Amateur theater ensembles were popular. They had a heyday in the 1920s, when, with government blessings, the numbers of such groups, used as delivery systems for political propaganda as well as social and moral preaching and teaching, bal- Amateur Theater
Looned. Amateur groups went into decline under the repressions of the 30s, gathered new strength during the Khrushchev era, declined again with the cultural-political crackdown of 1968, and experienced a rebirth of talent and energy in the early 70s. The troupes might or might not be led by professional theater people or have one or more professional performers among them. It was very unlikely, however, that an amateur actor would be able to cross over into professional status without formal training and certification from a theater institute. Tickets to amateur performances were usually free; if there was a charge for admission the money typically went to the organization (university, factory, club) that sponsored the ensemble rather than to the acting group. Sometimes the director and less often the designer got a tiny wage. The ensemble might share space with other amateur groups or find themselves an unused space. Because amateurs were less monitored by censors and less influenced, or fettered, by the acting "rules" and other conventions of formal training schools, they were freer to innovate if they chose to, and some did, calling their ensemble a "studio," a label that implies experimentation. Most commonly, however, amateurs strove to look like the "real thing," producing pale imitations of professional shows.
During the Gorbachev era, amateur studio theaters in Moscow presented a wide range of plays; classics of world literature, a dramatic version of the American novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and unusual plays by contemporary young Soviet writers such as Lyudmila Petrushev-skaya's Cinzano. Many of the Moscow studio groups consistently performed at a high level of quality and often had more devoted fans than seats to accommodate them. Playgoers appreciated the enthusiasm they missed in professional theaters, though they also complained about the discomforts of a jerry-rigged, undermaintained theater space. "The water...drips for real between the fourth and fifth rows," commented a group of students about a studio production of Bulgakov's Moliere. Increasingly during the Brezhnev and Gorbachev eras, amateur theaters provided comment books for audiences as well as the opportunity to stay after the performance to discuss a play with its company. Because amateur theatricals were shoestring operations, fans often pitched in to help out in various ways, a show of volunteer community support that was not offered to professional theaters. People donated time; talent; materials; and, though it was illegal, money to help their favorite group survive. But with the approach of glasnost in the mid-1980s, that picture began to change. The small amateur groups, whose staples had been social criticism and protest, found themselves competing for audience attention in the face of a freer press, and ever more kinds of entertainments.®
World History
