November 25 – Day 69 – Part 1

Meyerhold was a contemporary of Stanislovsky. He was a father of Theatrical October, revolting against the classic theatre and as such he eventually became a threat to Stalin, a dispensable entity. He knew he was at risk every time he created art and so he spent his last days in a constant state of public self-flagellation hoping that Stalin would spare his life. In the end it was futile and at age sixty-five he was arrested by the KGB and tortured for five months before eventually being shot to death. His wife, Zenaida plead for his release in a letter to Stalin in the weeks after his arrest only to be stabbed fourteen times by KGB officers and left to die alone in her home. Today we visited that four room flat, which was converted into a museum by Meyerhold’s granddaughter in 1991. It was released to her only after the KGB employee who took it over two days after Zenaida’s murder finally died. She was the first person to attempt to renew his legacy after the decades in which the mere mention of his name was banned. Meyerhold was the creator of Biomechanics, was at one time considered the ‘ideal’ Soviet artist and was an innovator in every aspect of his field including theatre, cinema and design, but for me his work and his life represent something more personal. He was an intellectual, a heady actor who thought too much about everything. He was like Stanislovsky in that they were both just trying to find the key to stability in life and art, but because he struggled with the classic form he chose to invent his own. The museum was very overwhelming and like so many experiences here it forced me to tune out the extraneous nonsense of the world around me and focus on each individual moment. There was so much to absorb in such a tiny space but what I think struck me most was the potent words I heard throughout the day. In what used to be the living room we watched a film about his life in which they read his letters to the head of the KGB from prison describing his torture and the confessions he was forced to sign. When I heard him say that to know someone’s faults is to appreciate them more than their admirers and that it is impossible to live fighting all the time when all you want to do is work in peace, it meant more than the context of the translation. I cannot describe this experience without feeling like I am writing a history report and in reality it was something much more visceral. During Soviet times the government would produce propaganda films illustrating the ideal citizen – one who would not go to church on Sunday but to the Theatre. For the simple person was the closest was the thing they had to religion and for me this process, these experiences, this place, it has been the closest I have come to God.