At Us the Europe!: The Principle of Transformation in the Performance by V.E. Meyerhold (On the Centenary of the Premiere)

The agitational sketch by Vs. E. Meyerhold At Us the Europe!, which premiered in June 1924, became a vivid example of a political propaganda play based on a rather poor dramaturgy, but firmly made by theatre means of expression. The mobile stage decorations in the form of movable billboards, three projection screens, actors’ transformations (constant changes of the characters played by one actor) and the immediate reaction of the content to both social and political events made this performance a fairly successful project. Meyerhold himself noted that the main task set for the theatre in this performance is the implementation of the principle of transformation. The setting was so complex that every movement of the billboard, actor, projection of the filmstrip, light and music score was recorded by the theatre’s technical services. This research is devoted to the study of this performance based on archival materials (RGALI and SCTM named after A.A. Bakhrushin). It analyzes for the first time the director's version of the play At Us the Europe! written in 1924, the list of episodes and its variability, material elements, music score, the role of screens, and also reveals how the principle of transformation was implemented on stage and how it influenced the perception of this performance. At Us the Europe! had several versions — from the original one (staged in 1924) to At Us the Soviet Europe! (in 1930), but the mobility of this structure suggests that constant variability was its predetermined characteristic and therefore it is important to study the features of this factor. In the history of the theatre, At Us the Europe! has become an impressive, masterfully developed form of a large propaganda performance, and its style has become a kind of production standard.