The Chamber Theater provides the viewer with a unique opportunity to become a participant in the performance. The audience experiences, together with the actors, everything that happens on the stage. The audience in the chamber theater is well known and loved.
Room theater
The word "chamber" in the name of the theater indicates its main difference from other "temples of Melpomene". In English, chamber is a room. That is, in this theater, performances are played not in a huge hall, but in a small room. They are staged for a narrow circle of spectators.
Chamber theaters usually have about 100 seats. Sometimes the audience is placed directly on the stage. They become direct participants in theatrical performance.
The theatrical convention and staginess are being erased. No bulky decorations. Historical costumes. Bright makeup. Emotion reigns on the stage. Human passions are raging. Playwright, director, artist, actors, spectators make one whole.
An excursion into history
The Yusupov Theater is considered the first chamber theater in Russia. He was a miniature copy of the Bolshoi. Located in a family mansion on the Moika.
In 1908, a cabaret theater "The Bat" was opened in Moscow. A little later, the "Intimate Theater" began to work. It was created by Vsevolod Meyerhold and Nikolai Kulbin.
In St. Petersburg at that time there was a theater of parodies "Crooked Mirror". He was also a chamber. Theater of small forms. An interesting detail: the performances in it began at midnight.
The famous Moscow Chamber
The founder of the Moscow Chamber Theater was A. Ya. Tairov. He believed that actors are not puppets in the hands of the director. In the theater, they are the main ones.
The director demanded virtuoso technique from the actors. He created a rhythmic-plastic style of acting. In the performances of this theater, the actors were acrobats, dancers, singers.
To expand the boundaries of acting opportunities, the stage structure was completely changed. Three-dimensional scenery was erected, consisting of various elevations, ledges and stairs. The artist at the Chamber Theater turned into an architect and builder.
The performances were designed for the emotional perception of the viewer. Even the plot of the play faded into the background.
The Moscow Chamber Theater was remembered by the viewer for its early performances, when the troupe did not have to appeal to the broad masses and socialize. In 1950, the theater was closed. Most of the team moved to the Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin. He just got organized then.
Today there are chamber theaters not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in many cities of Russia. They, as before, reveal different aspects of life on stage. And each of them has and will have its own audience.
