DUNJA ZUPANČIČ :: MIHA TURŠIČ :: DRAGAN ŽIVADINOV

The biomechanic system of Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold can be defined as the “theatre of the straight line”, which is the opposite of the “theatre of the triangle”! Meyerhold’s system demands of the actor that he does not act as though he is alone in a room but that he is constantly aware of the audience. Because the play process unfolds before the audience! That is why all the interior demands of the stage event seethe forth from the audience, from the spectator’s experience and the viewing rhythm.

In the theatre of the triangle, in which the corners of the triangle are actor, idea, space, the viewer is positioned outside the triangle. Meanwhile in the “theatre of the straight line”, the audience is included in the theatre structure.

Meyerhold chose the “theatre of the straight line” for his dramatic poetics because it offered him vast possibilities for stressing the “temporary nature” of theatre. It meant he could include the viewer in the performance as a natural element of the stage artwork. Biomechanic, Tayloristic movements are thus only the consequence of this inexorable demand.

Biomechanics works in such a way as to qualify the actor for an anti-mimetic stage presence whose purpose is to transmit ideas through his consciously controlled body. He stimulates the viewer’s imagination with his chosen manner of movement and the span of moving mass.

Biomechanics on its own is not a theatre system, nor even a special kind of theatre training, but is only part of the exercises of general culture. However, biomechanics as general culture is fully incorporated in Meyerhold’s theatre system, which demands that the actor use his body with its programmes and materials in front of the audience as a machine and produces a product, his role.

Meyerhold first used the term “mixed media” in 1905!