The Poetics and Methodology of Research Theatre: The Case of Grotowski, Brook, Mnouchkine, Vasiliev, Pogrebnichko

The work is devoted to the modern research theatre as a subspecies of the avant-garde theatre. Laboratory practices become the basis for organising rehearsals in this direction. The paper examines the experience of directors who were engaged in theatrical research in the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries, namely, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Anatoly Vasiliev and Yuri Pogrebnichko. The main purpose of the work is to try to characterise the modern research theatre in terms of methodology and poetics. An attempt is made to find interdisciplinary intersections of directorial approaches to theatre and rehearsal with various fields of science and cultural practices. The first chapter provides a comparative analysis of directors' views on the nature of theatrical action, their key principles of working with participants in the performative process, as well as rehearsal methods. Intersections with scientific fields and modern media practices are identified. The second chapter provides a comparative analysis of the main stylistic features of theatres and elements of theatrical language. In the third part, an attempt is made to characterise the research theatre of the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries from the point of view of methodology and poetics, as well as to consider the laboratory practices used in the optics of the modern theory of media communications. As a result of the work, key points were identified that allow us to conclude that there is a general methodology for organising a rehearsal in this theatrical direction, which does not depend on the individual experience of the director and can be used in modern practice of media communications. Key words: research theatre, rehearsal methods, poetics of theatre, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Anatoly Vasiliev, Yuri Pogrebnichko