The Structure of Plasticity: Resistance and Accommodation in Russian New Drama

The history of the Russian stage traces the importance of objects in storytelling back to an earlier art: plastika, a stylized acting technique that “speaks” spatially with objects. In Russian New Drama, objects enter the stage as supplements to the hero, who survives the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a shell-of-the-self. As extensions of the hero, the hitherto lifeless things begin “to act” and tell their own story.