The technique in Microcosm: Michael Chekhov’s work on the Fishing Scene

This article focuses on a detailed analysis of Chekhov's training schema as he developed it as part of his studio activity at Dartington using the scene study of the Fishers' scene (1936–37), written by Paul Rogers. Described by Deirdre du Prey as the scene designed by Chekhov ‘to provide training and experience for the student-actors, directors, playwrights, musicians, technicians, designers etc.’, it is a training regime in microcosm and one which du Prey singled out as a teaching tool when she later trained actors in the Chekhov technique in the US. There is an entire box of unpublished materials dedicated to this scene in the Devon Records archive, including the actors' own visualised performance scores and art works associated with Goethe's colour psychology. These diverse sources are brought together here for the first time and related to Chekhov's later publications. This paper addresses the themes of interdisciplinarity and of Chekhov, training and the archive, paying close attention to the archival records by reconstructing on paper what Deirdre Hurst du Prey later called ‘a truly classic example of the use of Chekhov's method’ in Laurence Senelick's book Wandering Stars (1992). Its conclusion moves to a wider consideration of progressive education in the inter-war period and positions Fishers' as a key example of alternative pedagogy, alongside those of Black Mountain and Cornish colleges.