Few artists have left as great a mark on twentieth-century theatre as has the Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold. With ample justification, he has been called the Picasso of the modern theatre. Like that great painter, Meyerhold was a visionary, a ceaseless experimenter with new forms and techniques, the leader of an aesthetic revolution.
Meyerhold's productions were an encyclopedia of theatrical history, incorporating everything from circus tricks to highly stylized elements of the Kabuki theatre. In the twenties and thirties, Meyerhold's theatre became a mecca for those seeking new...