#72
Meyerhold staged Vladimir Mayakovsky's "The Bedbug" in 1929. The director worked closely with the author on the production, as well as with the composer Dmitry Shostakovich. For the first half of the play, Meyerhold engaged three young designers, Mikhail Kupriianov, Porfiry Krylov, and Nikolai Sokolov (they called themselves by the acronym Kukriniksy). For their scene 1 design they created an almost photographically exact reproduction of a Moscow street during the NEP period (first photo). The net illustration is the Kukriniksy sketch of the down at the heals Prisypkin, followed by a photograph of the actor Igor Ilinsky in this role. The final Kukriniksy design is for the fire that brings the first half of the play to a close. For the second half of the play, in which the action is transferred 50 years into the future, Meyerhold engaged Alexander Rodchenko. The photograph depicts Prisypkin, still wearing his 1920s tuxedo, being unfrozen.
#73
#74