Chronology of Production and Reception
In response to the enthusiasm expressed by Isadora Duncan about Craig's work, Stanislavski encouraged the board of the MAT to invite Craig to Moscow. He arrived in October 1908.
The board decided in January 1909 to mount the production during its 1910 season, with work on the project to commence immediately.
Rehearsals began in March 1909. In April, Craig returned to Russia, meeting with Stanislavski in St Petersburg, where the company was on tour. Together they analysed the play scene-by-scene, then line-by-line, and devised a meticulous production plan, which included sound, lighting, and an outline of the blocking. Since neither understood the other's language, they conducted their discussions in a mixture of English and German. They relocated to Moscow in May and worked together until the beginning of June, when Stanislavski left for Paris.
In February 1910, Craig returned to Moscow. In the intervening period, Stanislavski had developed an important production of Turgenev's A Month in the Country, whose success had demonstrated the value of his new 'systematic' approach to the actor's work; he was keen to assay its virtues in the crucible of Shakespeare's tragedy. They planned to rehearse the company together until April, after which Stanislavski would rehearse alone until the summer. In August, Craig would return once more and the production would open in November 1910.
As it was, Stanislavski was diagnosed with typhoid fever in August and the production was postponed until the next season; Stanislavski was unable to return to rehearsals until April 1911. The play finally opened on 5 January 1912 . While Olga Knipper (Gertrude), Nikolai Massalitinov (Claudius) and Olga Gzovskaia (Ophelia) received poor reviews in the Russian press, Vasili Kachalov's performance as Hamlet was praised as a genuine achievement, one which succeeded in displacing the legend of Mochalov's mid-19th-century Romantic Hamlet.
Looking back on the production years later, Craig felt that it had been like "taking God Almighty into a music-hall."
Read more about this topic: Moscow Art Theatre Production Of Hamlet
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