This book examines the life and art of those contemporary artists who by force or by choice find themselves on other shores. It argues that the exilic challenge enables the emigre artist to (re)establish new artistic devices, new laws and a new language of communication in both his everyday life and his artistic work.

Nephew of Anton Chekhov and a disciple of Konstantin Stanislavskii, Russian emigre actor Michael Chekhov (1891-1955) created one of the most challenging and inspiring acting theories of the 20th century. This book is a reinterpretation of Chekhov s theory both in the context of the cultural and political milieu of his time and in the light of theatre semiotics: from Prague Structuralism to French Poststructuralism and contemporary performance theory. This work presents Chekhov s understanding of the actor s stage product stage mask as a psychological, psychophysical and cultural construct...