great decade" in US literature.

First Steps: O'Neill and the Small Theater Movement. From an early age, the playwright not only fell in love with the theater, but was also imbued with the spirit of the stage, the atmosphere of the backstage. Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) was born in New York to the once popular actor of Irish origin James O'Neill (1847-1920), who shone in Shakespeare's roles, from his mouth he constantly heard the excited monologues of Hamlet and Othello .

The endless tours of the parents interfered with normal studies, and the bohemian lifestyle had a negative effect on the nervous, impressionable nature of their son. Having inherited a stormy, explosive temperament from his father, O'Neill was a bright, controversial, extraordinary personality. In 1906 he entered princeton university, where he stayed for about a year. Then came the time of wandering, which gave the future playwright a unique life experience. He had a chance to work as a small clerk in New York, and a gold digger, and a manager, and a reporter in New York newspapers, where he published his first essays and poems.

Then O'Neill, like once Melville, and later London, was carried away by the "muse of distant wanderings." The ship's service lasted several years. Disordered life, alcohol undermined his health, doctors discovered tuberculosis. He was sent to a sanatorium, and in a hospital bed, O'Neill first tried his hand at the dramatic field, writing several one-act plays. Having improved his health, O'Neill studies at Harvard University in a seminar on dramaturgy.

O'Neill the artist was formed on the eve of the First World War, breathing the air of radical fermentation that inspired the artistic bohemia of Greenwich Village. In 1914 he made his debut with the first collection "Thirst and Other One-Act Plays".

The period from 1915 to 1925 is called in the USA theatrical renaissance(outfit)" with "poetic"), Eugene O'Neill played a "pioneer" role in it. In his plays, O'Neill responded to important changes in the artistic life of the United States, which manifested themselves in the movement of the so-called small theatres. These were actively functioning from the beginning of the 1910s. troupes, modest in number, that arose in different US cities (New York, Boston, Philadelphia). Created by innovatory enthusiasts, at first they were semi-amateur, and then grew into professional teams. Focusing on a democratic audience, small theaters gave stage life to many examples of world drama, especially modern, as well as plays by American debutant authors, including O'Neill. They championed realistic stage priorities while rejecting entertainment stereotypes. Broadway commercial theater.

Maturity: "Beyond the Horizon". Already the characters in the early plays of the debutant playwright posed a challenge to the Broadway stage. O’Neill brought sailors, tramps, lumpens, prostitutes, people of the “bottom” to the stage, speaking not in a refined style, but using coarse jargon. The action in these plays takes place on deck, in a sailor's quarters, in a port tavern, in exotic tropical countries.

Early one-act drama Web"- an example of O'Neill's ability to accommodate a socially rich dramatic action in a short space of time in a small stage space. The characters are a kind of "triangle": a prostitute roses, pimp Steve and gangster Tim. Events take place in a squalid room in which skillfully selected details indicate the profession of its inhabitant. In another play "Thirst" -"marine" flavor, and the scene is a raft on which three passengers who survived the shipwreck are in conflict.

A new step - already a three-act play "Over the horizon"(1920), O'Neill's first work to make it onto the Broadway stage. Dramatic collision connected with the fate of two brothers Mayo, Roberta And Andrew, farmer's sons. Robert, unlike Andrew, is a sober, strong "practitioner", a sickly young man of fine mental organization, who lives in a world of romantic dreams. Robert's cherished dream is a long journey. They are something more than the usual wanderlust - "the thirst for freedom, wide open spaces, the joy of discovery. He wants to know what is beyond the horizon. The deep theme of the play, saturated with dramatic collisions, is the bitter fate of those who betray their dreams.

O'Neill in the context of the drama of the 1920s-1930s The interwar 20th anniversary is the heyday of O'Neill, the time for the creation of his masterpieces. During this period, he became not only the number one American playwright, but also an internationally significant figure. And although he remained the undisputed leader, several prominent masters worked next to him, whose plays adorned the national stage.

A playwright with a keen sense of modernity was Elmer Rice, speaking (not without the influence of German samples - E. Toller, G. Kaiser) as a supporter of the introduction expressionistic stylistics into drama (drama "Counting Machine" 1923). In the 1930s Rice moves closer to the left, tests innovative stage means, trying to capture the social panorama of society ("We are the people" 1933), appears as a pioneer of the anti-fascist theme (" Judgment Day", 1934; "American Landscape"", 1936).

The historical theme is developed in dramas written in blank verse "Queen Elizabeth", "Mary of Scotland", "Valley Forge" by Maxwell Anderson(1888-1959), who rivaled O'Neill in popularity.

One of the talented playwrights of the 1930s. was Clifford Odets(1906-1963), the first to master the theme of the class struggle in a one-act drama "Waiting for Lefty"(1935). Departing from traditional tendentiousness, Odets acted as a mature master of family and household topics, which received social overtones. ("As Long as I Live", "Golden Boy", "Rise and Shine" and etc.).

In 1938, the play comes out Thornton Wilder "Our Town" original in form, filled with humanistic pathos, which has rightfully become a classic of national dramaturgy. She is an illustration of Wilder's credo, rich in philosophical meaning: "The greatness of the little things of everyday life, the value of every individual feeling."

Post-war decade: the time of masterpieces. But back to O'Neill. The drama "Beyond the Horizon" opened the most fruitful decade in his work. One after another, his famous plays come out, in each of which he demonstrates a new stylistic manner for himself in search of non-traditional forms of stage expression.

"Emperor Jones"(1921) is the first in a series of these plays. The action of the play takes place on one of the islands of the West Indies. The ruler of the island is black Brutus Jones. The very introduction of a Negro as the protagonist of a play was unprecedented in the history of the American theater. Moreover, in the center of the work is the “sick” problem of racism for American society.

Brutus is corrupt by nature. A former conductor of Pullman cars, he absorbed the morals and laws of the "white society". Jones' actions are driven by soulless pragmatism. The power of the emperor for him is a profitable business. In aspirations and behavior, he only copies the representatives of the "master race" of white America. A man of the "second class" in his former life, Brutus builds a social structure on the island similar to the "white" society, ruthlessly exploits the dark-skinned and dies as a result of the uprising of his noddans.

Another play "Hairy Monkey"(1922), already written in expressionistic manner, puts the theme of the contrast between the rich and the poor and the cruelty of the "machine" civilization that dehumanizes the working man.

The significance of O'Neill's work was duly appreciated by his contemporaries, and it is no coincidence that historians of the American theater associate the emergence of modern theater in the United States with 1920, the time of the first production of O'Neill's multi-act play Beyond the Horizon.

The famous writer Sinclair Lewis spoke of the significance of O'Neal's work in this way: “His merits to the American theater are expressed only in the fact that in some 10-12 years he transformed our drama, which was a neat false comedy and revealed to us ... terrible and great world."

Eugene O'Neill, the son of the famous American actor James O'Neill, was familiar with the atmosphere and order that prevailed in the national theater from childhood. This circumstance predetermined his negative attitude towards the commercial theater.

In the life of the famous playwright, everything was not always smooth: after studying for a year at Princeton University, he was forced to go to work (he was a clerk in a trading company, a reporter, an actor, a sailor and even a gold digger), but a serious illness forced him to change his occupation. Soon O'Neill wrote his first, far from perfect play.

In 1914, wanting to master all the secrets of European drama, the young man began attending lectures on the history of drama by Harvard University professor J.P. Baker. In the same year, O'Neill released his first dramaturgical collection entitled "Thirst", which included numerous one-act plays depicting the realities of modern life.

However, not a single theater dared to put on its stage the works of O'Neill, which are in great demand among readers. Only in 1916, having become close to the Provincetown Theater, which will be discussed below, was the talented playwright able to stage almost all of his one-act dramas.

The heroes of O'Neill's works were sailors and dock workers, fishermen and farmers, stokers and gold diggers - people of various social origins, with different skin colors, and the prototypes of these characters were real people.

One of the young O'Neill's most successful plays is Whale Fat (1916), which takes place aboard a whaling ship lost in the ice. The ship's crew, dissatisfied with the fruitless two-year wanderings across the endless ocean expanses, asks the captain to turn the ship home, and his wife begs him about the same. However, Captain Kini is relentless, something that dominates his mind tells him to move on, overcoming all obstacles.

With precise details and touches, O'Neill creates a realistic picture of life on a whaling ship, but the factual side interests him to a lesser extent than the psychological characteristics of the characters' behavior, their philosophical essence. O'Neill focuses on the relationship of man with the world around him. The mood of intense expectation of a catastrophe pervades the play "Whale Fat".

Gradually, the playwright moves from a one-act to a multi-act play, which allows him to give a broader picture of real life. O'Neill's first multi-act work was the play Beyond the Horizon (1919), which marked the beginning of a new stage in the work of the talented playwright. The playwright often said: “The theater for me is life, its essence and explanation. Life is what interests me first of all ... "

During this period, Eugene wrote a number of realistic and expressionist plays (these two directions were harmoniously combined in the work of a talented playwright, which became a characteristic feature of O'Neill's work in the 1920s): Emperor Jones, Gold, Anna Christie ( 1921), "Shaggy Monkey" (1922), "Wings are given to all children of men" (1923), "Love under the Elms" and others.

The play "Anna Christie", first staged in 1921, deserves special attention. The story of the main character is touching to tears: after the death of his wife, the captain of the coal barge, Chris Christofferson, sent his five-year-old daughter Anna to relatives. After going through all the circles of hell (brothel, prison and hospital), after 15 years, the girl finally meets her father.

Her dreams of a quiet, carefree life for the first time become a reality: on the barge that has set sail, Anna forgets about all the troubles, and the love of the sailor Matt Burke awakens in her a deep reciprocal feeling. Mat offers the girl to become his wife, but this is opposed by Captain Chris. Anna talks about her difficult fate, her confession makes an indelible impression on both her father and her fiancé. Having hired a ship, the men go to sea, and Anna remains on the shore to wait for their return.

However, not only people are the main characters of the play, a special role is given to the sea and fog - allegorical symbols of death or fate.

The theme of the sea, which runs throughout the play, gives the whole action depth, complexity and poetry. The fate of all the characters is somehow connected with the sea and fog. Using the symbolic image of the sea, the playwright gives a general explanation of the fate of the characters, which depend only on external circumstances. “We are all unfortunate ill-fated. Life grabs by the throat and twirls as it wants,” says Anna.

The atmosphere of lyricism that permeates the play makes the work even more realistic, even somewhat primitive, but invariably attractive to the audience.

O'Neill considered one of his best plays "Love under the Elms", reminiscent of the classic tragedy in form. The playwright believed that only this form of dramaturgy could give "a deep spiritual perception of things", free from the "petty greed of everyday existence."

The play is set in mid-19th century New England, on the farm of old Ephraim Cabot, where the farmer's son Ebin and a girl named Abby arrive. Like a father, a passionate owner, Ebin is imbued with selfless love for the farm, Abby also becomes an ardent owner, which is found in all her words: “my room”, “my house”, “my kitchen”.

However, gradually the possessive aspirations of young people are replaced by a wonderful feeling of love, in the process of intense internal struggle, the souls of the main characters change, only the seventy-five-year-old old man Ephraim Cabot remains unchanged (this is a complete, complete image).

However, the rivalry between the two owners turned their love into a real tragedy. Abby, determined to prove that her love for Ebin is above all else, decides to kill the child. It is at this point that they begin to fully realize the true value of life. In a tragic enlightenment, Ebin and Abby discover the power of love and the futility of possessiveness.

This work also contains an allegorical image - the gold of sunset, which evokes associations with wealth and with the brightest moments in the life of heroes. Through concrete and truthful depiction of the life of New England farmers, O'Neill creates generalized images. At the same time, attention is paid not only to the external manifestations of the characters' characters, but also to their inner world, which is recreated in the smallest detail.

In his expressionist plays (“The Shaggy Monkey”, “Wings Are Given to All Human Children”, etc.), O’Neill touched on the acute social problems of his contemporary world, while he sought to fully reveal the characters of the characters. The main thing that the playwright appreciated in expressionism was dynamism, the rapid development of events that kept the audience in constant suspense.

An interesting innovation of O'Neill was the use of masks in the productions, with the help of which the necessary effects were achieved, contradictions between the true essence of the hero (a face for himself) and his external mask (a mask for others) were demonstrated.

The introduction of a new type of stage speech, the so-called monologues of thought, which replaced traditional replicas to the side, allowed the author to reveal the deep emotional experiences of the heroes of such multi-act plays as "Strange Interlude" (1928) and "Mourning - the fate of Elektra" (1931), as if to expose the whole process of their mental life. The author paid special attention to the study of the subconscious of his characters, which is explained by the influence of the psychoanalytic studies of Z. Freud.

In the period from 1934 to 1946, none of O'Neill's works were staged on the stage of American theaters, nevertheless, the playwright worked hard and fruitfully. At this time, he wrote the philosophical and symbolic dramatic parable "The Iceman Is Coming" (1938), the autobiographical plays "Long Journey into the Night" and "The Moon for the Stepchildren of Fate", a series of philosophical works "The Story of the Owners Who Robbed Their Own of which only two plays have survived - The Soul of a Poet (1935-1939) and the unfinished work Majestic Buildings. This cycle became the embodiment of the main theme of the playwright, present in all his creative heritage - the dominion of money and property, the result of which is the loss of spiritual purity and moral values.

The work of Eugene O'Neill had a great influence on both the new American and world dramaturgy. In 1936, O'Neill was awarded the Nobel Prize for his dramatic works, saturated with vital energy, intensity of feelings and marked by an original concept of tragedy, thereby gaining recognition for his merits in the field of performing arts.

In the 1920s and 1930s, new names appeared in the theatrical art of the United States of America. Among them are E. Rice, M. Anderson, L. Stallings, D. G. Lawson, P. Green, D. Kelly, S. Howard, S. Berman, K. Odets and others. The works of these playwrights were staged not only small theaters, but also Broadway.

The main theme of many plays remained the same tragedy of the “little man” in modern society, the theme of the people, the creator of history, came out on top (Street Scene (1929) and We the People by E. Rice, Scottsboro (1932 ) Hughes, “Waiting for Lefty” by K. Odets and others).

In addition, in those years, the main content of many dramatic works was the struggle against war, the protection of life and happiness on earth (“Until Death” by K. Odets, “The Fifth Column” by E. Hemingway, “Bury the Dead” by I. Shaw, “Peace on the ground” by A. Malts and D. Sklyar and others).

One of the most popular playwrights of the 1930s was Clifford Odets, whose work reflected the social problems of contemporary society. The play "Waiting for Lefty", written under the impression of the stories of the striking drivers about their sad fate and which became a major event in the theatrical and public life of the United States, was a kind of herald of the mood that swept the whole country.

In 1935, three more dramas by Odets were staged on the stage of the Group Theater - Awake and Sing, Paradise Lost and Until Death, but the play The Golden Boy written in 1937 is considered to be the best work of the playwright. The general availability and simplicity of this work give the impression of a certain primitivism, but it reflects the real life of ordinary Americans.

The melodramatically sharp conflict of the play touches on two issues - vocation or money, music or boxing. The protagonist of the work of Joe Bonaparte, dreaming of climbing a high rung of the social ladder, becoming famous and rich, refuses, contrary to the will of his father, from his true vocation - music. Joe's belief in the possibility of becoming happy, having achieved fame and recognition, apparently, is the embodiment of the dream of many Americans about a society of equal opportunities.

However, the choice of the hero determines his sad fate. Boxing brings Joe not only fame and money, but also makes him a slave to entrepreneurs and patrons like Eddie Fuselli, makes him retreat from music, resulting in a moral decline. Realizing that he has crippled his fate, the hero consciously rushes towards death. He dies in his luxurious car, which he once considered the embodiment of happiness and success in life.

After the "Golden Boy" in the life of the playwright, a new, Hollywood period of creativity began, marked by a transition to traditional themes and the usual form of family drama ("Rocket to the Moon", 1938; "Night Music", 1940; "Clash at Night", 1941; "Big knife", 1949, etc.). In the last years of his life, Odets abandoned creativity and died, forgotten by everyone.

An equally famous American playwright in the 1930s was Lillian Hellman. Having started her creative career in cinema, she soon moved on to writing sharply social theatrical plays.

In 1934, the first drama by L. Hellman called "The Children's Hour" was staged on stage, it caused conflicting assessments, many critics saw a number of weak points in this work. The next play “The Day Will Come” (1936) turned out to be more successful, here the author’s desire to understand the forces that rule the world and people was expressed.

In 1938, L. Hellman created her best creation - the family drama "Chanterelles", which has become a classic work of the American theater. Using the example of the Hubbard family, the author demonstrates the all-consuming power of money, which destroys all the best in people, burns out feelings such as love and kindness in their souls, and violates moral laws.

About the main characters of the work - Regina, her brothers Ben and Oscar, Leo's nephew - the black woman Eddie correctly says: “There are people who devour the earth and all living things on it, like locusts, - that's exactly what the Bible says. And other people are watching with folded arms."

The Hubbards destroy their family, they do not regret anything: the father pushes his son to steal, Regina kills her husband and robs the brothers, the brothers rob each other. Greed burns the souls of these people, greed is the only thing they live by.

The climax of the drama is the scene of the murder of Regina Horace. Convinced that during the life of her husband she will not be able to take possession of the money and join the company for the construction of the factory, the woman decides on a cruel act. Knowing full well that it is harmful for Horace to worry, Regina deliberately brings him to a heart attack, and when the dying man asks to bring medicine from his room, located on the second floor, she refuses him. Regina watches coolly as Horace tries to climb the stairs and finally collapses.

Regina appears before the audience as a smart, strong and immoral person. The murder, to which she comes for the sake of money, does not give rise to any regrets or remorse in her. The rest of the characters - the cunning and treacherous Ben, limited Oscar, narrow-minded Leo - also demonstrate the degeneration of everything human in the souls of people who have devoted themselves to the pursuit of money. These self-interested people are opposed by a person who does not want to inactively observe what is happening - this is Alexandra, the daughter of Regina and Horace. The girl refuses to follow in the footsteps of her mother, she chooses a different path for herself and leaves her home.

The second part of the dilogy "Beyond the Forests" (1946) is the prehistory of the heroes of "Chanterelles", the time of the formation of their characters, their past, from the positions of which one can better understand the present.

In The Gust of Wind (1944) and Watch on the Rhine, written on the eve of the entry of the United States of America into World War II and addressed to Americans who had not yet understood the bestial essence of fascism, Hellman went beyond the traditional family drama, combining the usual form and theme with a historical chronicle that gives a broad picture of the political life of European countries in the 1920s - 1940s.

In the post-war years, Lillian Hellman was mainly engaged in translations of various plays, wrote scripts for films and autobiographical memoirs.

In a slightly different vein, the famous American playwright Thornton Wilder, a historian by education, familiar with the peculiarities of Eastern and European culture, worked. In his opinion, the most important thing was to instill in the young American theater the great traditions of antiquity, the Renaissance and modern European literature. It was this direction that Wilder chose as the field of his creative activity.

In the 1920s and 1930s, he wrote several one-act plays, many of which later became part of the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Ages of Human Life cycles. Wilder's best works were the plays "Our Town" (1938), "The Merchant from Yonkers" (1938, in a revised version it was called "The Matchmaker"), "On a Thread" (1942).

All the work of the playwright is permeated with philosophical motives, reflections on complex moral and intellectual problems, faith in man, in his high moral qualities, in goodness and love.

Wilder is considered the creator of the intellectual American drama, his works are often called parables for the glory of man. The work of a talented playwright did not receive recognition in the 1930s, many critics believed that Wilder was moving away from the problems of the modern world, but his plays had a peculiar response to what was happening both in the United States and in the world.

Wilder's best creation is the play "Our Town", which takes place in the small town of "Grovner Corners, New Hampshire, USA, the continent of S. America, the Western Hemisphere, the Earth, the Solar System, the Universe, the Soul of the Lord." The play, which consists of three acts ("Daily Life", "Love", "Death") and a prologue that tells about the birth of children, tells about the three states of a person - birth, life and death.

The audience becomes witnesses of the life of the heroes: before them are pictures of the childhood of Emily Webb and George Gibbs, their love story, wedding and, finally, the funeral of Emily.

All events unfold almost on an empty stage (there are only some fragments of scenery that create certain conditions for building mise-en-scenes) with the participation of the Director, one of the main characters of the play, the narrator, who tells about the history of the town of Grovner Corners, its location, sights and inhabitants.

The director acts as a commentator: he talks about what is happening on stage and at the same time answers questions. Thanks to this technique, the imagination of the audience is activated, the perception of familiar things is refreshed, but the characters do not turn into bright personalities, but into typified images.

Wilder tries to embody the eternal through the daily and everyday, while special attention is paid to the poeticization of everyday life.

Some idyllic nature of the play is broken by the dramatic notes that sound in the last act. The deceased Emily asks the Director to allow her to return to life, at least for a moment, on her twelfth birthday. Beginning to re-evaluate the beauty of a summer day, the flowering of yellow-headed sunflowers, the measured ticking of a clock, Emily realizes that she did not know how to appreciate life before, and only after death did a great understanding come to her. With anguish, the woman exclaims: “Oh, earth, you are too beautiful for anyone to understand you!”

Many of Wilder's works are characterized by didactic and episodic constructions, the only thing that attracts attention to them is subtle humor, which allows demonstrating real human feelings, instilling faith in the triumph of goodness.

The first years of the 20th century were the time when a peculiar genre appeared in the American theatrical art - the musical. Prior to this, the most common form of musical performance was musical revues (“Ziegfeld Falls” by Florenz Ziegfeld), which were entertaining stage performances far from life's problems.

In the 1920s, 14 revue theaters worked in New York at once, the most popular productions of which were plays by F. Ziegfeld. Having absorbed the best of English and French samples, he managed to harmoniously combine this with the best traditions of American art "mineral show" and burlesque, the result was the emergence of a holistic artistic genre. One of Ziegfeld's most significant innovations was the introduction of the "girls" (something resembling a corps de ballet).

The musical revue has become a wonderful fairy tale for adults, luxurious, filled with dances, songs and jokes, with the participation of beautiful girls. Amazing scenery, dozens of "girls", costume changes every 15 minutes, a skillful combination of numbers - dances, songs, monologues, dialogues and musical interludes, as well as participation in productions of famous stars - all this did not help the musical revue to stay in the first place. Gradually, another genre, the musical, gained the greatest popularity.

According to American theater historians, the first American musical, Clorindy – the Country of the Cake Walk, was staged as early as 1896 and was called “a comedy with songs and dances.” It is noteworthy that the production was carried out by only black artists: the music was written by M. Cook, the libretto was written by the famous Negro poet P. Danbar, B. Williams and D. Walker were directing. It was in this performance that there was a break with the traditions of the ministrel show, which manifested itself in the introduction of a single plot.

In 1927, on the stage of one of the American theaters, the musical The Floating Theatre, written by composer J. Kern and screenwriter O. Hammerstein, was staged. The plot unity, the presence of believable scenery, extravagant characters and the replacement of corps de ballet beauties with naturalistic heroes, this work differed significantly from the musical revues of those years.

The formation of musicals in the 1930s followed the path of an organic fusion of the plot with insert numbers, music, dramaturgy and dance. One of the most prominent figures in American theatrical art, L. Bernstein, called integration, that is, the desire to turn all components of stage expression (musical, choreographic and dramatic) into a single whole, one of the strongest aspects of the musical.

The role of dance in the performing arts was shown for the first time with special expressiveness in the musical On Pointe written in 1936 by R. Rogers and M. Hart. Choreographer J. Balanchine managed to present the dance as an organic part of the action, and not as a secondary element.

The final fusion of the three most important components of the musical was achieved only in Oklahoma (1942) by Rodgers and Hammerstein. A distinctive feature of this work was the use of choreography to characterize the images.

The musicals of the 1930s made it clear to the audience and the entire theatrical world that this genre can be not only light and entertaining, but also deeply meaningful, touching on various moral and political problems. As a genre, the musical was finally formed by the beginning of the 1940s, which predetermined its heyday in the first post-war years. By the end of the 1940s, having gone beyond national borders, the musical began its victorious march through the countries of the world.

Talented actors Edwin Boots and Joseph Jefferson made a special contribution to the development of the performing arts in the United States of America. The realism of the first of them was based on the works of the immortal W. Shakespeare and the best works of world drama, in the work of the second, the realistic traditions of national culture found expression.

However, the commercial system continued to impede the development of realistic art, the choice of an actor for a particular role was revived according to the role and type. A certain role became an obstacle to the development of various aspects of acting talent, this was also reflected in the professional skills of stage artists.

As mentioned earlier, with the advent of small theaters in the theatrical life of the United States, a new stage began. On the stages of amateur, semi-professional and professional “small theaters”, plays by G. Ibsen and I. Shaw, A. P. Chekhov and L. N. Tolstoy began to be staged, work was actively carried out to develop national drama and stage art in general.

Models for small theaters in the United States were the free art theaters of Europe, created on a collective basis by selling subscriptions and paying membership fees.

In 1912, the first small theater appeared in the United States of America, and a few years later there were already about 200 of them. The life of most of these groups was short-lived, only a few of them managed to achieve relative stability, their activities were of great importance for the development of American theatrical art.

The movement was pioneered by the Chicago Little Theater, organized with the participation of the young poet Maurice Brown in a small warehouse. The capacity of the hall was only 90 people.

The members of the theater troupe were not professionals; the usual stage clichés caused them a negative attitude. Working in the genre of poetic drama, staging the works of Euripides, G. Ibsen, I. Shaw, the actors and directors of the theater tried to find new means of expression, allowing them to create stage images full of life.

The Chicago Little Theater existed for about five years, but the business it started was continued in the work of such theater groups as Provincetown, Washington Square Players, and others.

In the summer of 1915, talented writers John Cram Cook, John Reid and Theodore Dreiser, who were vacationing on the Atlantic coast among other progressive New York youth, initiated the creation of the Provincetown Theater, whose main task was to promote and develop new American drama.

The organizational program indicated the main goals of this group: “creating a stage where the playwright, who sets himself poetic, literary and dramatic tasks, could observe the production of his plays without obeying the requirements of a commercial entrepreneur.” In the opinion of D.C. Cook, Provincetown was also necessary in order to "contribute to the writing of the best American plays and to perform each of these plays in the best way."

The one-act plays, written and staged in a short time, were an unprecedented success, and already in the winter the Provincetown troupe went to New York with their performances. In the big city, resounding success awaited her again. It is noteworthy that the Liberal Club provided young theatergoers with their premises, as if recognizing their activities as necessary for modern American society.

In the summer of the following year, the theater resumed its work in the small seaside town of Provincetown, by that time the troupe already had 30 people, the number of season ticket holders increased to 87.

In July 1916, the talented American playwright Y. O'Neill began to collaborate with Provincetown. It was in this theater that his first and all subsequent works of the 1920s were staged.

In the autumn of 1916, Provincetown was transformed into the Playwright Theater (Playright Theater), the activity of the amateur team was transferred to a professional basis. The number of subscription holders gradually increased, by 1917 there were already 450 of them.

Many American theater historians call Provincetown the cradle of new drama. During the first six years of its existence, 93 plays were staged on its stage, and the authors of 47 of them were American writers Y. O'Neill (16 plays), S. Glaspell (10 plays), John Reed and others.

Productions of O'Neill's plays have become the highest artistic achievement of Provincetown. It should be noted that the selection of actors, the development of scenery for performances and rehearsals took place with the direct participation of the playwright, and in one of the performances he even played a small role.

Important innovations concerning the design of the stage were tested in the theater. Following the path of simplification and stylization of decorative design, directors and artists looked for new techniques to expand the plastic possibilities of the scene, and created new lighting effects.

When staging the play "Emperor Jones", such a technical innovation was applied as a rigid cyclorama with a dome made of reinforced concrete. Such a dome perfectly reflected the light, did not wrinkle or move when touched. In addition, thanks to this detail, a sense of depth was created, which is necessary in all scenes of the performance. The reaction to the production of "Emperor Jones" was stormy, the technical effects impressed audiences and theater critics alike.

For a number of years, the Provincetown Theater has been the object of close attention of the government: it has repeatedly closed, changed names, but the purpose of its activity has remained the same.

A heavy blow for the theatrical troupe was the departure from the leadership post of D.C. Cook, for three years, starting in 1923, the triumvirate was at the head of the theater - C. McGowan, Y. O'Neill and R. E. Jones.

The expansion of the theater repertoire, overcoming its one-sidedness belongs to the same time. With the assistance of O’Neill, works by European classics and creators of the new European drama were staged on the stage of Provincetown (Georges Danden by Molière, Love for Love by Congreve, Beyond by Hasenclever, Sonnets of Ghosts by Strindberg).

The glorious history of "Provincetown" ended in December 1929: the management was unable to cope with the financial problems that had piled on it, this led to the dissolution of the troupe and the closure of the "first serious theater" in the United States.

An equally important role in the renewal and development of the theatrical art of the United States of America was played by the Guild Theater, created on the basis of the Washington Square Players troupe popular in 1915-1918.

The main goal for the organizers of the "Guild" was the creation in America of an art theater free from commercial considerations. The main attention here was paid to the development of new methods of acting and the development of staging techniques based both on the best traditions of national art and on the achievements of modern European dramaturgy.

The theater's program document stated that "plays accepted for production must have artistic merit, preference will be given to American plays, but we will include in our repertoire works by famous European authors that were ignored by the commercial theater."

Initially, productions of European dramatic works prevailed on the stage of the Gild, which was explained by the relative scarcity of American drama, but gradually the number of national plays increased.

Nevertheless, even in the 1930s, the theater did not have a specific repertoire line, from staging the works of B. Shaw they switched to staging the works of F. Werfel, from A. P. Chekhov to L. Andreev, from G. Kaiser to F. Molnar . Among American playwrights, the most popular in the Gilda were Y. O'Neill, S. Howard, D. G. Lawson and E. Rice.

Already in the first productions of samples of European drama, the artistic unpreparedness of the young team manifested itself, and the work on The Seagull fully demonstrated the lack of stage skills among actors and directors.

The production of Chekhov's "The Seagull" in 1916 was accompanied by a negative assessment of theater critics, many of them explained the choice of this play by the desire of "Gild" in everything to be like his "big brother" - the Moscow Art Theater, while the real possibilities of the troupe were not taken into account.

The desire to improve the level of skill made the Gilda team turn to the experience of other theaters. A talented director and actor Dudley Diggs was invited from Abbytietr. The renowned master of the German stage Emmanuel Reicher became a preacher of the traditions of German realistic art in this theater, and the Gilda team received the first information about the work of K. S. Stanislavsky and the actors of the Moscow Art Theater from F. F. Komissarzhevsky and R. Milton.

A special role in the life of the theater was played by Emmanuel Reiher, who for a number of years led the activities of the troupe. It was this man who introduced the principles of mature psychological realism into directing and the skill of actors. On the initiative of Reicher, in 1920, Leo Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness was staged on the stage of the Guild Theater, which became a school of acting skills for many years.

Over time, the team put forward their talented directors - such as O. Duncan, F. Möller and others.

Augustine Duncan worked at the Guild Theater for only two years (from 1918 to 1920), but during this time he managed to do a lot to establish the traditions of realistic art in the national American theater. Duncan was a very demanding, sometimes even cruel director, always knowing what he wanted, but the actors spoke respectfully of his work. Setting certain tasks for the troupe, Duncan always achieved their correct solution.

Staging in 1919 of St. Irwin's play "John Ferguson" brought the director wide fame. This was the first success of the theater, which contributed to the growth of its authority among the audience.

However, the theater's too diverse repertoire did not meet the requirements of the director, and in 1920 he left the walls of the Gilda. It was a great loss both for the theater group and for Duncan himself, for whom many critics predicted a great future: “He did more than anyone else to establish realistic plays ... With a permanent troupe and opportunities for long-term creative work, he could give America a team comparable to with the Moscow team of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko.

No less talented stage figure was Philip Möller, who became the head of the Guild Theater after the death of E. Reicher. This man was not only a talented director and actor, but also a gifted decorator, author of a number of dramatic works. Møller, in love with the art of his native theater, refused to stage productions anywhere other than the Gilda stage.

Unlike many other directors who believed that acting is the result of hard work, Möller believed in intuitive art. The most important thing for him was the unconscious beginning, which is not subject to logic and sober calculation and is a source of inspiration for talented actors.

According to Möller, in order to achieve the highest result during the rehearsals of a particular play, it was necessary to maintain the freshness of the perception of the work. At the same time, practically without explaining anything to his actors, the director demanded that they feel the atmosphere and mood of what is happening. Möller's most successful productions were those in which experienced actors took part; he did not know how to work with young performers.

Many contemporaries called Philip Möller "a temperamental artist with an inexhaustible imagination." In addition, he was a subtle psychologist, able to read in the souls of people and acutely feel all the shades and semitones, which helped him a lot when staging the works of Eugene O'Neill.

Under the direction of Möller on the stage of the theater "Guild" performances of Rice's Calculating Machine, Shaw's "Saint Joanna" and "Androcles and the Lion", Lawson's "Hymn Singers", "Strange Interlude" and the play "Mourning - the fate of Elektra" O' Nile. All of them were recognized as the best artistic achievements of the Gilda troupe.

"Strange Interlude" turned out to be one of the most difficult works for the director: the nine-act play, designed for two evenings, had to be played in one, spending time from half past five in the evening until midnight with an hour and a half break.

Trying to solve the problem of conveying the "monologues of thoughts" used by O'Neill to reveal the deep emotional experiences and characteristic essences of the characters in the play, Möller proposed several options. Firstly, to define special zones on the stage, a kind of islands of loneliness for uttering monologues, while the words should be highlighted either by changing the voice tone or by changing the lighting. But, making sure that all this would distract the audience from the main action and quickly get bored with them, the director abandoned this technique.

The second solution to the problem was the method of stopping the movement, which provides for the termination of any physical actions and dialogues during the pronunciation of "monologues of thoughts". As a result, a space of physical immobility arose, and the "inaudible current of thoughts" became available to the audience. This directorial feat proved so successful, and so faithfully reflected the style of O'Neal's drama, that the production of Strange Interlude was a resounding success.

The second half of the 1920s was the heyday of the Guild Theatre, which saw the highest rise of its artistic and commercial success.

In 1925, the troupe moved to a new building built according to a special project, the auditorium in which was designed for 1000 people. In addition, the number of season ticket holders increased: there were about 20 thousand in New York, and 30 thousand in the ten largest cities in America, where the acting troupe toured.

Gradually, a new acting school was formed in Gilda. The theater managers were well aware that a permanent troupe was needed to carry out successful productions. She had to work under the direction of a permanent director, and the repertoire of the theater should have been made quite voluminous.

Thus, the Gilda team tried in everything to follow the advice of K. S. Stanislavsky, received during the tour of the Moscow Art Theater in the USA.

In the 1926/1927 season, 10 guest actors began work in the theater, which formed the main core of the troupe: E. Westley, D. Diggs, Eva Le Gallienne, L. Fontanne, A. Lant, M. Karnovsky and others.

Eva Le Gallienne, having played the role of Julia in Molnar's Lilioma and having received recognition from the audience, left the Guild for one of the Broadway theaters. It was "Guild" that allowed her to gain "star" success.

A married couple, Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lant, worked at Guild from 1924 to 1929. Throughout all these years, the actors were part of a permanent troupe, they played a large number of main roles, including in "Pygmalion" and "The Weapon of Man" by B. Shaw, "The Brothers Karamazov" by M. F. Dostoevsky, "Strange Interlude" O'Neill and numerous comedies.

The "Gilda" scene allowed these people to fully reveal their multifaceted acting abilities and improve their skills. Even after leaving for Broadway, L. Fontanne and A. Lant took part in many landmark productions of the Guild Theater, for example, in The Taming of the Shrew by W. Shakespeare, The Seagull by A. P. Chekhov, etc.

By the 1928/1929 season, there were already 35 people in the theater troupe, while all the actors were divided into three groups, each of which was entrusted with performing two plays from the Gilda repertoire in New York and the two largest cities in the United States America. Gradually, the productions of the Guild Theater began to be considered the standard of high artistic skill, and many small theaters in the United States sought to achieve their level.

However, the unprecedented success caused the rebirth of the theater: by the mid-1930s, merchants began to play the main role among the directors of the Gild, who cared only about making big profits. These circumstances led to significant changes in the theater's repertoire: special attention was paid to box office performances, and productions of less profitable plays met with serious obstacles from the management. Thus, by the beginning of the 1940s, the Guild had lost its former artistic and social significance, turning into an ordinary commercial theater. Only in the early years of World War II did the Guild Theater acquire its lost significance, when Hemingway's The Fifth Column, Simonov's The Russian People, Chekhov's Three Sisters and Othello with the participation of Paul Robeson were staged on its stage.

For seven seasons in a row, from 1926 to 1932, the Civic Repertory Theater, founded by the then popular actress Eva Le Gallienne, worked in New York. It was intended for the American public, which considers literature and art an integral part of life, an important spiritual need, and not a means of entertainment.

The Civil Repertory Theater was created as a permanent theater with its own troupe and a varied, periodically changing repertoire. E. Le Gallienne believed that a change in the repertoire is the key to the prosperity of the theater, such a system is extremely important for artistic work, since a prolonged display of the same performance on the stage reduces its true value, creates the impression of a “conveyor line that nullifies and destroys everything ".

The plays included in the repertoire of the Civic Theater should not only be distinguished by high artistic merit, but also have a great semantic load. Many contemporaries called this theater a library of living plays, in which the main attention was paid to the masterpieces of world drama (the works of Shakespeare, Molière, Goldoni and other classics), as well as the literary achievements of Modern and Contemporary times (works by Ibsen, Chekhov, etc.).

It is noteworthy that during the existence of the theater, 34 plays were staged on its stage, and the authorship of three of them belonged to Ibsen, and four to Chekhov. Thus, the dream of Eva Le Gallienne to play roles in the plays of her favorite playwrights became a reality.

On the opening day, H. Benavente's "Saturday Night" was staged on the stage of the Civic Repertory Theatre, and the next day Chekhov's "Three Sisters" premiered. One of the main roles in this play was played by the founder of the theater herself.

Le Gallienne's passion for the work of A.P. Chekhov was very great, she even studied Russian in order to independently translate the works of her beloved playwright, because, as the actress believed, only through acquaintance with the primary sources is it possible to truly understand the characteristic images.

Le Gallienne was not only a wonderful actress, but also a talented director, so there is nothing surprising in the fact that Chekhov's plays, staged at the Civic Repertory Theater, were an unprecedented success and became a significant phenomenon in the artistic life of the United States.

In addition to The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya and The Seagull were shown at the Eva Le Gallienne Theater, the first production of which took place at the Guild Theater, but turned out to be very unsuccessful. The wonderful actress created in these performances unforgettable images of Chekhov's heroines - Ranevskaya and two Mashas ("Three Sisters" and "The Seagull").

Almost all of Le Gallienne's works show the influence of the Moscow Art Theater traditions. And many critics, evaluating the performances of Chekhov's plays on the stage of her theater, turned to the Russian standard of the stage embodiment of Chekhov's dramaturgy. Repeatedly, reviewers noted the director's skill and the art of the actors to create a truthful atmosphere on stage, the ability to make the audience believe in the reality of what is happening.

The highest rating was awarded to the production of the play The Cherry Orchard at the Civil Repertory Theater, many critics then expressed satisfaction that the Americans finally saw not a surrogate, but a real Chekhov in English.

Ibsen's productions of the theater received no less enthusiastic reviews from the public and critics. For the role of Ella Rentheim in the play "Juna Gabriela Borkman", Eva Le Gallienne was even awarded the title of the main Ibsen actress of the United States of America.

However, the staff of the Civic Repertory Theater was unequal. Next to the leading actors who successfully coped with the tasks before them, there were losers, life-long performers of secondary roles, for whom even small episodes in Chekhov's or Ibsen's plays turned out to be too complicated. Such people could not cope with the tasks put forward by the new drama and classics.

The need to form a certain acting school and develop a single acting method for everyone seemed obvious, but Le Gallienne did not pay due attention to this issue, believing that the manner of acting is not so important, the main thing is to have a positive result.

In 1932, Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theater ceased to exist. The reason for this was financial difficulties and apathy (the theater team, while continuing to be a purely artistic, literary theater, did not touch upon the acute social and political issues of our time). This theater was replaced by other groups - the theater "Group" and workers' theaters.

The founders of the "Group" were young actors - members of the Guild theater studio and graduates of the American Laboratory Theater, a studio school in which artists were trained according to the system of K. S. Stanislavsky. The theater, which was born in 1931 and existed for 10 years, became a noticeable phenomenon in the theatrical life of the United States of America in the 1930s.

Young people, dissatisfied with the commercialization of the Guild Theater, already in the late 1920s began to think about creating a team united by a common view on the tasks of artistic creativity and participation in public life. Soon, progressive young theatergoers formed a troupe led by three people: Lee Strasberg, Harold Clerman and Cheryl Crawford.

The sponsors of the staging of the first performance on the stage of the Theater "Group" were outstanding theatrical figures, among whom were the famous playwright Y. O'Neill and some actors of "Gilda".

The years of the economic crisis and the growth of public self-awareness, during which the formation of a new team took place, predetermined the goals and objectives of the theater "Group", the leading principle of which was the reflection in art, closely connected with the people, of the modern life of society. Thus, the young team sought to "influence life through the theater."

Young theater-goers were looking for like-minded playwrights, recruited actors who had a certain style of acting, who eventually turned into true professionals. Particular attention in the "Group" was paid to the study of the ethical principles of the teachings of K. S. Stanislavsky and the mastery of his system of acting.

Young actors were trained by Lee Strasberg, who adopted the fundamentals of Stanislavsky's teachings from former artists of the Moscow Art Theater R. Boleslavsky and M. Uspenskaya. Strasberg combined classes with actors with directing work. Often in response to the reproaches of students who believed that the teacher talks too much and does not pay due attention to the practical side of the matter, Strasberg replied: “Yes, we talk a lot, but this is because we are not just rehearsing a play - we are laying the foundations of the theater.”

Almost every summer, the artists of the "Group" went out of town, where they spent time in intense rehearsals and listening to lectures on the history of theater and drama. In addition, classes were held on stage movement, pantomime and dance.

Thus, according to the memoirs of the artist M. Karnovsky, in the theater “Group” “a new type of actor was formed, whether we call him an actor-philosopher, or an actor-citizen, or a socially conscious actor. Let's just call him Actor.

Democratic tendencies in the management of the theater gave positive results. The Council of Actors was of great importance, the directors were obliged to report to it and to all members of the acting troupe. Thus, the management team was deprived of the opportunity to appropriate most of the profits. All members of the theater group, regardless of their position, received the same salary.

One of the best works of the "Group" was the production of P. Green's play "House of Connelly". Rehearsals for this performance lasted for three months, which gave certain results. The noisy success of the premiere performance allowed critics to talk about the emergence in America of a new theater with its own stage face. In one of the newspapers, there was even a note with the following content: “It seems that our hackneyed Broadway has found young blood and new ideas that many of us have long dreamed of ...”

In 1934, the Group Theater began to work according to a new scheme received from Stanislavsky himself by the talented artist Stella Adler, who had been studying for two months with the famous Russian master. The experience of Russian stage art was carefully studied by the actors of the Group Theater, it was for them that the main works of K. S. Stanislavsky, E. Vakhtangov, individual articles and notes by M. Chekhov and P. Markov were translated into English.

The theatrical season of 1933/1934 was an important creative milestone in the work of the Group. By this time, the period of apprenticeship, which lasted for four whole years, was over, a galaxy of remarkable actors appeared within the walls of the theater, and an integral artistic ensemble was formed.

The exam for maturity for the theater group was the successful production of the play "Men in White" by S. Kingsley. It is noteworthy that the brilliant staging of this work brought the author an honorary Pulitzer Prize.

When staging "People in White", director Lee Strasberg brilliantly solved the most important task of the performance - showing the unequal struggle of an honest doctor with a commercial attitude to medicine. For example, in the scene in the operating room, which became the climax of the play, the main idea of ​​the work was embodied, as it were.

The unhurried, meaningfully silent scene of the operation, reminiscent of a solemn ceremony, invaded the action just at the moment when the turbulent events in the hero's life captured the attention of the audience. It was in this episode that true science triumphed over the commercial goals of the false "servants of Hippocrates."

Such a contrast between the swiftness of life and the reverent silence of the operating room made the audience think about the philosophical problem of life and death.

The director's desire for the fullest realization of the creative potential of the actors led to the enlargement of the images, the intensity of the tempo and the deepening into the psychology of the characters. At the same time, special attention was paid to plastic expressiveness.

The performance was held in a tense rhythm, long silent pauses only gave the unfolding events a special significance and strength.

When staging, a minimum of scenery was used. The stage design, created by the artist M. Gorelik, conveyed the idea of ​​the scene rather than reproduced exactly all the details of the hospital environment.

The white and black color scheme created a certain mood and to the greatest extent corresponded both to the director's intention and to the whole production decision, which was distinguished by some stylization.

By the mid-1930s, the Group Theater had its own playwright, Clifford Odets. He began to follow the traditions of the theater, so his works fully met the requirements set by the theater group for plays intended for productions.

At the beginning of 1935, the premiere screening of the first drama by K. Odets “Waiting for Lefty” took place on the stage of the Group Theater. In subsequent years, such plays by the talented playwright as “Until Death”, “Awake and Sing”, “Rocket to the Moon”, “Golden Boy” and “Night Music” were staged here.

With the help of the staff of this theater, productions of "Kind People" by I. Shaw, "Casey Jones" by R. Ordry, "My heart is in the mountains" by W. Saroyan were staged. In addition, the very existence of the Group Theater led to the writing of a number of plays that, under other conditions, might not have been born.

In 1937, L. Strasberg, to whom the Group owed all his successful productions and recognition among the audience, moved to Broadway. The new director of the theater was Harold Clerman, whose stage activities began at the Greenwich Village Theater (the old name for Provincetown). He learned many secrets of acting and directing from Y. O'Neill, R. E. Jones and K. McGowan.

Even before entering Greenwich Village, Clerman studied at the Sorbonne, where he listened to lectures by J. Copeau on the history of the theater. In addition, during his stay in the French capital, Harold attended performances of the Moscow Art Theater several times. Then began the years of study at the American Laboratory Theater with K. Boleslavsky, it was in this school-studio that Clerman got acquainted with the famous Stanislavsky system.

One of the most successful performances staged by the director on the stage of the "Group" theater was "The Golden Boy" by K. Odets. The 1937 production was so successful that the troupe received not only the recognition of the audience, but also a large income. A touring troupe was even created, which traveled around the cities of America with the showing of this play, in Hollywood, the play was even made into a movie of the same name.

In The Golden Boy, the features of the director's individuality of Harold Clerman are clearly traced, who sought to accurately embody the ideological concept of the play in the production. Moreover, through a clearly structured action, he tried to determine the most important task of the performance.

Understanding the play in his own way, the director tried to present it on stage as a story about the difficulty of forming a person in a world where money, commercial success and social status dominate the moral attitudes and spiritual qualities of the individual.

The main conflict of the play is presented in the performance as a struggle between the violin and the fist. Realizing that such a contrast may seem too sentimental and naive to someone, Clerman tried to color the main conflict not only with lyrical feelings, but also with painful experiences. The effect of this technique was impressive: naivety and sentimentality gave way to reflections on the meaning of life.

Clerman paid special attention to the choice of the lead actor. According to the director, the actor applying for this role had to be an intellectual artist both internally and externally, Clerman wanted to see Joe the musician on stage, as if by chance endowed with great strength and excellent physique, and not Joe the boxer , passionate about music by the way.

To the greatest extent, the image of Joe Bonaparte, which was formed in the director's mind, corresponded to the actor L. Adler. It was he who was instructed to play the main role in the play "The Golden Boy".

The role of Pope Bonaparte was written by K. Odets, who knew the creative possibilities of the "Group" actors, especially for M. Karnovsky. This man managed to bring the playwright's idea to life, creating a surprisingly expressive and realistic image of an outwardly pathetic and funny, but inwardly strong and unbending person.

The famous actress and director Eva Le Gallienne said of Clerman's production of The Golden Boy: “Its condensed, withering style is breathtakingly powerful. I like the show, I really like it. And they play excellently, with conviction, with some kind of gloomy passion.

However, neither the artistic success of the "Group" team, nor the successful tour of America and the largest cities of Europe could keep the theater afloat, it was unable to withstand the numerous commercial theaters of Broadway.

In 1941, the Group Theater ceased to exist. Almost all the actors who became famous thanks to successful "group" performances received invitations and went to various Hollywood studios.

The Group Theater was not only of great artistic, but also of great social importance in the theatrical life of the United States of America. Having set themselves certain tasks - to make the performing arts "a true expression of American life at that time", "to turn actors into conscious artists and help new playwrights", the team successfully coped with them.

Many of the actors, directors, playwrights, and theater teachers who worked on Broadway came from the Group Theater in the 1930s. In addition, almost all workers on the American stage in the 1940s were strongly influenced by the traditions of this group.

Having laid the foundations of the national realistic school of acting and combining the movement of small theaters with the experience of mature realistic art, the Group Theater had a huge impact on the development of American theater in the early post-war years (the second half of the 1940s - 1950s).

Along with such popular theater groups as Provincetown, Guild and The Group, there were non-professional workers' theaters, the first of which appeared in the late 1920s.

So, in New York in 1926, radical intellectuals, among whom were D. G. Lawson and M. Gold, initiated the creation of the Workers' Drama League, which included several amateur groups. They cannot be called theaters in the true sense of the word, the performances of these groups were accompanied by choral poetry readings, short, sharply social skits.

In 1932, a new organization appeared, called the League of Workers' Theaters, three years later it was transformed into the League of New Theaters. The program document stipulated the main tasks of the League: the development of the American workers' theater and the improvement of its artistic and social level.

Among the most famous working theater groups were the Working Laboratory Theater created in 1930, transformed after some time into the Theater of Action (Theater of Action) and the Union group (1933-1937), organized as a proletarian theater on a professional basis. Tickets in the last of them were very cheap, and empty seats were distributed free of charge to the unemployed.

A team of semi-professional actors worked at the Union Theater, artistic productions were carried out on its stage, while the basis of the repertoire was the works of "social" American playwrights, but plays by popular European authors were also staged.

In an effort to improve the skill level of their actors, the theater management invited the talented playwright K. Odets as a teacher. As a result of these studies, the productions of "Union" became more expressive, acquired deep psychologism.

Among the best works of the Union Theater, one should note “Peace on Earth” by A. Maltz and D. Sklyar, “Mine” by A. Maltz, “The Loader” by R. Peters and D. Sklyar, “Waiting for Lefty” by K. Odets, “ Mother" by B. Brecht, "Sailors from Cattaro" by F. Wolf and others.

When staging these works, new techniques of stage art were used, which proved to everyone that the primitivism of the early methods of acting was overcome: the social mask, which played an important role in the first stage of the work of the Union actors, was replaced by characteristic images that have internal movement and psychological development. As a result, the plays acquired a lively, emotional beginning.

An interesting phenomenon in the stage life of the United States of America was the federal project theaters, which were a network of state theaters created on the initiative of the government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the difficult years of the economic crisis. This project pursued a noble goal - to provide work for unemployed actors, directors, decorators and other stage workers.

In 1935, centers of the Federal Project appeared in New York and some of the largest cities in the United States, the activities of which were led by a central office headed by H. Flanagan.

Federal theaters organized in 40 states provided jobs for about 10 thousand people. It is noteworthy that the performances were carried out not only in English, but also in German, French, Italian, Spanish and even Jewish.

In New York, the Negro People's Theater was created, the performances of which gathered a large number of spectators. Critics recognized the play Macbeth as the most successful production of this theatrical group.

Particularly noteworthy is the emergence of puppet theaters in the United States of America, which were the first to stage plays for children. Thus began the communication of the younger generation with the world of beautiful performing arts.

The repertoire of federal theaters included many classical plays and works of modern world drama. The most successful performances of the classics, included in the production cycle "From Euripides to Ibsen", are considered "Doctor Faust" by K. Marlo, plays by K. Goldoni and B. Shaw. Plays by contemporary American playwrights Y. O'Neill, P. Green, E. Rice and S. Lewis were very popular.

The federal theaters owed their artistic achievements to the work of the talented actor and director Orson Welles, who gained popularity thanks to his successful performances in the C. Cornell troupe in the roles of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet and Marchbanks in Candida by B. Shaw.

In the second half of the 1930s, O. Wells received an offer from the central administration of the Federal Project to become the director of the People's Negro Theater. Taking the offered place, Orson enthusiastically set to work. Soon, black artists presented the play "Macbeth" to the audience, which became one of the best artistic works of the theater and directorial achievements of O. Wells.

After some time, this man became the head of all the Federal theaters in New York. On these stages, and then in his own Mercury Theater, O. Wells performed his best productions and performed his best roles: Dr. Faust by K. Marlo (director and leading actor), Julius Caesar by W. Shakespeare (director and the performer of the role of Brutus), "The Heartbreaking House" by I. Shaw (director and performer of the role of Shotover), "The Death of Danton" by G. Buchner (director and performer of the role of Saint-Just).

Critics rightly called the production of Julius Caesar the highest achievement of Orson Welles. The play, which tells about the events of the distant past, was staged without scenery, the actors performed in modern costumes, while the ideological and emotional basis (tyrannical pathos) of Shakespeare's tragedy was directed against the existence of fascism as such.

O. Wells continued to work fruitfully after the closure of the federal theaters. He played several roles, including Falstaff in the composition based on Shakespeare's chronicles "The Five Kings". In the future, he became a film actor and only occasionally turned to stage art, and not in the USA, but in England.

In 1939, after lengthy discussions in Congress, the federal theaters, accused of being un-American, were closed.

The emergence of the new American dramaturgy and small theaters could not but affect the theatrical life of Broadway. Commercial theaters were gradually imbued with new ideas and tasks of performing arts.

In the 1920s, the main figure of Broadway was the talented actor, director and playwright David Belasco. At the age of twelve, he wrote his first play, the production of which on the stage of one of the commercial theaters brought fame to the young man.

At the age of fourteen, D. Belasco had already become a professional actor. For a number of years he worked in California troupes touring various American states, until in 1922 he met Ch. Froman and moved to New York. By this time, he had played 175 roles, staged more than 300 performances, remade, translated and written more than 100 plays based on other people's works.

Ch. Froman's work turned out to be short-lived. Soon David Belasco became an independent producer and entered into an open fight with his former employer. Many historians of the American theater call Belasco the winner in the fight against commercial theaters, but victory does not come without losses - on Broadway, the Californian innovator gradually turned into a conservative.

Of the numerous plays written by D. Belasco, mostly in collaboration with other playwrights, Madama Butterfly (1900) and The Girl from the Golden West (1905), which are the basis of the libretto of the operas of the same name by G. Puccini, are still popular.

D. Belasco made a special contribution to the development of American stage art, holding the positions of director and head of the theater. This man laid the foundations of realism in the field of stage design. Prior to Belasco, when designing the stage, mainly perspective hand-painted scenery was used, but gradually they acquired greater realism, the principle of loyalty to history and way of life became dominant.

In the performances of David Belasco, everything from the scenery and furnishings to prop props was designed in the spirit of the historical time, the atmosphere was recreated with great care.

The director's desire for truthfulness and vitality of the stage design often turned into naturalistic extremes: an exact copy of a restaurant hall or a Japanese house, an American farm or a Parisian street could appear on the stage. From the window of the house there could be a view of a beautiful landscape or a courtyard recreated in all details, through a door ajar only for a minute - another fully furnished room.

The director's achievements in the field of lighting are great: his excellent knowledge of the possibilities of light made it possible to recreate on the stage the dazzling radiance of the sun and the blueness of the moonlight, to convey crimson sunsets and pink sunrises.

D. Belasco was a master of building mass scenes. Believing in the system of theatrical stars, he preferred to work with a well-prepared, well-played troupe of professional actors.

In the 1920s, the staging techniques developed by D. Belasco were used in many Broadway theaters. The master of the Russian theater, K.S. Stanislavsky, in one of his letters home, described the state of New York theaters as follows: “One actor is a talent, and the rest are mediocrity. Plus the most luxurious setting, which we do not know. Plus amazing lighting that we have no idea about. Plus stage equipment, which we never dreamed about. ”

However, the work of D. Belasco was not without flaws. The main one was the theater repertoire. Completely ignoring the literary drama, the director paid attention only to the scenes of the plays that were winning for the actors, he was more interested in the staging possibilities of a particular work than the ideological and emotional orientation of the play or the psychological characteristics of the behavior of the characters. It was precisely this limitation that kept his well-played troupe of professional actors from being on a par with the finest art theaters in Europe.

Only during the performance of the classical repertoire did the Belasco cast demonstrate their true capabilities. One of the best productions of this troupe was W. Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, where the actors were able to show what they are capable of.

K. S. Stanislavsky, who visited this performance during the tour of the Moscow Art Theater in the United States of America, highly appreciated it: “Belasco’s production of Shylock surpasses everything seen in luxury and richness, and the Maly Theater could envy him in terms of directing achievements” .

Stanislavsky was even more highly rated by the lead actor, the “star” of the Belasco troupe, David Warfield: “We don’t have such an artist as Warfield playing Shylock ... He is the best Shylock I have seen. He is a real Russian actor. He lives, but does not act, and in this we see the essence of artistic acting.

Warfield seems to have excellent command of that psychophysical apparatus called the human body, which is at the disposal of the actor in order to express his feelings and emotions. Warfield plunges into the depths of the character's passions and reveals his soul.

It's hard to say which scene I liked more, but I was particularly struck by the moment when Shylock leaves in search of his daughter. I forgot it's a game."

Nevertheless, despite a number of achievements in the field of performing arts, the Belasco troupe was unable to maintain its dominant position on Broadway, its productions in the spirit of the best traditions of the American theater began to lag behind the requirements of the time.

The Belasco theater was replaced by a new one, headed by the talented director Arthur Hopkins. Unlike representatives of the old generation of directors who did not study directing skills and learned this art only in practice, A. Hopkins spent several years studying directing.

Even before the outbreak of the First World War, he visited the best European theaters, the art of which made an indelible impression on him. The goal of A. Hopkins was a realistic American theater, he dreamed of staging great classical works and the best plays of modern dramatic art on Broadway.

His dream became a reality only in the post-war years: by the beginning of the 1920s, he staged such performances as Ibsen's The Wild Duck, The Doll's House and Hedda Gabler, S. Benelli's Dinner of Jokes, The Living Corpse L. Tolstoy and "At the Bottom" by M. Gorky. Arthur Hopkins was already on the threshold of the new American theatre.

O'Neill's Shaggy Monkey, staged by him on the Provinstown stage, met with a resounding success. This was followed by performances on Broadway: "Anna Christie", "The Price of Glory" by M. Anderson and L. Stallings, "Machinal" by S. Treadwell. These performances were also joyfully received by the audience.

The Shakespeare productions of A. Hopkins in the early 1920s deserve special attention. Many historians of the American theater rank them among the highest artistic achievements of the director: "Macbeth", "Richard III" and "Hamlet", the scenery for which was made by the artist R. E. Jones, and the actors John and Lionel Barrymore were the main actors.

The Barrymore brothers and their sister Ethel were considered in those years the best artists on the American stage. On their mother's side, they belonged to the famous theatrical Drew dynasty, and their father, Maurice Barrymore, was a famous actor.

The years spent in the atmosphere of the Broadway theater predetermined the further fate of talented young people. Ethel Barrymore shone on stage for about 50 years, and all these years she remained the favorite actress of American audiences. Lionel Barrymore, who gained public acclaim as a character actor, has also enjoyed success over the years.

Nevertheless, the leading part in this trio was performed by the youngest offspring of the Barrymore family - John, the most famous American tragedian of the first quarter of the 20th century.

The playwright Y. O'Neill highly appreciated the stage work of the Barrymore brothers, it was with these actors that he wanted to stage the play "Over the Horizon" in one of the Broadway theaters. However, this was not destined to come true: at the moment of the highest flowering of their stage fame, the Barrymores left the theater for the cinema.

John Barrymore's theater career began with some pretty successful comic roles in commercial plays with Frohman's company. Nevertheless, his true acting talent manifested itself much later, during the performance of the main roles in the best works of world drama - Folder in Justice by D. Galsworthy, Fyodor Protasov in The Living Corpse by L. Tolstoy, one of the main characters in Peter Ibbetson » J. Morier. In these performances, John Barrymore showed himself as a wonderful tragic actor, which gave him the right to play roles in the immortal tragedies of W. Shakespeare.

The production of "Richard III" became a "demonstration of the talents" of its main creators - director A. Hopkins, artist R. E. Jones and actor D. Barrymore. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the performance made an unforgettable impression due to the perfect design of the stage, the depth of interpretation of what was happening and the skill of the leading actor, who managed to create a characteristic image.

The skill of the great tragedian, who managed to subordinate his individual beginning to the character created on stage, manifested itself even in the role of Faulder in Justice, but, working on the image of the last representative of the English royal dynasty of Yorks, John Barrymore went even further.

Later, the artist recalled the production of Richard III: “I don’t know how good or bad I was in Richard. I myself think that it was then that I first managed to achieve what I consider true acting, and perhaps this was my highest achievement. It was then, for the first time ever, that I really got inside the character I was playing. I aspired to be this person and in my heart I knew for sure that I had become it.

The best role of John Barrymore is considered to be Hamlet in the eponymous production of Shakespeare's play. The performance, staged in 1922 by the joint efforts of A. Hopkins and R. E. Jones (it was the latter who managed to correctly determine the interpretation of the work), was an unprecedented success.

Detailed realistic design, characteristic of almost all productions of those years, was replaced in "Hamlet" by conditional ones, and thus the new principles of scenography received a real embodiment.

The semi-circular permanent installation was a high stage with a large arch at the back and steps leading up to it. The curtain, which fell during certain scenes, screened out the scene, covering from the audience what was not so important at that moment.

Strictness, majesty and simplicity - that's what the decorator Jones was striving for. Instead of numerous details of everyday life, insignificant details and trifles, the audience was exposed to the monumentality of architectural forms and the single rhythm of images. The amazing play of light and shadow, as well as the correctly chosen color scheme, had one goal - to convey the meaning and reproduce the atmosphere of what is happening on the stage.

The work of the director was also characterized by the simplicity and stinginess of the techniques, who strove to capture in this or that scene only what followed from the inner necessity, to depict the realities of life on the stage.

The principles of simplicity and majestic rigor are reflected in the game of John Barrymore. Critics said that he united all the Hamlets of his generation in himself, making all kinds of concepts of this role very simple and understandable.

Hamlet, created by D. Barrymore, was a very personal, deeply psychological interpretation of the image. Having abandoned the usual, but much outdated traditions, from blindly copying the techniques of other actors, Barrymore chose a different path for himself. For him, the game itself was important, and not a demonstration of professional virtuosity and a manifestation of acting vanity.

Clever and refined, refined and somewhat nervous, Barrymore's Hamlet was full of inner turmoil. The actor managed to masterfully convey the intellectual subtlety of his hero, convey to the audience his philosophical reflections and statements full of irony.

Many critics called Barrymore's Hamlet monologue "To be or not to be" a "sermon", full of sincerity and "original and attractive naturalism". Deep philosophical reflections and indecision were replaced at the most tense moments by energetic actions, the intensity of passions reached its highest point and seemed to reach ecstasy. Gradually, John Barrymore exhausted his nervous potential, thus exhausting his acting talent.

For many years, the honorary title of first lady of the American theater was retained by Catherine Cornell. Her acting career began in 1916 at the Washington Square Players, where she played small roles for several months in productions of plays by contemporary American playwrights.

Soon Katherine went to Broadway, to one of the commercial theaters. Work in a touring troupe allowed her to quickly gain popularity, entrepreneurs willingly invited a young, talented person with a bright personality and brilliant acting technique to their theaters. However, in many roles, the bright talent of the actress could not manifest itself in full force, since the productions were aimed at commercial success.

Sometimes interesting roles came across in Broadway performances, in the productions of major directors. So, in 1924, Catherine Cornell received an offer from D. Belasco to play the main role in C. Bramson's play "Tiger Cats". The actors played beautifully, however, the production was unsuccessful, and after several shows the performance was excluded from the repertoire of the D. Belasco theater.

Two months after this failure, Katherine Cornell had already made her debut in a new troupe organized by Broadway actors. There was no financial remuneration for the performers, but the actress recalled with gratitude the time spent in the theater, where she first became acquainted with the dramaturgy of B. Shaw.

The staging of B. Shaw's play Candida on the stage of the Actor's Theatre, starring K. Cornell, was warmly received by the audience.

Reviewers noted the extraordinary talent and virtuosity of the actress: “It is difficult to imagine a more faithful and convincing Candida ... In the interpretation of the actress, the role sounded like a revelation. Fragile, graceful, charming, she amazes with her rare ability to feel and understand ... "

Katherine Cornell conducted the last act so subtly that you involuntarily ask yourself the question: “Who created this Candida? Is Shaw's Candida so tender, smart?"

The role played in this performance has become the most beloved for a talented actress. The production was resumed several times during her creative life, which became the reason for the complication of the image of Candida. K. Cornell tried to create a deeply psychological, characteristic image of the heroine, and she succeeded perfectly.

The staging of The Green Hat, based on the novel by M. Arlen, which was popular in those years, made Catherine Cornell not only a Broadway star, but also a universal favorite.

The famous US theater critic J. Nathan, giving a sharply negative assessment of the novel and the performance, especially noted the work of Catherine: “The main role in this example of bad taste is played brilliantly ... by a young actress standing head and shoulders above the rest of the actresses of the American theater.”

Despite such a negative assessment by critics, the performance was a success. The Green Hat was an integral part of the theater's repertoire for several years: in 1925-1927, the play was shown in New York, and then in other cities in the United States of America, the box office from this performance was huge.

The successful performances of the young actress allowed her to dictate her terms when applying for a job in a particular theater, many Broadway entrepreneurs, wanting to get a new “star”, offered her contracts on the most favorable terms. Soon Katherine Cornell became the most popular melodramatic actress with the role of a femme fatale, poisoner or murderer.

This circumstance worried many lovers of the performing arts: they expressed fears that K. Cornell would leave a serious repertoire and give his outstanding talent to be torn to pieces by self-interested entrepreneurs. However, all fears were in vain: the actress chose her own path.

In 1929, she organized her own troupe, whose task was to acquaint the general public with talented and interesting works of both modern and classical dramaturgy. It was supposed to spend the income received by the troupe on staging new performances, and the performances were to be shown not only in New York, but also in other American cities.

The core of the new troupe was a team of 17 people, directed by K. Cornell's husband, Guthrie McClintic. The spouses attached great importance to the ensemble, quite rightly believing that the actor plays much better among good partners.

Despite the fact that the commercial success of showing one play was obvious, Cornell and McClintick tried to diversify the repertoire of their troupe: the reversal of roles, in their opinion, contributed to the freshness of perception and performance.

However, in real life, everything was completely different: in order to stage a new play, it was necessary to show performances that were popular with the audience for a long time.

Trying to keep her roles as interesting and expressive as ever, Katherine has worked hard to improve her acting skills. She often said that her Juliet in the latest productions is much closer to Shakespeare than the one that existed at the beginning of work on the role.

The main theme of the work of the new theater was the show of a steadfast man, bravely facing all troubles, boldly speaking out against violence and tyranny. A kind of response to the events of real life was the role played by K. Cornell of the invincible spirit of Elizabeth Barrett in R. Beziers' "The Barrett Family of Wimpole Street" by R. Beziers, the irreconcilable Lucretia in "The Reproach of Lucretia" by A. Obey, the gentle and passionate Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" W. Shakespeare, the brave and indomitable French heroine Jeanne d'Arc in "Saint John" by B. Shaw, the quiet and proud Malay princess Oparr in "Wingless Victory" by M. Anderson, etc.

During the Second World War, Catherine Cornell for the first and last time came into contact with the dramaturgy of A.P. Chekhov. The role of Masha in "Three Sisters" was not the best for her, the actress failed to fully understand the character of her heroine, so the image turned out to be too blurry.

In the post-war years, K. Cornell continued to successfully perform on the stage (Antigone in the play of the same name by J. Anouilh, Cleopatra in W. Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra). One of the best roles of this period of Cornell's work was the role of Mrs. Patrick Campbell in "Pretty Liar" by D. Brush.

In the 1930s, Broadway theaters could not but respond to the processes that took place in the theatrical life of the United States of America. Unexpectedly for entrepreneurs-entrepreneurs, social drama has taken root here. So, for seven years, the play “Tobacco Road” based on the novel by E. Caldwell (staged by A. Kirkland, 1933) did not leave the Broadway repertoire, the plays “Clash at Night” by K. Odets and “The Fifth Column” by E. Hemingway were especially popular ( staged in collaboration with the Guild Theatre).

In general, the period of the 20-30s of the XX century became one of the most important stages in the development of the American theater. During this period, its lag behind the European theater was eliminated, the gap with the realities of modern life was overcome. New aesthetic ideals and acute social problems have taken a certain place on the American scene.

In the early post-war years, the American theater was in crisis. The most progressive small theaters that had appeared even before the war disintegrated. Even during the war, mainly entertainment productions (musicals, comedies) were distributed, anti-fascist plays only occasionally appeared on the stage. The political situation in the period from the end of 1940 to the first half of the 1950s did not contribute to the development of theatrical art. It was the time of the Cold War with the USSR, the struggle of the authorities with progressive organizations, parties, trade unions, some church unions and the most prominent cultural figures who opposed the policy of the government, which supported the monopolies in their desire to maintain their huge profits of the war years.

The deepest internal contradictions of the 1960s and 1970s associated with the Vietnam War, large-scale Negro and radical left movements, and economic difficulties also did not contribute to the development of American culture and art.

During the McCarthy period (in the post-war years, the chairman of the US Senate Commission, Joseph McCarthy launched a campaign to persecute progressive organizations and figures), most American writers reconciled themselves to the ideology implanted by the ruling circles, or simply fell silent. In the theater and dramaturgy, the passion for Freudianism came to the fore, according to which the origins of conflicts are not in being, but in the mental sphere. Freudian plays have become widespread, representing man only as a biological being living according to the laws of irrational instincts. On the stages of Broadway theaters there were performances staged according to Freudian principles. So, a number of dramas and even one ballet were based on a real criminal case of a nineteen-year-old girl who hacked her parents to death with an axe.

All this did not take long to affect the quality of theatrical art: not only its ideological, but also its artistic level decreased. Critic John Gassner wrote that the theater of the 1940s and 1950s was dominated by motifs of "repression, rejection, and rehashing." Walter Kerr gives an even more accurate characterization of the theater of that time: “There is no secret that the American theater has lost its influence on the mass audience. The average American knows that the theater exists, although he does not quite understand why and for what ... A visit to the theater does not illuminate a person's life, does not capture his imagination, does not excite his soul, does not kindle new passions in him.

The theater scenes of American cities were filled with light musical comedies, entertaining plays and Freudian dramas. The greatest playwright Eugene O'Neill fell silent, and the audience learned about his later works only in the second half of the 1950s, after the writer's death (the exception was the play The Iceman Is Coming, shown during O'Neill's lifetime).

In the 1940s, two more American playwrights turned to social drama: Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. Their heroes, suffering in an environment alien to them of lack of spirituality and calculation, are experiencing a real tragedy.

In creating his dramas, Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), like Eugene O'Neill, uses the psychological method. The playwright is interested in the deep impulses of the human soul, its conflicting feelings and experiences. But Williams is not limited to conveying the spiritual drama of the character, he also tries to show the circumstances that affect the fate of the hero. Most often, society in his plays is a force directed against a person and eventually leading him to death. According to Williams, fate is determined as a result of the interaction of two causes - social (external) and psychological (internal). Here the writer turns to the old traditions of American socio-psychological drama.

The playwright outlined his views in the preface to the play The Glass Menagerie (1945). Williams contrasts naturalism and “flat realism” with “poetic realism”: “Now, perhaps, everyone already knows that photographic similarity does not play an important role in art, that truth, life, in a word, reality are a single whole, and poetic imagination can show this reality or capture its essential features only by transforming the appearance of things.

The drama "Glass Menagerie" is an elegiac recollection of one of the characters, Tom Wingfield, about the past. The play tells about the tragedy of a family whose members could not adapt to the indifferent and cruel world around them. The action of the play revolves around Laura, whose symbolic image is a glass menagerie. This is a symbol, like a blue rose, the embodiment of the spiritual purity of the heroine, her tenderness and vulnerability, inability to live in an inhuman society. Laura is incapable of compromise, and her death is a foregone conclusion. As Laura's glass animals shatter, so does her life. Tom, forced to follow the laws of society, leaves her. Social motives in the play appear through the emotional experiences of the characters. Critics saw in this lyrical and very poetic play the closeness of Tennessee Williams to Chekhov.

The Glass Menagerie made America talk about the playwright, but it was his play A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) that brought him worldwide fame. Continuing the theme of The Glass Menagerie, it is at the same time not an elegy, but a tragedy. If Laura only denies the world in which she lives, Blanche Dubois tries to fight not to perish. She tries to find happiness and love, but all her aspirations end in failure. And although life is unfair to Blanche, she cannot give up her ideals and remains true to them. That is why Blanche does not accept Stanley Kowalski, who refutes everything that is dear to her. Of course, the heroine of the play is not at all a model of purity. She is prone to hysteria, promiscuous, and overindulges in alcohol. But Blanche is characterized by true spirituality, while Stanley is "a being who has not yet reached the stage on which modern man stands." Blanche is best described in her own words: “After all, with such miracles as art, poetry, music, some new light came into the world. After all, higher feelings were born in someone! And our duty is to raise them. Do not give up on them, carry them as a banner ... "

A big event in the theater world of America was the production of Williams's play Orpheus Descends, created by director Harold Clareman. Critics, who covered the performance in completely different ways in the press, were unanimous in one thing: the play made people think about how difficult it is for a normal person to live in a world of violence, where shooting in the street or a lynching is the most common occurrence.

In a small town in the south of the United States comes Orpheus - Val Zevier. The conflict is based on the clash of two types of people. The first, according to Val, are like birds, as they live and die in the air, without touching the earth's dirt. The latter are divided into those who are sold and those who buy themselves. In this terrible world of cruelty, meanness and dirty profit, the love of Val and Leidy blossomed. But, like Orpheus, Val Zevier could not bring his Eurydice out of this hell. The main opponent of the lovers was Leidy's husband, Jabe Torrance, a killer with a "wolf smile-grin". And there are many like Torrens in this town, they rule in hell and destroy those who try to oppose them.

The playwright is not limited to depicting violence and death, it is important for him to show that there are always people in the world who do not reconcile with their position. So, in the mouth of Carol Williams puts the words that the submissive rot, and “the recalcitrant and wild leave, leaving, their clean skin, their white teeth and bones. And these amulets pass from one exile to another as a sign that the owner of them is walking his own, rebellious path. In the finale, Val, who is being lynched, dies, and Carol, wearing his snake jacket, leaves town, ignoring the sheriff's threats.

The same theme is continued by Williams' play The Night of the Iguana (1962). Although her main character could not stand the fight, Hannah Jelks did not give up and did not bow her head, keeping the warmth of her heart. Life is cruel to her, but she continues to believe in people and help them.

Plays created by Williams in the 1960s were not as successful as earlier ones. The playwright became interested in experiments, trying to create something completely new. This is how several one-act plays appeared, in which naturalism gives way to impressionism.

The plays In the Tokyo Hotel Bar (1969), The Red Devilish Battery Brand (1975), The Old Quarter (1977), The Summer Hotel Wardrobe (1980), which were shown in Broadway theaters, were coldly received by the audience. After that, Williams began to give his new works to off-Broadway and regional theaters. Kingdom of the Earth (1968), The Scream (1971), Warning to Small Boats (1972) were staged on off-Broadway stages, A Play for Two (1971) was staged in Chicago, and Tiger Tail was staged in Atlanta. » (1978). In 1981, at the Cocteau Repertory Theater, director Yves Adamson staged Williams's play Something Obscure, Something Clear.

In total, the playwright created more than 30 plays. His dramas were staged in theaters in many countries of the world, many of them were filmed. And now the best works of Williams do not leave theatrical repertoires. The well-known theater and film critic E. Teplitz wrote that American directors and actors learned “the art of creating logical, albeit psychologically complex and at first glance contradictory images” precisely on Williams’s plays.

In the postwar years, another well-known American director, Arthur Miller (born in 1915), also began his activities. In his works, the theme of man and society, hostile to him, is also traced.

In 1944, Miller's play The Man Who Was So Lucky, directed by Elia Kazan, premiered on Broadway. The performance did not arouse the interest of the public, and after four performances it was removed from the stage. In 1947, Kazan staged another of Miller's works, All My Sons. Surprisingly, the Broadway audience, accustomed to musicals and light comedies, accepted this serious play, which brought the author an award from the New York Theater Critics Society. This prize was awarded to him "for a frank and uncompromising staging of a relevant and important topic, for the sincerity of writing and the general power of the scenes, for showing the true sense of the theater inherent in an intelligent and thinking playwright."

Although the military theme did not interest Broadway viewers, Miller dared to write about war and the responsibility of a person to other people and the whole world.

The playwright sought to understand what in the fate of a particular person depends on his will and actions, and what depends only on circumstances. These questions are raised in the dramas Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, View from the Bridge, Price, After the Fall, Vichy Incident.

Miller's plays continued the traditions of the social drama of the 1930s, although the playwright believed that the productions of that time showed the impossibility of a person's struggle with the cruel laws of society and therefore doomed him to death in advance, excluding any possibility of struggle and victory. Miller considered Ibsen, Brecht and Chekhov to be his teachers. The latter, according to him, is especially valuable, because "thanks to him, it became possible to comprehend reality more from the standpoint of life than from the standpoint of the theater."

Miller's famous play "Death of a Salesman" (1949), which tells about the tragic fate of the salesman Willy Loman, who was unable to survive in a world of fierce competition, received a wide audience response. The plot is based on life observations, as well as personal memories of the author. Starting the drama, Miller believed that his hero must surely die: “I didn’t know how he would get to this, and I didn’t try to find out. I was sure that if I could get him to remember enough he would kill himself, and the composition of the play was determined by what was needed to evoke his memories.”

In order for the viewer to penetrate into the depths of the hero’s inner world, the playwright used a technique that was completely unusual for the theater of that time, which consisted in the fact that the action unfolds in parallel in two plans different in time, and the transition from past to present and vice versa occurred almost instantly. Music, lighting effects, or connecting cues served as the boundary of the transition.

The appearance of the image of his deceased brother Ben in the play also helped to understand the character of Willy Loman. The brothers lead dialogues, from which it becomes clear which path each of them followed. Ben did not reckon with any conventions and therefore was able to earn a million. Willy, who thinks about people and is not able to go against his conscience, is doomed to failure and death. At the same time, Willie never ceases to hope for success until the very end and does not understand what is killing him. But it becomes clear to the viewer what is the reason for the death of a simple person: he was killed by a cruel and indifferent society. It is no coincidence that one of the reactionary newspapers referred to the play "Death of a Salesman" as "a time bomb planted under the building of Americanism."

In 1952, Miller's drama The Crucible appeared (its second name is The Salem Sorceresses). Although the play tells about the events that took place in Salem at the end of the 17th century, it is easy to guess the modern America of the McCarthy era behind the historical images.

The Crucible is written in a new genre of heroic drama for Miller. The writer showed how, in the hour of trials, the heroism of people of various character, who prefer to die rather than embark on the path of dishonor, is manifested. In the name of duty, John Proctor goes to his death, reflecting on the fate of his children and people in the last minutes of his life. The heroes of the play die, but their death instills in the audience the hope that the time of political reaction will end in the same way that the darkness of religious fanaticism, against which the characters of The Crucible struggled, dissipated.

The motives of human destiny and responsibility to society come to the fore in Miller's plays View from the Bridge (1955), After the Fall (1964), and The Case in Vichy (1965). The anti-fascist theme, revealed in the drama "A Case in Vichy", acquires a special sound.

In 1965, the playwright created the play The Price, which brings to mind Death of a Salesman. The author tells the story of two brothers, Victor and Walter, who met after many years of separation in an old house, after the death of their father. Many years ago, Victor, the youngest of the brothers, abandoned his dreams of becoming a scientist to take care of his father. He left the university and became a simple policeman. The eldest, Walter, who thought only of his own well-being, is now a successful surgeon and owner of several private clinics and nursing homes. But, having achieved everything he wanted, he realized that no wealth can give happiness and his life was wasted. An example of his brother's selflessness led Walter to break with his past and return to the profession of a doctor helping those in need.

But Miller does not seek to put Victor on a pedestal, because his sacrifice turned out to be too great: his father had money, and he did not at all need his son to leave the university for him and abandon his chosen profession. The playwright does not answer the question which of the brothers is right, he makes the viewer decide for himself. Probably both chose the wrong path, but Miller does not take on the role of judge. Human life is incredibly complex, and therefore it is difficult to see the line between truth and falsehood, good and evil.

The last plays of the playwright do not give answers to the questions posed: The Creation of the World and Other Matters (1972) and American Clock (1976). The comedy about Adam and Eve (“The Creation of the World and Other Things”) develops into a reflection on the justice of the world created by God. "American Clock" is a play of the author's memoirs about the time of his youth.

The 50s and 60s of the 20th century brought forward new names in dramaturgy. The work of William Inge (1913-1973) gained great fame. His plays Come Back Little Sheba (1950), Picnic (1953), Bus Stop (1955), Darkness Over the Stairs (1957) were as successful as the dramas of Williams and Miller.

Revealing ordinary everyday problems, Inj's dramas seem sentimental and too traditional. At the same time, each of them contains socially critical motives. The characters of Inj (housewives, drivers, salesmen) who are ordinary and not distinguished by high intellectual development do not perform heroic deeds and do not utter clever monologues. However, their sad stories are as touching as the fate of Miller's Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman. Total ruin threatens salesman Reuben Flood from a provincial Midwestern town ("Darkness Over the Stairs"). There is nothing bright in the life of a degraded housewife (“Come back, little Sheba”). The destiny of this kind, but completely weak-willed and passive woman is hopeless longing and loneliness.

With sincere sympathy, Inj draws young heroes, justifying their rebellion against the inertia and routine that reign in the family and society.

In the 1960s, the playwright, having exhausted himself, began to create far-fetched works, devoid of life's credibility. Unable to overcome the crisis, he committed suicide.

Imbued with humanism, deeply lyrical plays by Inge continue to be staged on the stages of theaters in the United States and other countries. Quite rightly, G. Klerman said about the work of the playwright: “Much can be disputed both in the method and in the material of the picture drawn by Inge - the lack of psychological scope, monotony, the inability of the characters to rise above their own depression, the slightly comic evasiveness of the endings - but in it there is also a certain stubborn honesty, a determination to tell the unvarnished truth…”

One of the most famous American playwrights who worked in the late 1950s and early 1960s is Edward Albee (b. 1928). His work reflected the spiritual protest that has matured in society after many years of conciliation and hushing up of the most important problems of our time.

Although Albee uses the same themes as Williams and Miller, his plays are not similar to those of the latter. The playwright is not limited to showing the vices of society, he is trying to convey to the readers the ideas of protest.

Albee's dramas are unusually diverse in style, so some critics try to rank him among the absurdists, others as realists, although the writer himself calls himself an eclecticist, saying that the features of each play depend on its content. In his work, one can see both the features of a socio-psychological drama and elements of the "theater of the absurd" ("Little Alice", 1964).

Albee's first plays, very different from those created by the playwright's predecessors, refused to be taken by the directors of even the most progressive off-Broadway theaters. And only after the name of Albee became known outside of America, his works began to be staged on American stages.

In the introduction to the play “The American Ideal”, the playwright expressed the idea that theatrical art, like a kind of mirror, reflects the state of society: “I analyze American reality, attacking the substitution in our society of genuine values ​​with artificial ones, exposing cruelty, emptiness and emasculation of all human ".

Olbee's plays deal with the most important issues. Thus, "The Incident in the Menagerie" (1958) reveals the relationship between man and society, "The Death of Bessie Smith" (1959) denounces racial intolerance and cruelty. The heroes of Albee, poisoned by the inhumanity and malice of the world around them, degrade spiritually and cease to be normal people. The playwright's ability to explore human psychology was envied by Tennessee Williams, who wrote of the writer's ability to "faithfully convey the despair of modern man, forever driven into the solitary confinement of his own skin."

Albee's most famous work is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962). Thanks to this work, the playwright gained worldwide fame. Inspired by Swedish writer August Johan Strindberg's The Dance of Death, the drama spans one night in the home of a provincial university professor. George and his wife Martha reveal all the secrets of their marriage. Starting with an ordinary quarrel, they move on to revelations, make unexpected discoveries, expose their vices and illusions. In turn, the spouses act as attackers in the war-game, which the author divided into three stages: "Games and Fun", "Walpurgis Night" with "hunting for the owner" and "hunting for guests" and "Exorcism", including "a game about a son and Martha's punishment.

With ruthless realism, Albee penetrates the hidden world of a married couple. Americans recognized themselves in his heroes. One critic very aptly called this play "a dance of death on the grave of Western culture."

The playwright also refers to the same theme of “war in the living room” when creating other works (“Shaky Balance”, 1966; “It's Over”, 1971; “The Lady from Dubuque”, 1980). The writer is interested in the problems of family duty, mutual understanding, responsibility and human egoism.

Of great interest is the play "Seascape" (1975), in which the real is intertwined with the fantastic. On the sea beach is an elderly couple - Nancy and Charlie. They sort things out, and suddenly a couple of monsters, Sarah and Leslie, swim up to them from the depths of the sea. Although they do not look like people, they are tormented by the same problems: mutual misunderstanding, loneliness, love and hate. The finale of the play is optimistic: Nancy and Charlie extend their hands to the monsters for a handshake and thus open the way to mutual understanding and friendship.

The issues of human relations, the disintegration of the individual under the influence of social conditions, also affect Albee's comedy works. His satirical plays ridicule those who passively submit to the existing order and, as a result, turn into a weak-willed puppet (The American Ideal, 1960; All in the Garden, 1976).

The most illustrative in this sense is the comedy "All in the Garden", written based on the play with the same name, created by the English playwright J. Cooper. Showing how the loss of spirituality occurs in a person who gradually becomes a slave to the stereotypes existing in society, Albee uses such techniques as the grotesque and satire. He gives his characters precise psychological characteristics. All stages of personality degradation are represented by different heroes. Jenny and Richard are still on the first rung of the ladder leading down to spiritual devastation. The middle stage is represented by their nearest neighbors, and the final stage by Mrs. Ace.

Youth riots and the movement of the "new left" had a significant impact on the further development of American drama. The plays of Miller, Williams, and even the younger Albee did not meet the spiritual needs of the rebellious youth, who needed a completely different theatrical art that embodied the ideas of freedom without borders.

These moods were met by the experimental theater club La Mama, opened in 1961 by Ellen Stewart in the basement. Its participants worked only on bare enthusiasm, without receiving payment. Spectators were invited directly from the street. This theater, which still exists, has always provided a stage for a variety of playwrights. But their plays had to be modern and include elements of experimentation. Dozens of authors, who later became widely known, began their journey from the stage at La Mama. Among them are Sam Shepard, John Guare, Jean-Claude van Itali, Adrienne Kennedy, Lanford Wilson, Migen Terry. The greatest success was achieved by Sam Shepard, who moved from experimental plays to realistic art. Many of the author's works are performed with great success on theater stages around the world. The play The Buried Child (1979) brought the playwright the Pulitzer Prize. Shepard's dramas Love Fool and The Curse of the Starving Class, which critics called the American Cherry Orchard, are also interesting.

In the 1970s, a new generation of writers entered US drama. In the plays of this time, two main themes come to the fore: the Vietnam War and the denunciation of the so-called consumer society. The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1971), written by Daniel Berrigan, who was convicted in 1968 for defiantly burning military papers in protest against the Vietnam War, caused a wide resonance. The anti-war theme was devoted to his dramas Paul Hummel's Basic Training (1971), Sticks and Bones (1971), Unopened Parachutes (1976) by David Rabe, who at one time fought in Vietnam. The writer showed what the unjust and cruel war brought to the Americans themselves.

It is impossible to ignore the Negro theater, which in the post-war period put forward such talented playwrights as Lorraine Hansberry, Ed Bullins, Douglas Turner Ward, Charles Gordon, as well as actors Sammy Davis, James Earl Jones, Sidney Poitier. The drama "Deep Roots" (1945) by James Gow and Arnaud D'Usso is dedicated to the denunciation of racism, the heroes of which were black Americans who participated in the war.

The plays of Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) are devoted to the fight against racial discrimination, revealing the feelings and thoughts of black residents of the United States. In the works of the writer there is neither spectacular exoticism, nor the ideas of Negro nationalism.

The drama A Raisin in the Sun (1959) brought Hansberry the New York Critics Society Award for Best Play of the Year. It shows the life of an ordinary Negro family, dreaming of happiness. After her husband's death, old Lena Younger gets insurance and buys a big new house where the whole family moves. It would seem that the dream came true, what more could you want. But we soon learn that in the area where the house was purchased, only whites live, who do not want to see blacks next to them. The Youngers try to survive through threats or bribery, but they manage to maintain their self-respect. A dream of happiness turns into a wrinkled zest lying in the sun, but these people cannot sacrifice their conscience and honor even for the sake of profit.

Always adhering to an active life position, Hansberry urged people not to leave the most important problems in her plays. The hero of the play "The Slogan in the Window of Sydney Brustein" (1964), despite the obstacles and difficulties, seeks to "save humanity." He is engaged in political activities, publishes a newspaper, and nothing can make him fold his hands and go into the shadows.

In the 1960s, the well-known Negro writer James Arthur Baldwin (born in 1924), who wrote a number of novels about love, overcoming loneliness, and national self-consciousness, also turned to dramaturgy. He also addressed these themes in his plays. In 1964, he created Blues for Mr. Charlie, a protest drama based on the true events surrounding the murder of Baldwin's friend, Medgar Evers, by racists. The tragic dramas Amen at the Crossroads (1968) and Running Through Paradise tell about life in the Negro ghetto.

The first black playwright in the United States to win a Pulitzer Prize was Charles Gordon, who wrote Nowhere to Be Human in 1969. The well-known critic W. Kerr called him "the most amazing playwright since the advent of Albee."

Douglas Turner Ward made a great contribution to the development of American theatrical art.

In the 1960s, Negro playwrights began their activities, promoting black extremism in their work. These are Leroy Jones (Imamu Amir Barak), who wrote the hate-filled plays The Dutchman (1964), The Slave Ship (1970), Slave (1973), and Ed Bullins, a member of the Black Panther party, creator of one-act plays, staged on the stage of the New Lafayette Theater headed by him (Pigpen, Winter in New England, Son, Come Home).

The stage world of America is somewhat different from the European one. There are no state theaters in the USA like in other countries. The main role in the theater life is played by Broadway theaters, which are also called commercial. These are show business enterprises, and their main task is to make a profit.

Broadway theaters do not have a permanent troupe and repertoire of a certain direction and are simply buildings with an auditorium and a stage. A troupe that has rented such a theater shows the same performance until it ceases to generate income. Some productions were filmed in a week, others went on for years. So, the musical "My Fair Lady" did not leave the stage of the Broadway theater for seven years.

Most of the Broadway performances expressed the ideas of the so-called popular culture, the purpose of which is to make the audience believe that Americans are the richest, happiest and free people on earth. Most of the Broadway productions idealized a standard person who obeys the existing order and does not stand out from the crowd. Productions in commercial theaters have become the object of significant investment. If before the war the cost of most performances did not exceed 40 thousand dollars, then in the post-war years they reached 100 (drama) and 500 (musical) thousand.

A significant place in the repertoire of Broadway theaters was given to the musical. This was followed by a musical revue and a light comedy. Dramas were not particularly popular with entrepreneurs, but this is precisely what led commercial art to a crisis: the audience was fed up with thoughtless productions that lead away from reality. Broadway entrepreneurs began to turn more often to serious plays, choosing the works of the most famous authors (Williams, Miller, Albee).

Some changes over time have undergone such a genre as a musical. For ten years at the Guild Theater there was a musical by R. Rogers and O. Hammerstein Oklahoma! (1943) directed by Ruben Mamulyan. This seemingly completely non-commercial play, which tells about the lives of ordinary people, was a huge success with the audience. And the reason for this was not only folk costumes, beautiful music and choreography, but also the plot itself, dedicated to “good old America”, rural characters, rude and rustic, but with honest and trusting hearts.

A huge contribution to the development of the musical genre was made by the performances “West Side Story” by A. Laurents and L. Bernstein (1975), “My Fair Lady” by F. Lowe and L. Lerner (1956), “The Man from La Mancha”, which became famous in many countries of the world D. Wasserman, D. Darion and M. Lee (1965), "Fiddler on the Roof" by D. Stein, S. Garnik and D. Bock (1964) and others. All of them, unlike thoughtless entertainment productions, are devoted to "eternal » topics and are based on classical literature.

Since there are no permanent theaters and troupes in the USA, the American theatrical art is determined only by dramaturgy and theater pedagogy. The leading theater school in the post-war years was the Actors Studio, founded by a follower of K. S. Stanislavsky Elia Kazan, as well as Robert Lewis and Lee Strasberg. Thanks to Strasberg, who headed the Actors Studio almost until his death, it became the largest American school in the 1950s and 1960s. Many famous actors came out of its walls, including Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Maureen Steppleton, Rod Steiger, Jane and Peter Fonda, and others. In addition to acting, the studio had a drama and director's department.

The stage director Elia Kazan (born 1909) played a major role in the development of the performing arts in the United States. He staged almost all of the early plays by Williams and Miller. He began his journey in the theatrical world as an actor in the Group Theater, where he came in 1932. There Kazan got acquainted with the system of Stanislavsky, and since that time he tried never to deviate from its principles.

In 1941, the Group ceased to exist, and Kazan began working as a director of one of the Broadway theaters. Most of his productions are based on realistic plays that pose the most important problems of life. Kazan was especially attracted to the works of Williams and Miller.

Miller's first play, The Man Who Was So Lucky, staged by the director on Broadway in 1945, was not successful, and after four performances she was removed from the stage. But the second (“All my sons”) was greeted by the public with great interest. But the real glory of Kazan brought "Death of a Salesman", shown in 1949. Combining authenticity with conventionality, the director created not only a truthful and sincere performance, but also an unusually expressive and poetic spectacle. The design of the production, created by artist Joe Milziner, also played a special role. The huge skyscrapers hanging over the house of the traveling salesman Willy Loman have become a kind of symbol predicting the sad end of the little man, from whom society has taken away the right not only to happiness, but also to life.

With great skill, Kazan used such a technique as alternating episodes of reality and memories. The present and the past are intertwined in the performance, and a holistic picture of the life of the characters, their tragic fate, emerges before the viewer. The actors did a great job. Theater critic J. M. Brown wrote that they “played with such skill and conviction that the dividing line between life and acting seemed non-existent. The humanism of the play flowed into their performance and became its inseparable part.

The image of Willy Loman in the performance was created by actor Lee Combe, who began his creative career at the Group Theater. He managed to very convincingly convey the type of a simple American who never managed to understand why an honest and hardworking person who did not stop working all his life was “overboard”. With gestures, subtle movements, facial expressions and voice, the artist showed the depth of his hero's suffering.

Critics called Lee Combe's work "a triumph of Stanislavsky's performance." Eric Bentley wrote: “We saw that we are all Willy, and Willy is us. We lived and died together, but when Willy fell down, never to get up again, we went home, cleansed of compassion and horror.”

Kazan's performances based on the plays by Tennessee Williams enjoyed the same success. The performances A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), The Way of Reality (Camino Real, 1953), Cat on a Hot Roof (1955), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1958) were greeted with great interest by the audience.

In 1964, Elia Kazan became artistic director of the newly created "Repertory Theatre" at the Lincoln Center for the Arts, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The center included a number of facilities, including the new building of the Metropolitan Opera, Drama Theatre. Vivian Beaumont, Forum Chamber Theatre, Theater Library-Museum, Concert Hall, Theater School (Juilliard School), which had its own theater halls. The Lincoln Center for the Arts was assigned the role of a state theater with a permanent troupe and repertoire. Together with Kazan, Robert Whitehead became artistic director, and Harold Clerman, formerly director and director of the Group Theater, became a consultant. Like Kazan, he was a supporter of the Stanislavsky system.

A troupe of 26 artists was formed at the Repertory Theatre. The theater opened in 1964. The first performance shown on its stage was Arthur Miller's play "After the Fall", staged by Kazan. The repertoire also included the dramas of Miller's Vichy Case and Eugene O'Neill's Marco the Millionaire.

But the selected plays, intended for a serious, democratic-minded spectator, did not suit the owners of the center, for whom their income was in the first place. Soon Kazan and Whitehead were forced to leave the theater. Herbert Blau and Julius Irving, who had taken their place, formerly directed the Ector's Workshop Theater (Acting Workshop), continued the line of their predecessors. In 1965 they staged Buechner's Danton's Death and Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle. In 1966 Kipphardt's The Oppenheimer Case and Brecht's Life of Galileo were shown on the stage of the Repertory Theatre, in which R. Steiger played the main role.

The commercial directors of the theater continued to put pressure on the artistic directors, who soon had to abolish the permanent troupe and the changing repertoire. Every six months, the stage was offered to rent to visiting troupes. Blau eventually left the theatre, followed by Irving.

In 1973, the Repertory Theater was headed by Joseph Papp, one of the most famous off-Broadway theater figures, who previously directed the Shakespeare Festival, America's most democratic free theater, located in New York's Central Park. Continuing the line of the former artistic directors, Papp staged O'Casey's The Plow and the Stars, Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and Gorky's Enemies on the stage of the Repertory Theatre. He was also attracted to the works of other playwrights. But soon a conflict began between him and the financial directors of the Lincoln Center: the latter demanded profits, while Papp counted on subsidies. The matter ended with the fact that the "Repertory Theater" ceased to exist, and various troupes began to play in the building where it was located (it was planned to convert it into a cinema, but the indignant public did not allow this).

In the late 1940s, off-Broadway theaters (off-Broadway) began to appear in the United States, the main goal of which was the revival of non-commercial art. Many now well-known actors, directors, and playwrights began their careers from these small theaters.

A great contribution to the creation and development of off-Broadway theaters was made by director Jose Quintero (born in 1924). In 1950, he founded an experimental theater called "Circle in a Square". On its stage, plays were staged that were not successful on Broadway (Williams' Summer and Smoke, 1952; The Iceman Is Coming and Long Journey Into Night, 1956). In the future, the audience saw the wonderful performances of Wilder's "Our Town" (1959) and "The Seven Ages of Man" (1961), staged by Quintero.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the off-Broadway 4th Street Theatre, where director David Ross staged mainly plays by Ibsen and Chekov, and the Phoenix Theater by Norris Houghton, where classical and modern performances were staged, became widely known.

It was on these stages, as well as in the tiny poor theaters of Greenwich Village, called New York's Montmartre, that the new theatrical art was formed. Serious performances were staged there, practically not making a profit, but forcing the viewer to think about important life issues and moral and ethical problems.

Not only Broadway, but also off-Broadway theaters did not suit the radical youth, the “new left”, who became the founders of the third theater, which had a political orientation and was called “off-off-Broadway” (“out-out-of-Broadway”). City squares and streets, student audiences, workers' clubs became the scenes of these theaters. Young actors performed on the fields in front of agricultural workers, took an active part in the election campaign. They turned to a variety of theatrical traditions, used the techniques of the theater dell'arte, the fair booth, the methods of Bertolt Brecht, etc.

The leading off-Broadway theater was Living Theater (Living Theatre), founded in 1951 by director Judith Malaina and artist Julian Beck, followers and students of E. Piscator. Brecht's "In the Jungle of Cities" and "Today We Improvise" by Pirandello were staged on the stage of the theater.

A vivid example of off-Broadway art was the play "The Messenger" based on the play by the contemporary American playwright J. Gelber, staged at the Living Theater in 1957. The terrible existence of a group of drug addicts is shown in naturalistic and conventionally theatrical terms. The well-known Soviet art critic, theater critic G. N. Boyadzhiev, who defined this production “as an authentic life and as a naked performance,” wrote: “This performance is a complex and contradictory phenomenon, because it was not for nothing that there was not enough air, then it took the breath away. The authenticity of this performance either revolted with its carbon monoxide, mustiness, repulsive naturalism, or riveted to itself the documentary nature of what was happening, the terrible, aching truth of experiences. It was defiantly unaesthetic, but tragic voices were heard through these ugly forms. And then I wanted to see these people not only in narcotic torments, but in the human content of their suffering, which was immeasurably wider than these torments themselves and carried both the person and the reason that made him so. The reason - the inhuman way of life - that's what a terrible seal lay on the faces and souls.

In the same style, which combined documentary, naturalistic authenticity with theatrical conventionality, C. Brown's play "Brig" (1963), which tells the story of an American naval prison in Japan, was also staged.

In 1964-1968 Living Theater worked in Europe (he was expelled from the USA for non-payment of taxes). During this period, The Mysteries (1964), Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Paradise Today (1967) were staged in the spirit of the "theater of cruelty", in which the audience was actively involved in the action.

In 1968, Living Theater returned to the United States, but it was no longer able to achieve the same interest in itself, and in 1970 it disbanded.

In the 1960s, radical theaters such as El Teatro Campesino (The Farm Workers' Theatre), founded in 1965 by Luis Valdes, were also popular; the already mentioned "Shakespeare Festival" in New York's Central Park and "Mobile Theater" ("Mobile Theatre"), headed by Joseph Papp; Brad and Puppet (Bread and Doll) by Peter Schumann; Mimic Troupe, opened in 1959 in San Francisco by Robert Davis; Open Tietr (Open Theatre) by Joseph Chaikin.

For almost 16 years, the Brad and Puppet Theater, founded in 1961 by choreographer and sculptor Peter Schumann, has not changed its artistic and ideological principles. Schumann explained such an unusual name as follows: “The theater is as important as bread… Bread gives strength to the body, and fables and fairy tales give strength to the souls of all those offended and circumvented by fate… We want to talk with the audience about the problems that concern everyone today.”

At first it was a traveling theater, but already in 1963 he settled in New York. In 1968, Brad & Puppet took part in the youth theater festival held in Nancy, and then went on tour in Europe. Since that time, he became known not only in his homeland, but also in other countries of the world. Since 1970, the theater has been located in Vermont, at Goddard College, where the troupe conducted classes with students. Then Brad and Puppet returned to New York again. Its artists staged free performances in parks, squares and streets.

In the repertoire of "Brad & Puppet" the main place was occupied by stories understandable to ordinary people, fairy tales, legends, fables about life, struggle, wars. The theater audience saw a cycle of anti-war performances, among which the most interesting are "A Man Says Goodbye to His Mother", "The Gray-haired Lady's Cantata", "The Flame". The theater staged anti-war marches and protest demonstrations on May 1, Hiroshima Day.

To make the performances understandable to everyone, Brad and Puppet used symbolic images and masks, all kinds of inscriptions, scoreboards, and oral explanations. When creating his performances, Schumann turned to the traditions of oriental theater, mystery plays, English fair performances with Punch and Judy puppets, as well as the principles of Bertolt Brecht.

A characteristic example of Schumann's early productions is the play Flame. Talented mimic scenes depict the life of Vietnamese peasants, whose peaceful life is suddenly disrupted by the war. The apotheosis of the performance was the episode of self-immolation of an old Vietnamese woman, in this way protesting against the war. Red ribbons and a napalm veil hide everything on stage, symbolizing the fire that burned many Vietnamese villages, as well as a sense of anger against the cruelty and inhumanity of the war.

Symbolism also fills the Cantata of the Gray-haired Lady, which tells about the tragedy of a mother whose son went to war and became a murderer of civilians. The mother sees the death of peasants, women, children, and all these episodes are accompanied by the movement of landscapes drawn on a rewinding tape, and music in which notes of joy, sadness or death knell are heard. The performance left an indelible impression in the souls of the audience, critics compared it with the famous "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso.

The most famous radical theater of that time was the Open Theater (Open Theatre), which appeared in 1963. Joseph Chaikin, who previously played roles in Brecht's plays in Living Theater, became its leader. Members of the Open Theater worked for free. The best productions of the theater were satirical performances, many of them were created during the general improvisation of the actors, director and playwright. Such is Meaghan Terry's play with songs "Viet Rock", which tells about the life of seven American youths who became soldiers and died in Vietnam.

A satirical play by J.C. van Itali “America, cheers!” was staged on the stage of the Open Theater. (1966), written as a pamphlet on the American way of life. It consists of three parts ("Interview", "Television", "Motel"), each of which expresses a special look at modern America. A huge soulless country is inhabited by various mechanisms, machines and people who look like puppets and robots. The production, which is an example of a political play, uses the grotesque, masks, caricature as the main means of denunciation; psychological motives are completely absent in it.

In 1973, the play "Chile, Chile" directed against the fascist junta was staged on the stage of the "Open Theater", in which the troupe of the Theater of Latin America took part. And two years later, Open Theater ceased to exist.

In the 1960s and 1970s, regional theaters were actively created in the United States. They not only staged performances, but also taught children and youth, held student and school holidays.

Local theaters in America existed before, however, there were very few of them. One of the most famous is the Cleveland Playhouse, formed in 1915 on the model of the Moscow Art Theater, which managed to maintain its position despite world wars, the economic crisis of the 1930s, and the rapid development of cinema and television. In the 1950s, the Houston Ally Theater, headed by Nina Vance, and the Washington Arena Stage, directed by Zelda Fichandler, opened. In San Francisco, Herbert Blau and Julius Irving founded the Ector's Workshop.

In the 1960s, the appearance of regional theaters became widespread. In Minneapolis, the Tyrone Guthrie Theater was created; in Los Angeles, the Mark Taper Forum directed by Gordon Davidson; in San Francisco, the American Canservatory Theater directed by William Ball. Some theaters immediately received well-equipped buildings, while others had to overcome numerous obstacles in order to establish themselves. For many years the Detroit Repertory Theater did not have its own building.

Regional theaters play an important role in the theatrical life of the United States. On their stages, new interesting plays are staged, many of which then go to the stages of Broadway and off-Broadway theaters. Such well-known directors as Mike Nichols, Alan Schneider, Alice Rabb and others began their creative activity in local theaters.

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O "NEAL, Eugene(O "Neill, Eugene) (1888–1953), American playwright, Nobel Prize in Literature 1936. Born October 16, 1888 in New York. From childhood he accompanied his parents-actors on tour, changed several private schools. In 1906 he entered to Princeton University, but a year later he dropped out. For several years, O "Neal changed a number of occupations - he was a gold digger in Honduras, played in his father's troupe, went as a sailor to Buenos Aires and South Africa, worked as a reporter for the Telegraph newspaper. In 1912 he fell ill with tuberculosis, was treated in a sanatorium; enrolled at Harvard University to study drama under J.P. Baker (the famous "Workshop 47").

Two years later, the Provincetown Players staged his one-act plays - East to Cardiff (Bound East for Cardiff, 1916) and moon over the caribbean (The Moon of the Caribbees, 1919), where O'Neill's own impressions of marine life are conveyed in a harsh and at the same time poetic manner. After staging the first multi-act drama Over the horizon (Beyond the Horizon, 1919), which tells about the tragic collapse of hopes, he gained a reputation as a flamboyant playwright. The play brought O "Neil the Pulitzer Prize - this prestigious award will also be awarded Anna Christie (Anna Christie, 1922) and strange interlude (Strange Interlude, 1928). Encouraged, full of creative daring, O "Neal boldly experiments, multiplying the possibilities of the scene. Emperor Jones (The Emperor Jones, 1921), which explores the phenomenon of animal fear, dramatic tension is greatly enhanced by the continuous beat of drums and new principles of stage lighting; V shaggy monkey (The Hairy Ape, 1922) expressive symbolism is strongly and vividly embodied; V Great God Brown (The Great God Brown, 1926) with the help of masks, the idea of ​​the complexity of the human personality is affirmed; V strange interlude the stream of consciousness of the characters amusingly contrasts with their speech; in a play Lazar laughs (Lazarus Laughed, 1926) uses a form of Greek tragedy with seven masked choirs, and in ice seller (The Iceman Cometh, 1946) all the action comes down to a protracted drinking bout. O "Neil demonstrated excellent command of the traditional dramatic form in a satirical play Marco the millionaire (Marco Millions, 1924) and in comedy Oh youth! (Ah, Wilderness!, 1932). The value of O'Neill's work is far from being exhausted by technical skill - much more important is his desire to break through to the meaning of human existence. In his best plays, especially in the trilogy Mourning - the fate of Elektra (Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931), reminiscent of ancient Greek dramas, there is a tragic image of a man trying to foresee his fate.

The playwright always took an active part in the production of his plays, but in the period from 1934 to 1946 he moved away from the theater, concentrating on a new cycle of plays under the general title The saga of the owners who robbed themselves (A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed). O "Neil destroyed several plays from this dramatic epic, the rest were staged after his death. In 1947, a play that was not included in the cycle was staged Moon for the stepchildren of fate (A Moon for the Misbegotten); in 1950 four early plays were published under the title Lost Plays (Lost Plays). O "Neal died in Boston (Massachusetts) on November 27, 1953.

Written in 1940 based on autobiographical material, the play Long day fades into night (Long Day's Journey into Night) was shown on Broadway in 1956. The soul of a poet (A Touch of the Poet), based on the conflict between an immigrant father from Ireland and a daughter living in New England, was staged in New York in 1967. The processing of an unfinished play did not last long in 1967 on Broadway richer palaces (More Stately Mansions). A book was published in 1981 Eugene O'Neal at work (Eugene O'Neill at Work) with drawings by the playwright for more than 40 performances, it contains about a hundred creative ideas of O "Neill.

Lectures I wrote: American drama - it is completely depressive. EUGENE ABOUT’NIL gives direction (the play "Shaggy monkey"(1922, Russian translation 1925). Mythological plays of American reality, the trilogy "The Fate of Electra" (Eugene O Neil. Trilogy. Mourning - The Fate of Electra). Eugene O Neil was in the hospital and had nothing to do at night reading, became interested and became a playwright. He has a tragic fate (Parkenson's disease when his hands are shaking). He takes a lot from Freud and his psychological analysis.

Eugene O'Neill - his main playLove under the elms! (briefly)

The action takes place in New England on the farm of Effraim Cabot in 1850.

In the spring, old Cabot unexpectedly leaves somewhere, leaving the farm to his sons - the eldest, Simeon and Peter (they are under forty), and Ebin, born in his second marriage (he is about twenty-five). Cabot is a rough, stern man, his sons are afraid and secretly hate him, especially Ebin, who cannot forgive his father that he has exhausted his beloved mother, loading him with overwork.

Father has been missing for two months. A wandering preacher, who came to the village next to the farm, brings the news: old man Cabot got married again. According to rumors, the new wife is young and pretty. The news prompts Simeon and Peter, who have long dreamed of California gold, to leave home. Ebin gives them money for the journey on the condition that they sign a document relinquishing their rights to the farm.

The farm was originally owned by Ebin's late mother, and he always thought of it as his own - in perspective. Now, with the appearance of a young wife in the house, there is a threat that everything will go to her. Abby Patnam is a pretty, full of strength thirty-five-year-old woman, her face betrays the passion and sensuality of nature, as well as stubbornness. She is delighted that she has become the mistress of the land and the house. Abby says "mine" with gusto when talking about it all. She is greatly impressed by Ebin's beauty and youth, she offers the young man friendship, promises to improve his relationship with his father, says that she can understand his feelings: in Ebin's place, she would also be wary of meeting a new person. She had a hard time in life: orphaned, she had to work for strangers. She got married, but her husband turned out to be an alcoholic, and the child died. When her husband also died, Abby even rejoiced, thinking that she had regained her freedom, but soon realized that she was free only to bend her back in other people's houses. Cabot's offer seemed to her a miraculous salvation - now she can work at least in her own house.

Two months have passed. Ebin is deeply in love with Abby, he is painfully drawn to her, but he struggles with the feeling, is rude to his stepmother, insults her. Abby is not offended: she guesses what kind of battle is unfolding in the young man's heart. You resist nature, she tells him, but nature takes its toll, "makes you, like these trees, like these elms, yearn for someone."

The love in Ebin's soul is intertwined with hatred for the intruder who claims the house and farm that he considers his own. The owner in it wins the man.

Cabot, in his old age, flourished, rejuvenated, and even somewhat softened in soul. He is ready to fulfill any request of Abby - even kick her son out of the farm, if she so desires. But Abby wants this least of all, she passionately longs for Ebin, dreams of him. All she needs from Cabot is a guarantee that after her husband's death, the farm will be hers. If they have a son, they will, Cabot promises her and offers to pray for the birth of an heir.

The thought of a son takes root deep in Cabot's soul. It seems to him that not a single person has understood him in his entire life - neither his wife nor his sons. He was not chasing easy money, he was not looking for a sweet life - otherwise why would he stay here, on the rocks, when he could easily settle in black earth meadows. No, God knows, he was not looking for an easy life, and his farm is rightful, and all Ebin's talk about her being his mother's is nonsense, and if Abby gives birth to a son, he will gladly leave everything to him.

Abby sets up a date with Ebin in the room that his mother occupied when she was alive. At first, this seems like blasphemy to the young man, but Abby assures that his mother would only want his happiness. Their love would be revenge on Mother Cabot, who was slowly killing her here on the farm, and in revenge, she would finally be able to rest in peace there in the grave. The lips of lovers merge in a passionate kiss ...

A year passes. There are guests in the Cabot house, they came to the celebration in honor of the birth of their son. Cabot is drunk and does not notice malicious hints and outright ridicule. The peasants suspect that the baby's father is Ebin: since the young stepmother settled in the house, he completely abandoned the village girls. Ebin is not at the party - he crept into the room where the cradle stands, and looks at his son with tenderness.

Cabot has an important conversation with Ebin. Now, his father says, when he and Abby have a son, Ebin needs to think about marriage - so that he has a place to live: the farm will go to his younger brother. He, Cabot, gave Abby his word: if she gives birth to a son, then everything after his death will go to them, and he will drive Ebin away.

Ebin suspects that Abby played a foul game with him and seduced him specifically in order to conceive a child and take away his property. And he, a fool, believed that she really loved him. All this he brings down on Abby, not listening to her explanations and assurances of love. Ebin swears that he will leave here tomorrow morning - to hell with this damned farm, he will get rich anyway and then he will return and take everything from them.

The prospect of losing Ebin terrifies Abby. She is ready for anything, if only Ebin would believe in her love. If the birth of a son killed his feelings, took away her only pure joy, she is ready to hate an innocent baby, despite the fact that she is his mother.

The next morning, Abby tells Ebin that she kept her word and proved that she loves him more than anything. Ebin doesn't have to go anywhere: their son is gone, she killed him. After all, the beloved said that if there had been no child, everything would have remained the same.

Ebin is shocked: he did not want the death of the baby at all. Abby misunderstood him. She is a murderer, sold herself to the devil, and there is no forgiveness for her. He immediately goes to the sheriff and tells everything - let them take her away, let them lock her in a cell. A sobbing Abby reiterates that she committed the crime for Ebin, she cannot live apart from him.

Now there is no point in hiding anything, and Abby tells her awakened husband about the affair with Ebin and how she killed their son. Cabot looks at his wife in horror, he is amazed, although he had previously suspected that something was wrong in the house. It was very cold here, so he was drawn to the barn, to the cows. And Ebin is a weakling, he, Cabot, would never go to inform on his woman ...

Ebin is at the farm before the sheriff - he ran all the way, he is terribly remorseful for his act, in the last hour he realized that he was to blame for everything and also that he was madly in love with Abby. He invites the woman to run, but she only sadly shakes her head: she needs to atone for her sin. Well, Ebin says, then he will go to prison with her - if he shares his punishment with her, he won't feel so alone. The sheriff arrives and takes Abby and Ebin away. Stopping on the threshold, he says that he really likes their farm. Excellent land! ______________________________________ This play is very reminiscent of Tolstoy's "Power of Darkness". Maxim Gorky valued him very highly. Nobel laureate for his work. A film about the works, productions of O. Nile. The content of these dramas showed the real underside of life, ordinary people, the working class.

EUGENE ABOUT’NILE(1888-1953), American playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1936. Born October 16, 1888 in New York. Born in the family of an actor. Since childhood, he accompanied his parents-actors on tours. In his youth he was a sailor, played in the theater. Eugene ABOUT’Nile- Una's father ABOUT’Nile, in 1943, who became the wife of director and actor Charles Chaplin, and grandfather of actress Geraldine Chaplin ......

Theater between two wars. Pirandello's plays reveal the growth of the irrationalism of intellectual drama in the conditions of the coming to power of fascism and the growth of military danger, the motives for the collapse of the personality and the loss of its stable individuality. At the same time, it is obvious that the game motives are strengthened, which introduce into the plays a sense of uncertainty and doubt about the ability of art to adequately comprehend and express real life. The French intellectual and poetic drama of the interwar period carries the same motives in a peculiar version. In the works of J. Girodou - "There will be no Trojan War", "Electra", J. Anuya - "Savage", "Antigone", "Lark" (the latter go beyond the period under consideration), and then, already in the post-war period, - Zh.P. Sartre - "Flies", "The Dead Without Burial" - a struggle is unfolding between the poetry and prose of bourgeois existence, the lonely romantic rebel and the "solid majority" of the townsfolk, armed with common sense. The work of these playwrights is largely "inspired" by theater masters - directors "Cartel" (Ch. Dullin, L. Jouvet, J. Pitoev, G. Bati) brings existential motifs to the performing arts, helps pave the way to the mass audience and express the anxieties and hopes of their time. It was in the theaters of the "Cartel" in the period between the two wars that the "re-theatricalization of the theater" takes place, creative emancipation and the acquisition of the most wide and sharply expressive stage style, which prepares the most important events, the venue for which will be the post-war stage, take place. During this period, the birth of American national dramaturgy takes place , the founder of which is Yu. O "Neill. Already his first plays, published in the collection Thirst (1914) and staged at the experimental theater Provincetown Players, showed the American audience the harsh underside of life. O" Neil's dramaturgy is characterized by the search for various forms, deep philosophy and life truth. All these qualities manifested themselves later in the plays of the leading American playwrights - T. Williams and A. Miller.

OPERETA AND MUSICAL competed at the time. O. Neil's language is rather heavy. Tennessee Williams(English 1983) - American novelist and playwright - went the path of political theater. “How do we live until the morning” And Yu.O. Nil “How do we live on” raises the question - 2 directions were combined. Influenced by the Great October Revolution and the 1st World War. At the very beginning of the 20th century (representation and experience), the director's theater prevailed, and before that there was exclusively acting.

O'Neill, Eugene (O'Neill, Eugene) (1888-1953), American playwright, Nobel Prize in Literature 1936. Born October 16, 1888 in New York. Since childhood, he accompanied his parents-actors on tours, changed several private schools. In 1906 he entered Princeton University, but dropped out a year later. For several years, O'Neill changed a number of occupations - he was a gold digger in Honduras, played in his father's troupe, went as a sailor to Buenos Aires and South Africa, worked as a reporter for the Telegraph newspaper. In 1912 he fell ill with tuberculosis, was treated in a sanatorium; enrolled at Harvard University to study drama under J.P. Baker (the famous "Workshop 47").

Two years later, the Provincetown Players staged his one-act plays - East to Cardiff (Bound East for Cardiff, 1916) and moon over the caribbean (The Moon of the Caribbees, 1919), where O'Neill's own impressions of marine life are conveyed in a harsh and at the same time poetic manner. After staging the first multi-act drama Over the horizon (Beyond the Horizon, 1919), which tells about the tragic collapse of hopes, he gained a reputation as a flamboyant playwright. The play brought O'Neill the Pulitzer Prize - this prestigious award will also be awarded to Anna Christie (Anna Christie, 1922) and strange interlude (Strange Interlude, 1928). Encouraged, full of creative daring, O'Neill boldly experiments, multiplying the possibilities of the scene. IN Emperor Jones (The Emperor Jones, 1921), which explores the phenomenon of animal fear, dramatic tension is greatly enhanced by the continuous beat of drums and new principles of stage lighting; V shaggy monkey (The Hairy Ape, 1922) expressive symbolism is strongly and vividly embodied; V Great God Brown (The Great God Brown, 1926) with the help of masks, the idea of ​​the complexity of the human personality is affirmed; V strange interlude the stream of consciousness of the characters amusingly contrasts with their speech; in a play Lazar laughs (Lazarus Laughed, 1926) uses a form of Greek tragedy with seven masked choirs, and in ice seller (The Iceman Cometh, 1946) all the action comes down to a protracted drinking bout. O'Neill demonstrated excellent mastery of the traditional dramatic form in a satirical play Marco the millionaire (Marco Millions, 1924) and in comedy Oh youth! (Ah, Wilderness!, 1932). The significance of O'Neill's work is far from exhausted by technical skill - much more important is his desire to break through to the meaning of human existence. In his best plays, especially in the trilogy Mourning - the fate of Elektra (Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931), reminiscent of ancient Greek dramas, there is a tragic image of a man trying to foresee his fate.

The playwright always took an active part in the production of his plays, but in the period from 1934 to 1946 he moved away from the theater, concentrating on a new cycle of plays under the general title The saga of the owners who robbed themselves (A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed). Several plays from this dramatic epic O'Neill destroyed, the rest were staged after his death. In 1947, a play that was not included in the cycle was staged. Moon for the stepchildren of fate (A Moon for the Misbegotten); in 1950 four early plays were published under the title Lost Plays (Lost Plays). O'Neill died in Boston (Massachusetts) November 27, 1953.

Written in 1940 based on autobiographical material, the play Long day fades into night (Long Day's Journey into Night) was shown on Broadway in 1956. The soul of a poet (A Touch of the Poet), based on the conflict between an immigrant father from Ireland and a daughter living in New England, was staged in New York in 1967. The processing of an unfinished play did not last long in 1967 on Broadway richer palaces (More Stately Mansions). A book was published in 1981 Eugene O'Neill at work (Eugene O'Neill at Work) with drawings by the playwright for more than 40 performances, it contains about a hundred of O'Neill's creative ideas.

Y. O "Neal (1888-1953) - the beginning of creativity and the release of the first collection of plays "Thirst" in 1914

The collaboration of Y. O "Neal with the Provincetowns Pleisters troupe and the staging of his "sea plays" on stage. The appearance in American dramaturgy of new heroes that shock the public - sailors, tramps, people from the bottom.

The main sharply critical plays of the playwright:

"Shaggy monkey" - dehumanization of the individual in a capitalist society;

"Negro" - the problem of racial discrimination;

“Love under the Elms” is the theme of possessive instincts brought to the point of absurdity and crime.

Drama by Yu. O "Neill as a mirror of American reality in the first third of the twentieth century.

The value of the dramaturgy of Y. O "Neal.

By the beginning of the 20th century, there was neither a national theater nor a national dramaturgy in the United States that could be on a par with the European one. The absence of its own dramatic and theatrical tradition has given rise to a truly American phenomenon: the playwright - stage manager and, further, the playwright - director. The beginning was laid by Dion Boucicaut (1820-1890), who arrived from England, who decisively changed the functions of the stage manager, who until then had only served the organizational needs of touring theater troupes. Boucicault wrote for the stage (he was the author of more than two hundred plays), which allowed him to also edit the plays of other playwrights intended for the stage, and gave instructions to the actors. Further, stage managers (they were also playwrights) Augustine Daly (1838-1899), Steele Mackay (1842-1894), Clyde Fitch (1865-1909) began to play an active role in shaping the repertoire of their troupes, preparing actors and technical equipment of performances. It was from their principles of work that David Belasco (1854-1931) started (he collaborated with D. Busiko and S. McKay), with whom the history of American directing begins. But the theater of America at the beginning of the 20th century lagged behind the European theater by more than one decade, and this gap began to narrow only in the 1910s.

The birth of a new, comparable in breadth of creative searches with European, directing in America falls on the 1920s. - This is the time of an unprecedented heyday of the theater in the United States. Never before (and then - only once, in the 1960s) did the theater in America acquire such social significance: traces of this are in the names of the Broadway theater buildings, which bear the names of Eugene O "Neill, an ardent admirer of the work of O" Neil critic Brooks Atkinson, actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontann who participated in performances staged according to the playwrights of O "Neill (none of the theatrical figures of a later period received such an honor). The only monument on Broadway is a monument to actor George M. Cohen, whose best role in his long career was the role of Nat Miller, performed in the premiere production of O "Neill's play" Ah, the desert! During this period, American directors and stage designers, inspired by European ideas, created bright, original theatrical performances.

It was the plays of Eugene O'Neill that brought a new conflict to the American stage, his dramaturgy posed new problems and brought new heroes to the stage. theater search for a new (unlike the lifelike Belasco and his imitators) theatrical language. But the first US playwright himself felt a desire to actively participate in the live theatrical process. O "Neal was not a theorist: he wrote a small number of articles in which he theatrical views. Nevertheless, along with dramaturgy, the playwright's correspondence and practical activities allow shedding light on his theatrical concept. In his plays, the playwright, who was critical of the life-like theater he knew well, laid down the director's decision, which required a boldly thinking director and stage designer for its implementation. The playwright strove to be creatively interpreted: he actively offered his plays to directors and actors, willingly helped the directors who took up the production, making adjustments to his plays, and even became one of the founders of the theater created to stage his dramaturgy. O'Neill's activities had a huge impact not only on the development of American dramaturgy, but also on the formation of the young art of American directing, which thus relied on the solid ground of national dramaturgy. Considering the phenomenon of American directing from the perspective of Neil's dramaturgy seems to be extremely fruitful: on the one hand On the other hand, O'Neill's plays appear under the conditions set by the author - the conditions of the American stage, on the other hand, it was the production of O'Neill's plays that revealed the talent of a number of American directors and set designers.

The 1936 Nobel Prize winner Eugene O'Neill is considered the founder of national dramaturgy. The son of an actor and a playwright by vocation, who grew up in an artistic environment, he changed many different professions: he was a sailor and gold digger, wandered, was an actor, a member of the association with the Provincetown Player troupe On this stage, his first one-act plays were staged. The plays of the twenties - "Shaggy Monkey", "Love under the Elms", "Wings are given to all children of men", which brought O "Neill fame, can be defined as socio-philosophical dramas. In this genre, the playwright skillfully combined the stylistic features of naturalism and Elizabethan tragedy, symbolism and neo-primitivism techniques. He strove to get away from verisimilitude, modifying the values ​​and symbols of the theater of his day, wanted to approach "the so far unexplored area", where, as he wrote in the article "Strindberg and Our Theater", "our hearts, distraught from loneliness and the pitiful tongue-tiedness of the flesh, gradually reveal a new language of human community."

In the play "The Shaggy Monkey" (1922), the author achieves a great expressionist effect by analyzing the collapse of the stoker Yank. Young and strong, Yank deftly operates in the bowels of the ship. The furnace where he works in constant heat resembles a cage, and he himself, according to the author, having lost harmony with nature, has not reached new horizons. Having failed in love, Yank is ready to step back, but he does not find himself in the past either. The play ends with a symbolic scene in the zoological garden: Yank, driven to despair, dies in the arms of a gorilla.

Drama "Wings are given to all children of men" (1924) is devoted to racial problems. Its name was a string of a popular spiritual. The spiritual song of the musical folklore of American blacks, like a deep leitmotif, accompanies the love story of black Jim Harris and white Ella Down and. They grew up together and would be happy in another world. But their love is doomed under the sidelong glances of their neighbors, in a world where the color of the skin means more than the color of the soul, and conscience and morality are stifled by the skyscrapers of a cold octopus city. Eugene O'Neill continues to follow his aesthetic creed and portrays life as a tragedy that confuses all formulas and brings liberation "from the petty worries of everyday existence";

A recognized masterpiece was "Love under the Elms" (1924), a drama of the ancient power of feelings. The family tragedy that took place on the farm of Ephraim Cabot in 1850 is resolved in several aspects: symbolic (elm people deeply rooted in the ground, stone people), naturalistic (elements of feelings and primordial energy guide a person), psychoanalytic (instinct is often stronger than reason ) and social (proprietary power of the earth over man, and strong people over the weak). The despotism of the power of old Cabot, the will of the sons that opposes it, the hatred of the sons for their stepmother Abby, who is more suitable for her sister in age, and the fatal passion of Abby for her stepson Ebin - this knot is fraught with an insoluble conflict. The possessive wild instinct plunges everyone into the struggle for the farm and causes complete alienation, misunderstanding and loneliness in the family, which leads to crime.

In the trilogy "Mourning - the fate of Electra" (1931), O "Neill used the classic myth of the fall of the house of Atreus. The events described here date back to the end of the Civil War between North and South. Brigadier General Ezra Mannon returns from the war to his own house be killed by his wife and her lover. The daughter of the murdered Lavinius, like Electra, persuades her brother Orin to avenge her father. Death settles in the temple of hatred that the Mannon house has become. The last to die is the avenger Lavinia, unable to withstand the persecution of the dead. "Return", "Hunted" , "Pursued" - this is the name of the three plays included in the mythological drama of Y. O "Neill, which allowed him to realize his potential in the tragedy genre.

The play "The Iceman Is Coming" (1938) is reminiscent of M. Gorky's "At the Bottom" with its tragic pathos, scene and collision. Typologically, it is also close to O'Neil's play "Love under the Elms" and "The Power of Darkness" by L. Tolstoy. In the last years of the writer's life, his plays "The Soul of a Poet", "The Moon for the Stepchildren of Fate" and "Long Journey into the Night" were published.

The plays of Eugene O'Neill, especially the early ones, were often condemned for pessimism and hopelessness. Responding to critics, the playwright wrote that for him only the tragic has that significant beauty that is the truth.

Tennis Williams (real name Thomas Lanier) is an American writer and playwright.

Creativity T.Williams as a successor to the best traditions of American psychological drama. The first dramatic experiments of the 30s.

The best plays by T. Williams - "The Glass Menagerie", "A Streetcar Named Desire" - are about the defenselessness of pure natures and the inevitability of the death of good in the modern world.

In 1947, T. Williams received the Pulitzer Prize as an avant-garde playwright.

Reflection of the contradictory development of US culture in the work of T. Williams.

The complexity and inconsistency of T. Williams' worldviews, which affected his artistic method (idealistic ideas, the assertion of sensuality, the zoological principle, etc.).

The meaning of the dramaturgy of T. Williams. Stage fate of his plays.

American playwright, whose plays are built on the conflict of spiritual and carnal principles, sensual impulse and craving for spiritual perfection. As a rule, his heroes and heroines converge in a primitive confrontation, where the call of the flesh varies from obsession and sin to a possible path to salvation.

Tennessee took the pseudonym at the beginning of his literary career. The prototype of the Wingfields in The Glass Menagerie (1945) was the playwright's family: a strict, picky father who reproached his son for his lack of masculinity; a domineering mother, overly proud of the family's prominent position in society, and a sister, Rose, who suffered from depression. Not wanting to vegetate in production, to which he was sentenced by the constrained financial situation of the family, Williams led a bohemian life, wandering from one exotic corner to another (New Orleans, Mexico, Key West, Santa Monica). His early play Battle of Angels (Battle of Angels, 1940) is built on a typical conflict: in the stuffy atmosphere of an inveterate town, three women are drawn to a wandering poet.

In Williams' most famous play, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), the battling "angels" represent two types of sensuality: the romantic Blanche Dubois, the embodiment of a woman's soul, vulnerable and refined; dominated by animal instincts, Stanley Kowalski personifies the rude masculine principle.

Among other restless characters of Williams: Alma Winemiller from the play Summer and Smoke (Summer and Smoke, 1948) - the prim daughter of the parish priest, like Williams himself, who fled from the closed family world into the world of sensual freedom and experiment; Serafina from the Tattooed Rose (The Rose Tattoo, 1951), idolizing the memory of her husband - a truck driver with a tattooed rose on his chest; and the voluptuous "Cat Maggie" from the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), trying to win the favor of her husband, an indifferent bisexual, is one of the most healthy and life-affirming images of the playwright.

In Frank Memoirs (Memoirs, 1975), Williams writes openly, with self-irony, about his homosexuality. In his later work, Williams explores the relationship between the artist and art. In a number of chamber plays, he created mournful, deeply personal parables about artists suffering from a waste of talent and deceived by the once enthusiastic reception of the public. Williams died in New York on February 25, 1983.

The plays of Tennessee Williams have always been in demand and have been repeatedly staged on the stage of theaters, many have been filmed.

Here is the opinion of Vitaly Vulf, who translated Williams a lot and who is an expert on his work: The playwright did not compose anything. He described what he had experienced. Williams expressed all his thoughts, feelings, sensations through female images ... Once he said about the heroine of A Streetcar Named Desire: "Blanche is me." Why do actresses like to play him so much? Because not a single author in the twentieth century has such brilliant female roles. The heroines of Williams are strange women, unlike anyone else. They want to give happiness, but there is no one to give.

The first productions of Williams' playwrights were as early as 1936, when early works were staged in St. Louis by the Mummers troupe. In 1944, The Glass Menagerie was staged in Chicago. In 1947, Williams' most famous play, A Streetcar Named Desire, was staged at the Barrymore Theatre. In 1950, the Chicago Erlanger Theater staged the first play, The Tattooed Rose. In 1953, the Martin Beck Theater staged the allegorical drama The Path of Reality.

The famous play by Williams "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" staged in 1955 was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Previously, the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" was awarded the same prize.

Tennessee Williams' play "Orpheus Descends into Hell" staged for the first time in 1957 at the New York Producers Theater in 1961 was staged by the Mossovet Theater (Vera Maretskaya and Serafima Birman played brilliantly there) and then in the same year by the Saratov Academic Drama Theater.

In 1950, director Elia Kazan made the first film based on Williams's play, A Streetcar Named Desire. The film premiered in the United States on September 18, 1951. Blanche Dubois played Vivien Leigh, and Marlon Brando played his second film role in this film - Stanley Kowalski. At that time, the actor was not yet a star, and therefore his name was second in the credits after the name of Vivien Leigh. Then, one after another, film adaptations of six more works by Williams followed: "Doll" (1956), "Cat on a Hot Roof" (1958), "Mrs. Stone's Roman Spring" (1961), "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1962), "Night of the Iguana "(1964).

According to Vitaliy Vulfapiesa, Tennessee Williams is not quite understood in the USA, even though he was an American. The way they stage it just shows that they do not understand it, and then, in America, the theater is very bad. A wonderful musical, they are masters here: dance, spin, sing, but they don’t have a drama theater, however, like in Paris.

In the 1970s, Lev Dodin staged the play "The Tattooed Rose" on the stage of the Leningrad Regional Drama Theater. In 1982, Roman Viktyuk staged the play "The Tattooed Rose" at the Moscow Art Theater. In 2000, a performance based on three early plays by Tennessee Williams was staged at the National Karelian Theater. In 2001 at the theater. Vakhtangov directed by Alexander Marin staged the play "The Night of the Iguana". In 2004, director Viktor Prokopov staged the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" on the stage of a theater in Smolensk. In 2005, Henrietta Yanovskaya staged the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" on the stage of the Moscow Youth Theatre.