Yevgeni Vakhtangov as the synthesist of methods of Stanislavski and Meyerhold on the performing art

Nineteenth century is an epoch in which various ideas with regard to art of performing were produced and discussed. In this century, many scholars from England, France and Russia uttered their opi nions upon acting. Although those ideas were quite useful and novel, due to lack of a systematic presentation they could not be that illuminating. However, all these ideas provided the basis for con temporary art of performing. This epoch which let realism progress parellel to social and po litical phenomena, affected Russian theatre, seriously. Stanislavsky, whose performing method is still valid, found his way out in such an age and left his remorks on the theatre through a natural-realistic theatre approach. Moscow Art Theatre, which was founded by Sta nislavsky and his co-operative friend Danchenko, was a kind of re volution as it gave an end to Romantic theatre concept, a type of per forming which was based on already existing cliches and presented only an artificial life to its audience. In addition, "Physical Mo vements Method" is Stanislavsky's most important contribution to the contemporary theatre. His performing method depends on psychology. The starting point for this method is acceptance and marking of the existence of an inner reason for every movement Although Meyerhold was Stanislavsky's student, he founded his own school refusing Stanislavsky's natural theatre approach. His aim was to make the theatre more theatrical again. This requires a dif ferent stage design and performing concept His directions include a great deal of grotesque elements and are presented to the audience through a constructivist approach. His bio-mechanic performing met hod is based on Pavlov's "conditional-reflex" and Taylorism. He is in favour of body language rather than inner feelings. Vakhtangov/s purpose is always to remind the audience the fact that they are in the theatre. Therefore, he enables the audience to have a look to the play from a distance. Although he has a different style than Stanislavsky, he semetimes adopts Stanislavsky's per forming methods in his directions. As a result of this, he combines Meyerhold's theatrical concept and Stanislavsky's performing met hod and ends up with a successful theatrical combination.