He was finally able to visit Meyerhold's apartment in 1996 after Meyerhold's daughter turned it into a museum. The housekeeper showed me around even though the museum was officially closed. When directing his first production in 1959, Anton Chekhov's The Sea Gull , Dr. Symons fell in love with the Russian theatre. Every day there was a new experience. Here, we seem to focus on learning the tricks to get the job.
Theatre plays a very strong part in Russian culture.
The Russian people love TV and videos, but the Russian film industry is quite small by U.S. standards. Still, Dr. Symons saw the effect of inflation on the formerly well subsidized theatres of Russia. When visiting the library of the Moscow Art Theatre, Dr. Symons was shown the original prompt script for the original production of The Sea Gull in St. Petersburg. It was just sitting on the shelf like anything else. The ladies said there was no money to copy the pages or even put them in plastic sleeves.