The Technique in microcosm: Michael Chekhov's work on the Fishers' scene

Abstract

This article focuses on a detailed analysis of Chekhov's training schema as he developed it as part of his studio activity at Dartington using the scene study of the Fishers' scene (1936–37), written by Paul Rogers. Described by Deirdre du Prey as the scene designed by Chekhov ‘to provide training and experience for the student-actors, directors, playwrights, musicians, technicians, designers etc.’, it is a training regime in microcosm and one which du Prey singled out as a teaching tool when she later trained actors in the Chekhov technique in the US. There is an entire box of unpublished materials dedicated to this scene in the Devon Records archive, including the actors' own visualised performance scores and art works associated with Goethe's colour psychology. These diverse sources are brought together here for the first time and related to Chekhov's later publications. This paper addresses the themes of interdisciplinarity and of Chekhov, training and the archive, paying close attention to the archival records by reconstructing on paper what Deirdre Hurst du Prey later called ‘a truly classic example of the use of Chekhov's method’ in Laurence Senelick's book Wandering Stars (1992). Its conclusion moves to a wider consideration of progressive education in the inter-war period and positions Fishers' as a key example of alternative pedagogy, alongside those of Black Mountain and Cornish colleges.

Keywords:

• interdisciplinarity
• Fishers' scene
• progressive education
• Chekhov Technique
• Dartington
• Deirdre Hurst du Prey

Notes

^1. For more details and history of the archive, see: http://www.dartington.org/archive/display/MC. All subsequent archival references are to the Michael Chekhov Theatre Studio Deirdre Hurst du Prey Archive in the Dartington Hall Trust archive. I am sincerely grateful to Archives Administrator Yvonne Widger and the Trust for giving me permission to quote from this archive and to reproduce the images.

^2. Both variants are used interchangeably here as they are on the card: Fishing scene and Fishers' scene.

^3. Here du Prey describes Fishers' as ‘a truly classic example of the use of Chekhov's method’ (Senelick 1992, p. 163).

^4. As Gale and Featherstone (2011, pp. 23–24) argue: ‘Researchers need to negotiate between truth and supposition, fact and fiction: all they can produce in effect is a version of history’ And, later: ‘archive-based researchers need to be aware of the basis of their archive's duality of “random inclusion and considered exclusion”’.

^5. Du Prey lists only Rogers and Tree as authors on her filing card but there is a well-developed version of the Fishers' scene in the folder with the name E. Faison added to it in du Prey's characteristic pencil hand.

^6. 1936–38 was a pivotal period in the development of the Technique and there was a parallel commitment to rationalising it in diagrammatic form – several ‘Charts of Exploration’ were created during the period and are in the archive, offering a number of variants to the one conceived by Mala Powers in the late period of Chekhov's teaching in LA (1991, p. xxxvi).

^8. Fishing scene notes by Deirdre Hurst du Prey, 14 January 1937 (MC/S6/3/R).

^10. 14 January 1937.

^12. The cast list follows the second version of Roger's script in the folder but there is no date on the paper. I have not been able to trace the student named Gabriel, who does not appear on any of the formal student listings in the archive, for 1936–37 or 1937–38.

^7. Certainly there is a scenario very like Fishers' in To the Actor entitled Seascape (Chekhov 1953, pp. 174–175).

^9. 14 January 1937.

^11. From the documents available, Iris Tree and Eleanor Faison's work does not appear to have been the ensemble's core text, even if they offered complementary responses to the same scenario by Chekhov. Tree's script for instance has a set of alternative character names, which are not referenced in Deirdre Hurst du Prey's rehearsal plans.

^13. This is in stark contrast to Eleanor Faison's response to the scenario, where Gillard (or MG) features as the dramatic pivot of the entire scene.

^15. Fishers' Scene text by Paul Rogers (Variant 2), p. 2. (MC/S6/3/R). Ellipses are in the original.

^14. Fascinatingly, Rogers' allusive style predates Harold Pinter's by some 20 years. Little did Rogers know, then, that he would be starring in the premiere of the latter's Homecoming for the RSC in 1965.

^16. Again, it is from one of du Prey's annotations, that these details can be garnered, a piece of paper marked ‘March 8, 1937 Programme’, loose in the Fishers' folder.

^19. Theatre School Policy (1936), pp. 5–9 (T/ADR/1/D/1).

^17. This should not of course be confused with the Dartington Hall School, which opened its doors to pupils in September 1926.

^18. Produced as a marketing tool, and measuring just 5″ x 4″, the prospectus is entitled: ‘Chekhov Theatre Studio and Dartington Hall’, with sections on the studio, the drama course and on the student accommodation at Redworth House. I am lucky enough to own an original copy, thanks to the generosity of a colleague from Rose Bruford.

^20. The lectures were on: The Theatre as a Building, Iphigenia, About the Marionette Theatre, Style, Commedia Dell'Arte and Characters of the Commedia Dell'Arte. They are housed in the Devon Records archive (Ref MC/S4/6/A). See also du Prey (1992, p. 163).

^21. Theatre School Policy (1936), p. 8 (T/ADR/1/D/1).

^22. Theatre School Policy (1936), p. 3 (T/ADR/1/D/1).

^23. Suggestions from Mr Chekhov on planning a rehearsal plan for a play, 28 March 1937, p. 5. (MC/S6/3/R).

^24. I am indebted to Tom Cornford for pointing out to me Soukop's connection to Chekhov. Soukop trained Chekhov's actors in techniques of sculpting and moulding with clay.

^25. Of these, only Crowther is mentioned directly in du Prey's rehearsal plans but the influence of this range of disciplines is very clear in the scoring experiments of the cast.

^26. Criticism of 28 March1937, p. 4 (MC/S6/3/R). Later in a rehearsal plan of du Prey's from 25 April she indicates how the message has got through to her as director: ‘9. Establish and show on the chart, the three major sections … 11. Find the different tempos in the 3 main divisions – the tempo of the beginning must differ absolutely from the tempo at the end’.

^27. Fishing Scene Rehearsals, 20 May 1937 (MC/S6/3/R).

^28. The chart is housed at MC/S8/12.

^29. The Psychology of Colors, 20 February 1940.

^30. From a speech made at Harvard by du Prey on the 100th year anniversary of Chekhov's birth (MC/S9/2).

^31. The co-founder of the Dartington Hall project, along with her husband Leonard.

^32. It is worthy of note that Deirdre du Prey attended the Cornish school herself, before moving to the UK and joining Chekhov.

^33. One example of this in his book combines: Arithmetic, Writing, Reading, Drawing, Hygiene, Rural Reconstruction, History, Geography and Manual Work in the project of building a room (Ryburn 1938, p. 144).

^34. ‘Like the progressive school that the Elmhirsts would open later at Dartington [Santiniketan] was for the moneyed classes, but one where learning should be accomplished through motivating the interests of the child’ (Nicholas 2007, p. 30).