Description
Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Published 1981. Paperback, 90 pp. plus 32 unnumbered pages of plates; 17 cm; illustrated with black-and-white photographs.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Good condition. Glossy illustrated paper covers, costume designs for two commedia-style figures to front, photomontage of Soviet stage productions to rear. A few small nicks to paper at head of spine, light bumping increasing toward edges and corners, mild shelf and edge wear. Glued binding cracked and brittle in several places, with brown glue staining along gutters, and a few leaves starting to pull away, but all pages intact and present. Dark toning to rear leaf. Otherwise unmarked. Published in English for readers abroad by the Novosti Press Agency (APN), the Soviet agency founded in 1961 to publish information about the USSR in foreign countries. A Russian colophon gives the author as Irina Leonidovna Makarevich, the Russian title as "Soviet theatre: what is its innovation?", and a domestic price of 40 kopecks; editing was completed January 9, 1981. Chapters on Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, Tovstonogov, the Mayakovsky Theatre and Valentin Pluchek, with an extended account of Yuri Lyubimov's Taganka Theatre and its productions of Ten Days That Shook the World and Tartuffe. Lyubimov's Boris Godunov was banned in 1982 and he was stripped of Soviet citizenship in 1984. Photographs include the 1898 poster for the Moscow Art Theatre premiere of Chekhov's Seagull, Vakhtangov's Princess Turandot, and the auditorium of the new Art Theatre building on Tverskoy Boulevard. Bound in at the rear is a Novosti reader questionnaire addressed to "Dear Reader," asking the reader's opinion of the book, how long they have known Novosti publications, where they obtained this copy, what they would like to know about life in the Soviet Union, and their occupation, age, sex and country of residence, for return to Novosti in Moscow. Contents: Foreword; Reformer of the World Theatre; A Great Innovator; Standard-Bearer of the Soviet Theatre; Art as a Joy; The Director Tovstonogov: the Secret of Universality; The Mayakovsky Theatre; Breaking New Ground; The Lash of Satire. Valentin Pluchek.