Dramaturg Statement's

Production Meeting Statement

As a dramaturge, I would enter the meeting presenting quite a bit of historical facts. For costumes, I would discuss with the costumer dresser the time period the play was set in. For example, I would show him or her pictures of what they wore back then. Taking time to go in very specific details on the fabric and the style of dress they would wear for instants, leather is a fetish in Russia. Lined with fur, the look has become synonymous with Russian clothing. In general, traditional Russian men like to flaunt leather a lot. In fact, until today, no matter what the time of the year is, a leather jacket is a cool thing to have! Russian women wear dresses or long skirts and blouses and love to flaunt high heels.
I would also talk to them telling them it was in Soviet Russia during the reign of Stalin, this would prompt me to talk about the style of Russia. For backup I would give them some facts about Stalin like, the Soviet Union was dominated by Joseph Stalin, who sought to reshape Soviet society with aggressive economic planning, in particular a sweeping collectivization of agriculture and development of industrial power. He also constructed a massive bureaucracy, which arguably is responsible for millions of deaths as a result of various purges and collectivization efforts. During his time as leader of the USSR, Stalin made frequent use of his secret police, gulags, and nearly unlimited power to reshape Soviet society.
I would also stress how important the great purge was, because, The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1936–1953. Also described as a "Soviet holocaust", by several authors in conjunction with Soviet famine of 1932-1953, in which 6-11 million peasants and kulaks were starved to death or executed). It involved the purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliated persons, characterized by widespread police surveillance, widespread suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and executions. According to the archive data, in 1937–58 the number of death sentences was 681,692. I believe that this would be important because it was give the designers from all fields of theatre a certain theme to go by.
For the set designer specifically I would bring up the topic of propaganda. I would explain to him that propaganda appeals to an emotional rather than rational side of its citizens. It explains everything in terms of the goal. It makes the goal appear to be attainable, and often falsifies data in order to make it seem like the economy is growing and that tremendous progress has been made. Through propaganda, a totalitarian government always tries to rationalize its ideas and gives the appearance that it has the best interests of the public in mind. I believe this would be a very powerful tool that can be used when designing a set for this show.
I would also remind them about the KGB saying that, the KGB was used for watching and eliminating hostile threats to its government. This could also include writers who put their political belief in their writings. Hence why Katurian thought he was being taking in for questioning. They also had the power to do whatever they wanted to. You can see this in the scenes where they beat and abuse him.
Another thing I would bring to the attention to the director is how writers were treated, a few examples I would use would be the newspaper titled “Moscow News Paper”. MN always stood up for what it believed in. Many an editor-in-chief at MN has been an ambitious, intelligent person with one goal - to form a strong bond between the reader and newspaper by keeping them abreast of prominent events, without being forced to close shop by the Communist Party. It did not always succeed. In 1949 it was shut down after its editor-in-chief, Mikhail Borodin, was arrested and shot as an "enemy of the people." This would be influential for the director because it would explain why Katurian a might have thought he was being brought in for questioning.
I think these are just a few important things I would bring to the table when I would walk into the design meetings.