slavic theatre: new perspectives || theatre without the theatre: proletkult at the gas factory

Canadian Slavonic Papers

Theatre without the Theatre: Proletkult at the Gas FactoryAuthor(s): Donna OliverSource: Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 36, No. 3/4, SlavicTheatre: New Perspectives (September-December 1994), pp. 303-316Published by: Canadian Association of SlavistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40869668 .

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Articles

Donna Oliver

Theatre without the Theatre: Proletkult at the Gas Factory Of the many competing artistic movements emerging in the Soviet Union after the 1917 revolution, two of the most significant (and most contrary to each other) - Proletkult and the Left Front of Art (LEF) - were ironically both involved in 1924 in a production of Protivogazy, a play by futurist poet Sergey Tretiakov about an explosion at a gas factory. This play, and its production by Sergey Eisenstein, the future film director, represents an interesting point of intersection for many of the concepts of art brewing during this volatile and creative period of the early 1920s. Although essentially relegated by history to the status of footnote in discussions of Eisenstein' s transition from theatre to film, the 1924 production of Gas Masks deserves re-examination as a bold and effective experiment in bringing art to the masses. Eisenstein and his biographers have declared that the production of Gas Masks within the genuine setting of a Moscow gas factory was a failure which only served to emphasize the limits of theatre when compared to the possibilities of film. Yet the original goal of both the playwright, Tretiakov, and the Proletkult organization was realized: the production operated successfully on the level of agit-prop, blending didacticism and diversion, and raising the class consciousness of its worker audience.

The uneasy alliance of Proletkult and LEF came about in 1921 when Eisenstein, a protege of Meyerhold and a friend of the futurists, joined the First Worker's Theatre of Proletkult as a set painter. Although he declared himself to be "one of the most uncompromising champions of LEF," Eisenstein maintained that at the time he joined the Proletkult theatre he agreed fully with the goals and artistic views of the young actors working there.1 Eisenstein became sole director of the theatre in 1922, but his predilection for experimentation and innovation quickly earned him the disapprobation of the Proletkult leadership, whose tastes in art were decidedly more conservative. Despite the organization's dedication to propagating the cause of proletarian revolt, the formal tendencies of Proletkult aesthetics were far from revolutionary. Their belief that the existing culture could be adapted to suit the needs of the new society was openly ridiculed by their more radical opponents in LEF, who

1 S.M. Eisenstein, "Eisenstein on Eisenstein, the Director of Totemkin'," S. M. Eisenstein: Selected Works, vol. 1, Writings, 1922-34, ed. and trans. Richard Taylor (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988) 74.

Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue canadienne des slavistes Vol. XXXVI, Nos. 3-4, September-December 1994



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asserted that the revolution must be reflected fully in the arts, in form as well as in content.2 When Tretiakov, LEF' s leading theoretician, came to work in the theatre in 1923, the First Worker's Theatre of Proletkult ironically stood in the forefront of formal experimentation in Soviet theatre.3

While working with Eisenstein in Proletkult, Tretiakov continued to contribute theoretical articles to the journal LEF. In an attempt to explore a different avenue in theatre, Tretiakov published Gas Masks, a melodrama in three acts, in the journal's fourth issue, which appeared at the end of 1923.4 The gap between LEF's theory and practice is evident in this play: from its old-fashioned

genie classification to its coarse naturalism, it represented a retreat from formal

experimentation and the search for standards of revolutionary reality in favor of a return to traditional models.5 Yet the play's depiction of industrial reality does reflect the production tendencies of LEF, and its overall effect demonstrates Tretiakov' s interest in agitational art and his desire to activate his audience by manipulating their class consciousness. Moreover, the melodrama, as a geme, proved to be a successful means of controlling the audience's responses and

guiding their sympathies. The play's plot is based on an incident taken from real life about which

Tretiakov had read in Pravda: after an explosion at a gas works in the Urals, the

factory workers banded together to save the factory at the risk of their own lives. Tretiakov constructs a similar situation in his play. A gas main bursts in a gas factory during its busy season, just after the factory has received a large order. Due to the negligence of the factory director, who worries more about

2 Attempts by Proletkult to use the culture of the past to educate the workers of the present were met by derision from LEF. Maiakovskii, for example, in a speech to members of LEF, quite sensibly noted that one could not read Voina i mir to the proletariat because it would take seventy hours of working time. See Maiakovskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii 12 (Moscow, 1959) 288. 3 Their production of Tretiakov' s reworking of Ostrovsky s Na vsiakogo mudretsa dovoVno prostoty (1923), with its acrobatics and tightrope walking, was especially controversial. 4 "Proti vogazy. Melodrama v 3-kh deistvnakh, LEF. Zhurnai levo go pronta iskusstva 4 (1923): 89-108. 5 Tretiakov acknowledged this discrepancy in his afterword to the play, but hoped that his work could serve as a starting point for future works: "It would seem illogical simultaneously to protest against the reflection of everyday life and at the same time record everyday life in a play. But the point is that the thoroughly agitational tendency, along which I constructed the play, and, in the present transitional time, the great difficulty one has in shifting from the depiction of human types to the construction of standards (of models), all the same allow me to consider this play a strong point from which one can move towards the destruction of a pure reflection of everyday life to the stage construction of a standard-man and standard-life." S. Tret'iakov, "Po povodu

* Proti vogazov'," LEF 4 (1923): 108. Translations from the original Russian were done by the author except where noted.



PROLETKULT AT THE GAS FACTORY 305

impressing visiting dignitaries than the safety of his workers, there are no gas masks. In order for the factory to be saved, and so it can complete this order, the broken pipe must be repaired. The workers are confronted with a dilemma: to abandon the factory in its hour of need, or save it and face the certain risk of gas poisoning by going into the shaft without gas masks. Their natural fear and reluctance are overcome after they listen to a stirring speech by the rabkor, Dudin, who reminds them that the factory belongs to each and every one of them since they are members of a communist, collective society. He raises their class consciousness by pointing out that they are now masters and owners of

production, and thus it is in their interest to save the factory. Rallied by this

speech, the workers line up to enter the poisoned shaft, each working on the broken pipe for three minutes, only to be earned out on a stretcher to the

infirmary. The play's melodramatic elements center around a family dilemma, a

traditional clash between father and son. The director's seventeen-year-old son, Petia, is a member of the Komsomol, and works at the factory against his

parents' wishes, who have concerns about his poor health. But Petia, though his heart is weak, has a strong communist conscience despite his privileged background, and when he learns of his father's negligence, he insists on taking part in the rescue of the factory. Unlike his father, he does not want to separate himself from the collective. Over his father's objections, he is lowered into the shaft, and is carried off after his three minutes to the infirmary where he soon dies. The factory is ultimately saved by its owners - the workers. It is the collective of workers that emerges heroic here. Of the seventy workers who take part in the repair, sixty-four suffer gas poisoning, and one, the director's son, dies as a result. The melodrama becomes more pronounced when the director's secretary, who throughout the play shows an increasing contempt for her boss as she realizes just what his negligence means to the workers, reveals that she is secretly Petia' s wife and is carrying his child. When his son dies, the director seizes upon this news as a means of comforting himself in some way- he suggests that if it is a boy, she could name the child Petia as a sentimental reminder of his father. She coldly refuses: she will call him "Protivogaz,

" so that he will serve as a constant reminder of the director's criminal neglect of his responsibilities towards his workers. The director is crushed by this blow and in grief and remorse finally recognizes his guilt, not only for his son's death, but also in respect to his irresponsibility toward the collective whole. As a result, he becomes politically aware and offers himself up to the tribunal to be judged and condemned. A reconciliation of sorts also occurs between Dudin, the rabkor, and Vas'ka, a ruffian worker who, distrusting the motives of the correspondent, had previously beaten him up. As Vas'ka apologizes to Dudin (now recognizing him



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as "one of them"), he reels and chokes from the gas poisoning. Dudin swears at Vas'ka for beating him up, and then, like a good comrade, carries him off to the infirmary. A feeling of solidarity has now developed among all the workers. And the character of Petia serves as a promise of a classless future, when the class boundaries still operating in the early days of the Soviet state will no longer exist. His child, moreover, by all indications, will be a true worker, born into a great collective mass.

Whereas the family conflict is what defines Gas Masks as a melodrama, it is also here that it decidedly breaks away from the pattern. Tretiakov avoids relying on pathos to evoke the desired response from his viewers. Petia' s death is endured stoicly by his wife: he died for the sake of the factory, as part of the collective, and there can be nothing pathetic in this. Tretiakov does not stress Petia' s individual heroism, but rather the selfless heroism of the collective of workers, a heroism which arises as a natural by-product of that time when the worker "begins to acknowledge that he is the inevitable master of production."6

The play also breaks from the standard pattern of the melodrama by taking a critical approach to many of the problems threatening the well-being of the production front in the early days of Soviet Russia: arrogance on the part of the factory management, heavy drinking among workers, and resistance to the eradication of pre-revolutionary culture (in this case, the forced removal of icons from the factory).

The First Worker's Theatre of Proletkult, under Eisenstein' s direction, decided to produce Tretiakov' s play as part of their 1923-24 season. As a reaction against the melodramatic element of the play and, more importantly, out of a desire to bring art and actuality as close together as possible, Eisenstein decided to bypass the theatrical setting - Proletkult' s premises on Vozdvizhenka - and take his production directly to the source: the gas factory. How better to reflect reality than to use an actual setting among real machines and with real workers? Here he could finally have theatre without illusion, without invention or imitation. Now theatre and industry, acting and industrial work could be organically combined, and the boundaries between the stage and life would be abolished. The montage effect, for which Eisenstein strove in his productions, here would be "composed of genuine, materially existing constants and objects," the factory would become part of the show and not merely "receptacle" for it; the act of production would become part of the action of the play.7 Yet this step towards realistic representation also marks a retreat from the radical

6 Tret'iakov 108. 7 S.M. Eizenshtein, "Dva cherepa Aleksandra Makedonskogo," Novyi zriteV 36 (1926): 10.




experimentation of his previous works and, ironically, a step in the direction of the naturalism espoused by Stanislavsky, "the traditionalist," as Eisenstein called him.8 It was precisely this more traditional type of play, however, that appealed to the unsophisticated and unseasoned tastes of the proletarian audience and thus suited the ostensible orientation of Proletkult.

After considering several factories, the theatre group decided upon the Moscow Gas Factory, located near the Kursk Station. The factory administration

agreed to the project, and rehearsals began in January, 1924. The premiere for workers in the factory took place on February 29, and three performances for the

general public followed in the first weeks of March. A section of the factory shop was marked off for the action of the play,

while viewers sat in the remaining parts of the premises. The factory floor served as a stage; most of the action took place there, in front of the turbogenerators and other massive machines. The only stage construction was a wooden platform with steps built alongside the turbines. The audience, seated on rough boards

placed over piles of bricks in the improvised amphitheater of the factory floor, encircled the actors in a ring. Other viewers sat against the walls or on windowsills; still others sat directly at the machine benches. The events going on in front of them were to be perceived as much as possible as real events taking place at the moment.

Traditional theatrical accessories were kept to a minimum. Props were real machine tools, and the only other "artificial" additions to the set were a desk and a lamp, which functioned as a make-shift office, and a telephone attached to a post in another part of the "stage" area. Sound effects consisted of the real factory bell, riveters, drills and hammers. The actors wore no make-up and appeared in their everyday work clothes (sheepskin coats, felt boots, and overalls), which underscored the simplicity of the production even more.9

All action occurred within the framework of the machines and along the iron stairways and landings which stretched from the factory floor to the ceiling.10 Eisenstein added an effective mimetic touch to the finale of the play: after the

8 Eisenstein, "Eisenstein on Eisenstein..." 74. 9 For some contemporary accounts of the production, see B. Agapov, "Trotivogazy.' Spektakl1 Proletkul'ta na Moskovskom gazovom zavode," Rabochii zriteV 11 (1924): 12; A. Fevral'skii, "Teatr v zavodskom korpuse," Prozhektor 6 (1924): 30-31; "Trotivogazy/ Pervyi Rabochii teatr Proletkul'ta na Gazovom zavode/' Novyi zriteV 9 (1924): 6; "Rabochii teatr Proletkul'ta. TrotivogazyV Zrelishcha 69 (1924): 12; M. Shtraukh, "Eizenshtein kakim on byl", Eizenshtein v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1974) 50. 10 For differing views on how successfully the factory space was used, see Fevral'skii, "Teatr v zavodskom korpuse," and "Trotivogazy.' Pervyi Rabochii teatr Proletkul'ta...," Novyi zriteV 6.



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pipe was mended, the factory started up again on cue to coincide with the beginning of the night-shift at the gas works. In lieu of the final curtain, real factory workers came in to take the place of the actors, and the viewers' final impressions were of the streams of white-hot coke and the noise and smells of a factory in full swing, in the act of production.

It is not clear how long Proletkult intended to continue producing the play at the factory, but their run was cut short: after four performances, the factory administration, which had initially been flattered by the attention given to their factory, soon realized that a theatrical performance on their premises disrupted work and they politely, but firmly, sent the troupe packing.11 In an earlier interview, Eisenstein claimed that a few more performances were proposed for their premises on Vozdvizhenka and at other places in the city, but none were ever realized.12 In subsequent years the play was performed by small companies in clubs, but only a few times and with no great success.1

Gas Masks has entered the annals of theatre and film history primarily because it was Eisenstein' s last work in theatre before making his first film, Stachka (Strike). In later interviews and in his autobiographical writings, Eisenstein claimed that his theatrical experiment at the gas factory led him

logically to film. His attempt to convey absolute reality by eliminating the theatrical setting merely served to underscore the production's aesthetic (and hence artificial) components. According to Eisenstein, he had taken the possibilities of realistic theatre to its very limits and had discovered that there was nowhere else to go. He labeled the play a failure and asserted that had it been a film, it would have remained on the shelf.14 Most film and theatre historians who discuss the play in the context of Eisenstein' s creative work similarly maintain that the play was a failure and cite the director's assessment as proof.15

H Shtraukh 50. 12 "Rabochii teatr Proletkul'ta...," Zrelishcha 12. 13 Reviews can be found in Leningradskaia Pravda (13 November 1924) 7; and (24 April 1926) 6; Zhizn' iskusstva (6 January 1925) 19. 14 S.M. Eizenshtein, "Sredniaia iz trekh (1924-1929)," Sovetskoe kino 11-12 (1934): 65. 15 See, for example, B.V. Alpers, Teatr sotsial noi maski, Teatr aVnye ocherki v dvukh tomakh I (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1977) 151; Yon Barna, Eisenstein (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973) 70; Nikolai A. Gorchakov, The Theater in Soviet Russia, trans. Edgar Lehrman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957) 162; Natasha Kolchevska, "From Agitation to Factography: The Plays Of Sergej Tret'jakov," Slavic and East European Journal 31.3 (1987): 394; Natasha Kolchevska, "From Model to Real Object: Four Productions by Mejerxol'd and Ejzenstejn," Proceedings of the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference 3.1 (1985): 80-1; N.A. Lebedev, Ocherk istorii kino SSSR. Netnoe kino (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965) 232; S. Margolin, Pervyi rabochii teatr Proletkul'ta (Teakinopechat1, 1930) 43; B. Rostotskii, "Dramaturg-agitator," Slyshish' Moskva?!; Protivogazy; Rychi,




According to Eisenstein, the main problem lay in the unquestionable discrepancy between the reality of the factory and the theatrical fiction going on inside it: "The theatre props seemed absurd in the surroundings of the real plastic charm of the factory. The elements of 'play' among the reality of the surroundings and in the sharp smell of gas seemed absurd."16 He saw no way of creating a natural relationship between his actors and the machines on which they were supposed to be working: their movements simply did not mesh with the movements of the machinery. Furthermore, the huge turbogenerators, with "the glistening blackness of their cylindrical bodies," "swallowed up" the wooden platform and stairs which served as the only added stage construction.17 For Eisenstein, the material reality of the factory setting served only to emphasize the theatrical nature of the play going on inside it.

Eisenstein also asserted that there was a complete lack of connection between the factory and the performance: "The factory existed for itself. The performance inside it - for itself." In a somewhat questionable mixed metaphor, Eisenstein goes on to describe the experiment of trying to join theatre with real life as a grotesque hybrid: "This drama sat down between two chairs. It lost one without taking on the other. It turned out like a winged swan, a crab, and a beetle. The crab and the beetle pulled in different spheres of perception, and the poor swan was in no way able to carry the synthesis up to the heavens. The cart didn't stay put. The cart flew to pieces. And the driver left for cinema."18 In his typically hyperbolic manner, Eisenstein came to the conclusion that the failure of Gas Masks meant that theatre itself had reached its limits, had outlived its usefulness and that it was time to leave this relic behind and embrace new forms: "It is absurd to perfect the wooden plough when they are ordering a tractor."19 In retrospect, for Eisenstein, Gas Masks was seen not so much as a new possibility for theatre but rather as its final development, its dying breath. Film was to replace theatre; there was no question of co-existence.

Kit ai! (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1966) 221; I.G. Rostovtsev, Bronenosets Potemkin (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1962) 35; Marie Seton, Sergei M. Eisenstein (London: Dennis Dobson, 1978) 66; Viktor Shklovskii, Eizenshtein (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1973) 87- 88; N. M. Zorkaia, Sovetskii istoriko-revoliutsionnyi fiVm (Moscow, 1962) 35. An exception is Haiina Stephan, "LEF" and the Left Front of the Arts (München: Otto Sagner, 1981) 185, who writes that the play "can be viewed as a theatrical success, for its skillful combination of factual and melodramatic devices was able to elicit the desired sociopolitical response." 16 Eizenshtein, "Sredniaia iz trekh..." 81. 17 Eizenshtein, "Sredniaia iz trekh..." 66. 18 Eizenshtein, "Sredniaia iz trekh..." 66. 19 Eizenshtein, "Dva cherepa..." 10.



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Biographers of Eisenstein and Tretiakov and later film and theatre historians seem to make primary use of these remarks to deem the production a failure. Citing Eisenstein' s remarks, they, too, comment on the discrepancy between the real factory and the dramatic fiction, and they come to similar conclusions regarding the effectiveness of the experiment. One of Eisenstein' s biographers, for example, asserted that "the reality of the surroundings totally eclipsed the play-acting, making it appear trivial and absurd."20 Yet nowhere in the primary sources relating to this production does anyone characterize the play or performances in this way.

Many of these critics and historians later argued that the loss of distinction between art and reality led to theatre becoming something everyday, industrial, and too close to the audience's work experiences: it did not fulfill the role of diversion. They concluded that, as an art form, this type of theatre was simply not necessary.21 Even the formalist critic, Viktor Shklovskii, who advocated experimentation with form and violation of tradition, made similar comments in his biography of Eisenstein. According to Shklovskii, Eisenstein miscalculated the essential role of the dividing line between art and reality. He failed to take into consideration that the theater itself represents a necessary departure from the everyday: "In a fairy tale this break is realized not only by the fantasy, but also by the words - which act like footlights: 'once upon a time...'"22 Shklovskii's "footlights" reassure the viewer of a well-defined and essential separation between diversion and daily life.

Yet the reasons Eisenstein and others cite for the play's failure rarely correspond to the reactions to the play by contemporary viewers. These same passages from Eisenstein cited by later Soviet and Western theatre and film critics as evidence of the production's failure are called into question when one looks at contemporary reviews of the play. For example, Eisenstein' s comments regarding the separate existence of the factory and the play are refuted by many contemporary critics who commented precisely on how well these two things actually mixed. One critic who previewed a dress rehearsal of Gas Masks said that it did not at all seem strange to watch the play being performed in the factory setting, and, in fact, it was only when Eisenstein found it necessary to

20 Barna 70. 21 See, for example, P. Novitskii, Obrazy akterov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1941) 371; M. Turovskaia and B. Medvedev, Maksim Maksimovich Shtraukh (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1952) 13; R. Iurenev, "Bronenosets Potemkin" Ser geia Eizenshteina (Moscow: Nauka, 1965) 14. u Shklovskii 88.



PROLETKULT AT THE GAS FACTORY 3 1 1

shout his stage directions through a megaphone that the reviewer was reminded that he was witnessing something truly unusual.23

All contemporary reviewers judged the decision to stage the play at the factory as a successful move. The reviewers for Vecherniaia Moskva and Trud both asserted that the impression created by the setting was "stunning," and the latter praised the production for eliminating the inevitable "spectacle" of theatrical productions and replacing it with real life.24 Another critic called the setting "amazing" simply by virtue of its enormity: the substitute reality offered by the theatre was "absurd" in comparison with the enormous blackened generators of the factory.25 The choice of setting, according to one reviewer, could not have "harmonized better with the fictional plot."26 One of the most enthusiatic reviews wholly embraced Eisenstein' s idea of bypassing the stage: "Why a stage? Why any complex preparations which in the end give only a weak imitation of reality, when in the workshops you have the genuine setting of the factory-the furnace, the pipes, the boilers, the cylinders, the shaft, and they're not decorative but living, ready at any moment to give not an illusion but a fully realistic impression of factory life."27 The reviewer goes on to emphasize the obvious: when the factory starts up at the end of the show, it is not the invention of the director, but the actual noise of the machines and the buzzing of the pipes. When the workers are lowered into the shaft, it is a real shaft, when the alarms go off, they are real factory alarms, and when the last worker throws out the broken pipe, it is a real pipe with jagged edges. For these critics and for other viewers, the choice of setting was a crucial element in the success of the play. It is ironic that Eisenstein' s is the only contemporary voice that finds serious incongruity between the setting and the theatrical production.

Babette Deutsch, who had seen a dress rehearsal of the play, published the only non-Soviet review of the production in the August, 1925 issue of Theatre Arts Monthly?* Although her Russian failed her when it came to translating the title (she called it Chemicals), she offers an interesting perspective on the play.

2-* V. Ardov, "Proletkul't na gazovom zavode. Razvedka zhurnalista," Zrelishcha, 11 (1924): 8. 24 "'Protivogazy.' p'esa S. M. Trefiakova. (Novaia postanovka teatra Proletkul'ta), Trud (9 March 1924) 6; "'Protivogazy.' Spektakl* 1-go Rabochego teatra na gorodskom gazovom zavode," Vecherniaia Moskva (3 March 1924) 3. ^ Ardov 8. 26 A. Shibaev, "'Protivogazy' (S. Trefiakova) na gazovom zavode," Rabochii zriteV 12 (1924): 10. 27 P. Surozhskii, "O postanovke 'Protivogazov.' Vnedrenie iskusstva v tsekha," Trud (18 March 1924)6. Zö Babette Deutsch, "The Russian Theatre Today," Theatre Arts Monthly 9 (August 1925): 539-40.



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Deutsch, too, found the setting striking: "You must conceive of this being acted out against the huge bare background of a gas works in the dreary suburbs of Moscow, - the audience, huddled in great coats, sitting on rough boards with trestles of brick, - the actors in stained overalls they had worn at work, - the gleaming tanks and concrete walls of the place still smelling faintly from the toxins of the day's work." Deutsch's reaction to the play also proves that Eisenstein' s production, especially his choice of setting, was in some respects quite effective: "The play was extremely crude, and the acting untutored and rhetorical. But when the men, facing certain agony and possible death, went down the shaft to save the factory, 'their' factory now, the minutes were tense with an actuality that no stage performance, with trained actors and modern lighting could touch the fringe of. One came away from it into the wide empty yards with their piles of snow and of coal, to see the tall factory chimneys thrusting up into the sky of bright frosty stars."29

Later historians again echo Eisenstein regarding the absurdity of theatrical props and structures amid the genuine environment of the shop. Yet, by all accounts, even Eisenstein' s, there were very few props and no real set to speak of. Eisenstein' s complaint about the inability of the actors to make convincing use of the machines and the incongruity of their "play" in the midst of a real environment contradicts several contemporary reviews which stress the difficulty of telling the actors from the workers. Deutsch tells how a worker in stained khaki came out before the play and began to sprinkle the floor with ammonia in order to freshen the air. She tells how he would occasionally sniff the contents of the pail or hold it up to an audience member and say: "Akh, khorosho!" While watching him, she wondered what he thought about the whole business, about this alien event going on in his workplace. But it turned out that he was a prominent member of the cast, who "effected a change of costume by removing his cap and putting a jacket on over his khaki."30

A reviewer in Novyi zritel ' also contradicted Eisenstein' s assessment of the

actors' ability to blend naturally into the factory environment. He maintained that the whole set, including the theatrical appendage, was fully and successfully used, that the action went beyond the floor, and that the actors actually worked, performing certain tasks while acting. For the reviewer, the impression was what Eisenstein had desired: "This is everyday life."31 This reviewer also echoes Babette Deutsch's assertion regarding the similarity between the audience and the actors; he says they were all workers, and "next to each other, you couldn't tell

29 Deutsch, "The Russian Theatre Today," 539^10. 30 Deutsch, "The Russian Theatre Today," 539. 31 <" Proti vogazy.' Pervyi Rabochii teatr Proletkul'ta..." Novyi zriteV 6.




them apart. It wouldn't have seemed strange to anyone if they were suddenly to change places." The reviewer from Zrelishcha maintained that "these real machines in no way disharmonized" with the actions of the actors. He added that the Proletkult players were well-suited to the definition "worker-actors," and as evidence he, too, asserts that at the rehearsal he attended it was not easy to tell actors from factory workers and, in fact, even Eisenstein could not always tell who was who in the crowd: "Isn't this detail the best illustration that this show has made a decisive step toward the future?" ~ Still another reviewer describes the experience of sitting on a board, watching what was going on, and not knowing who was a viewer and who was performing, who was the factory director and who was playing the director. He offers yet another compelling contradiction of Eisenstein' s claims that the theatrical fiction was incompatible with the genuine factory setting: "On a small area, lit up by spotlights, workers fixed something, were lowered somewhere, were saving someone, and the viewers felt themselves not viewers, but witnesses."33 The audience had organically become part of the production, witnesses of the workers' heroism. Clearly these viewers did not share Eisenstein' s assessment of the absurdity of actors playing amid real machinery.

The effectiveness of the play for its intended audience - the worker - is obvious from a discussion among worker-correspondents for Pravda. Although they did point out some problem areas in the production, they found the experience on the whole stimulating and memorable, and they expressed the hope to see more plays of this kind aimed at the working masses. They judged most of the content as familiar - they particularly liked the heavy-drinking Vas'ka, who shoves a bottle of vodka into his pocket before entering the shaft. "This is our friend, a real factory worker," said one of the correspondents. "Shake his hand for me." Obviously, the playwright's social commentary regarding the moonshining ruffian was lost on this viewer. Perhaps the most cogent statement regarding the effectiveness of the play's political message came from one of these correspondents: "The play offers a great charge of energy. This is not relaxation. The play raises class consciousness, class pride for all the heroes. When you leave, you stand more firmly on your feet."34

Other workers echoed these comments about the lasting impression produced by the play. The head of the factory committee where the play was staged stated that the play made a strong impression on all the workers, for the familiar

32 Ardnv 8. 33 B. Agapov, "Kniga v tret'em pereplete," Literatimiaia gazeta 129 (27 October 1962) 2. 34 "Rabkory o postanovke Proletkul'tom 4 Proti vogazov'" Pravda (22 March 1924) 7.



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content meant that they could readily identify with it, and he added that they even had to work in similar circumstances once or twice. His assessment regarding the effectiveness of the play is graphic and to the point: it "grabs at the guts" of the gas workers.35 The assessments of those later critics who claimed that this theatrical experience lay too close to the everyday reality of the workers and thus did not provide the necessary distancing clearly do not coincide with the responses of these workers.

Another reason frequently cited by later critics for the production's failure is that the audience reacted negatively to the smell of gas. Eisenstein cites the "sharp smell of gas" as an element of reality incongruous with the theatrical play of the actors.36 Maksim Shtraukh, the actor who portrayed the factory director, claims in his reminiscences that it was "unbearable for the public to breathe the gas fumes because they were not used to it."37 Yet, aside from Babette Deutsch, who notes that the plant smelled "faintly," no other contemporary accounts mention the odor.

Contemporary reviews did offer some criticism of the production but none along the lines of those cited by Eisenstein. Certain scenes came under repeated criticism, in particular, the one in which the icons were removed from the

factory in preparation for the visiting officials.38 The worker-correspondents from Pravda declared that the scene was so crude that it prompted two women in the audience to leave in the middle of the play. If the director had accomplished the removal of the icons less offensively, one of the correspondents claimed, these women would have stayed until the end. He added: "Had the Soviet authorities done it so abruptly, they would have already fallen from power."39 Excessive emotional displays on the part of the women workers in the play also evoked criticism from the correspondents, one of whom remarked that he had worked in factories for ten years and had never seen such things. Eisenstein' s irresistible temptation to include some of the biomechanics he had learned under Meyerhold's tutelage also met with disapproval from these viewers. One correspondent found fault with the actors' "deliberately angular movements," and also objected to a scene in which a Komsomol member performed some sort of gymnastic routine during which he jumped over the predzavkom. Ironically, these scenes which come closest to Eisenstein' s theatrical past were the ones

35 "O postanovke Trotivogazov.' Mnenie rabochikh gazovogo zavoda o spektakle," Trud (18 March 1924) 6. •™ Eizenshtein, Sredniaia íz trekh... 80. 37 Shtraukh 50. 38 See Surozhskii, "O postanovke

* Proti vogazov'"; "Rabkory o postanovke...," Pravda 7. 39 "Rabkory o postanovke...," Pravda 7.




which most conveyed the artificiality and affectation that he was trying to avoid in this production. The revolutionary credibility of the play was questioned by a reviewer for Trud, who claimed that the emergence of the director's son as hero recalled those "pseudo-revolutionary plays" in which the sons inevitably rebel against their bourgeois parents. The reviewer also questioned the desirability of having the director repent and therefore seem more sympathetic to the viewer.40 Other comments touched upon rough transitions, exaggerated characterizations, and slow-moving scenes, yet not one review made any critical remark about the setting.41 Again, contrary to Eisenstein' s assessment, the choice of taking theatre into the workplace was the one aspect of the production which met with general approval.

Theatre by its very nature demands from its audience a suspension of disbelief. It asks the viewer to accept the action portrayed as a possible manifestation of life and its success depends upon the viewer's compliance, regardless of whether the theatrical action takes place on a stage or on the floor of a factory. It is ironic, then, that the question of the success or failure of Gas Masks seems to depend upon this essential given of theatrical art. The play's contemporary viewers- factory workers as well as critics - cooperated with the theatrical mandate and accepted the production's limitations in the proper spirit. Eisenstein, on the other hand, had no desire to make that compromise between art and reality: to do so would go completely contrary to the path he was then pursuing in art. For Eisenstein, the play's failure lay precisely in this necessity to suspend disbelief, and his biographers and later theatre and film historians, by accepting without question the director's assessments, ironically denied that ability to suspend disbelief to his viewers.

It seems most likely that the short run of Gas Masks at the gas factory was completely in accordance with Eisenstein's desires. Theatre had revealed its limits to him and those limits proved to be too constricting. His resentment of the necessary concessions to theatricality within the genuine setting of the factory led him logically to film, since only film, as Eisenstein put it, could offer "the most inexorable objectivity."42 Film also could guarantee him complete control over the montage: the audience would see only what he wanted them to see, frame by frame. Theatre, on the other hand, can offer no such guarantees: it necessitates a sharing of images, a division of the viewer's attention, not only among the different actors in any given scene, but also

40 "'Protivogazy.' Pesa S. M. Trefiakova," Trud 6. *l Comments to this eitect were made in: Agapov, Protivogazy. Spektakl Prole tkul1 ta..." 12; "Rabkory o postanovke..." Pravda 7; Shibaev, "'Protivogazy'..." 10; "'Protivogazy.1 Spektakl1 1-go Rabochego teãíra..."Vecherniaia Moskva 3. 42 Eisenstein, "Eisenstein on Eisenstein..." 74.



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among every single prop on the stage at that time. The success of the director's attempts to convey particular images depends upon a host of unpredictable and uncontrollable factors, such as where the viewer sits within the theatre, which part of the stage action the viewer focuses upon, or even how well the viewer can actually see. Shtraukh tells how during one of the preliminary photo shoots for the production, Eisenstein rushed about the shop with tremendous enthusiasm looking for the most expressive places to take the shots, as if they were shooting a film instead of putting on a play. Straukh noted: "I felt that inside Eisenstein had already parted with the theatre and was absorbed by the entirely new possibilities of cinema."4

Immediately after his work on Gas Masks, Eisenstein began his first film, Strike, released in 1925. Its production crew included many of the same Proletkult actors he had worked with on Gas Masks, and in fact, Strike takes up the theme of Gas Masks, once again turning the collective mass of workers into the hero of the story. A synthesis between fictional material and realistic presentation finally occurred to Eisenstein' s satisfaction in the genre of film. The separation of art from reality provided, for example, by the footlights and the stage, which Shklovskii and others maintained was essential for the enjoyment of theatre, is accomplished in film by the screen. And in film, Eisenstein was finally able to exert some control over that last remnant of theatricality which he was unable to eliminate from Gas Masks: it becomes easier to suspend disbelief when one does not occupy the same space in which the theatrical fiction takes place. Eisenstein' s transition from theatre to film coincided with his final break with the leadership of Proletkult, and thus the strange alliance between Proletkult and LEF came to an end.

Although the staging of Gas Masks at the gas factory did not live up to Eisenstein' s expectations, the production does represent a unique attempt at redefining the boundaries between art and everyday life, between theatre and industry. It is also ironic that the production's achievements in the area of agit- prop, which was Tretiakov's stated and Eisenstein' s ostensible goal, have been so eclipsed by the director's complaints about its failure to coincide with the creative path he was following at the time. From all contemporary accounts, Gas Masks was a successful blend of dramatic tension and ideological purpose. Its production on the floor of the Moscow Gas Factory remains significant not only as the final step in Eisenstein' s transition from theatre to cinema, but also as an innovative and effective experiment in proletarian culture.

43 Shtraukh 50.



slavic theatre: new perspectives || theatre without the theatre: proletkult at the gas factory

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