Peter Stein's Theatre Aesthetics

The purpose of the article is to reveal the specifics of P. Stein’s direction in the context of the master’s experiments with various types of theatre aesthetics in a historical retrospective on the examples of the performances of The Oresteia by Aeschylus, The Three Sisters by A. Chekhov, Faust by J. Goethe, etc. Research methodology. Making fair sense of the stated issue, the article applies the method of historicism and the problem-chronological method to study the development of the P. Stein’s directing method in the historical retrospective; the method of comparative analysis, the purpose of which is to compare the techniques and methods of P. Stein’s directing in the process of staging multi-layered plays; the systemic method, which helped to consider director’s theatre of P. Stein as an integral artistic system; the method of art history analysis and genre-typological method to identify the features of the director’s methodology and the use of expressive means by the master in the process of working on performances, etc. Scientific novelty. The article has studies the aesthetic aspects of P. Stein’s theatre directing in the context of the dynamics of the development of the artist’s idiom. Theatre direction by P. Stein is considered as a unique type of aesthetic activity, one of the attributes of which is “the aesthetics of thinking” (according to M. Mamardashvili), which provides the perception culture of dramatic material and the artistic taste of the staging. Conclusions. The study revealed that P. Stein’s work is characterised by theatrical aesthetics like ancient theatrical art, medieval mysteries, Renaissance art, Elizabeth Theatre, W. Shakespeare’s plays, psychological realism by K. Stanislavski, plays by A. Chekhov, as well as postmodern structures of drama. Aesthetic reorientation of P. Stein’s work is manifested in the tendencies of attitudes towards the textual basis, the strengthening of the polysemantic and polyphonic components of the performance, ambiguity and understatement, despite the clarity and thoughtfulness of stage decisions, the interpretation of classical theatrical works. In the 21st century, P. Stein has transformed the traditions of naturalistic theatre and “new drama” into the energy of total stage mastery