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Following the Bolshevik Revolution,
all theaters were nationalized. Some of them became the Soviet
Russian centers of culture for many years. Among these were the
Bolshoi Theater, the Dramatical Theater in St. Petersburg and the
Moscow Art Theater. Under the Soviets, theater arts were obligated
to conform to socialist ideological doctrines. Nevertheless, the
most talented Soviet stage directors managed to break the confines
of the so-called Socialist Realism and produced innovative and
daring shows, which often implicitly criticized the regime. |
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In the postwar period the development of the Russian theater was
plagued by the constant ideological censorship of the Soviet
government, although during Krushchev’s Thaw, these pressures were
lessened and new theater troupes, with original repertoires and new
forms of expression, began to appear. In Moscow the theater
Sovremennik under the directorship of Oleg Yefremov began its work,
and the Taganka Theater started under the directorship of Yury
Lubimov. |
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Their
premieres, played to full houses, became important cultural and
social events, because they raised acute moral and social issues in
a nonconformist way. A new generation of Russian playwrights rose to
prominence in the postwar period, including Viktor Rozov, Leonid
Zorin, Mikhail Shatrov, and Alexander Gelman.
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During the
period of perestroika, a number of plays that had previously been
forbidden were allowed to return to the Russian stage. In the late
1980s and 1990s Russian theater regained its full freedom of
expression. Theater directors and actors now have the freedom to
choose their repertory and forms of dramatic expression. But there
are problems, too. The Russian government is no longer able to
finance theaters to the extent that it used to in Soviet times. Many
theater companies, accustomed to lavish government subsidies, do not
find it easy to operate under competitive market conditions.
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