6. An Interview with Okhlopkov--Lee Strasberg and Sidney Kingsley (8 May 1934) Translated by Molly Hasbell and Jay Leda (1973) [P.57-59]

P.57 Editor's notes: After training with Meyerhold, Okhlopkov became the director of the Realistic Theatre, which changed its name to "Krasnaya Presnaya Theatre".
1st play: Running Start 1932
2nd play: Gorky's The Mother 1933

Okhlophov:

• Our methods of work are based on a critical approach to two basic systems -- that of Stanislavsky and that of Meyerhold.
• We took from Stanislavsky his sincerity and his realism. But we don't believe in intuition, as Stanislavsky does. he builds his work on his belief that the moment when emotion arrives for the actor- when he begins to experience creatively, completing the theatre image-- is a sudden moment. We don't think so. We believe that you cannot invent life.
• From Meyerhold we take his deep love for the body of the actor, but we avoid the sole attention he sometimes gives the body at the risk of neglecting the actor's mind and feelings.
• P.58 Meyerhold actually cut the continually developing line of revolutionary theatre architecture. He threatened to do away with the stage; he even removed the curtains forever from his stage; but his Constructivism not only retained the stage but the elaboration of the stage as an element the Constructivism required. Meyerhold sanctioned the existence of the stage.
• The audience of our theatre must become an active part of the performance....We believe that when suited to a state in which the audience does not move, that then it actively participants in the play.
• We want our theatre to become a theatre in which, instead of the audience applauding the actors, the actors applaud the audience. We want to create actors who will forget the limits of the playing space, who will even forget how to act -- so perfect will be the harmony between spectators and actors.