The Actor’s Revolution

Reclaims the lost history of one of the twentieth century’s most innovative theaters

The Moscow Kamerny Theatre created stage worlds of movement, color, and light. Cofounded in 1914 by Alexander Tairov, a Jewish director from Ukraine, and Alisa Koonen, a Moscow-born actress from an immigrant family, the company celebrated the actor’s virtuosic inventiveness during an era when most theaters imitated daily life or prioritized the autocratic director’s vision. By the 1920s, it had become the most famous Soviet theater in the world, renowned for its actors’ acrobatic grace, its bold collaborations with avant-garde artists, and its revolutionary redefinition of what theater can be. But the accusations of Soviet disloyalty that were used to destroy the Kamerny during Stalin’s post–World War II antisemitic purge have rendered it little known outside Russia today and frequently misunderstood even there.

The Actor’s Revolution vividly reclaims this lost history by reconstructing the theater’s most illustrious premieres, analyzing them within the turbulent artistic and political context of the early Soviet era. Drawing on a decade of archival research, Dassia N. Posner restores Tairov’s legacy as one of history’s most significant directors and celebrates Koonen’s liberatory physical expressiveness as a vital alternative to Konstantin Stanislavsky’s better-known acting system. Drawing on rich archival sources, from unpublished memoirs to vibrant scenic and costume designs, this timely volume grapples with the entangled histories of art, politics, and erasure and celebrates the radical power of human creativity under—and in spite of—totalitarianism.