The Kamerny Theatre was a chamber theatre

Chamber theatre

Chamber theatre is a method of adapting literary works to the stage using a maximal amount of the work's original text and often minimal and suggestive settings. In Chamber Theater, narration is included in the performed text and the narrator might be played by multiple actors . Professor Robert S...

 in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, founded in 1914 by director Alexander Tairov

Alexander Tairov

Alexander Tairov was one of the leading innovators of theatrical art, and one of the most enduring theatre directors in Russia, and through the Soviet era.-Childhood:...

 (1885–1950). Over the next 35 years, this small, intimate theater became "recognized as a major force in Russian theater". Considered among the better presentations staged at the theater were: Princess Brambilla

Prinzessin Brambilla

Prinzessin Brambilla , Op. 12b is an opera in a prologue and five scenes by Walter Braunfels. The libretto, written by the composer, is based on the novella of the same name by E.T.A. Hoffmann published in 1820.-Composition history:...

(1920), Phèdre and Giroflé-Girofla (1922), Desire Under the Elms

Desire Under the Elms

Desire Under the Elms is a play by Eugene O'Neill, published in 1924, and is now considered an American classic. Along with Mourning Becomes Electra, it represents one of O'Neill's attempts to place plot elements and themes of Greek tragedy in a rural New England setting. It is essentially a...

(1926), Day and Night (1926), The Negro (1929), The Beggars' Opera (1930) and Vishnevsky's An Optimistic Tragedy (1933). Tairov's primary collaborator in building the sets was Aleksandra Ekster

Aleksandra Ekster

Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster was a Russian-French painter and designer.-Biography:-Childhood:...

, and these were based upon the period's constructivist

Constructivism (art)

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...

 style.

For three decades the theater survived the effects of the Russian Revolution by remaining unpolitical, instead adopting a post-revolutionary romantic idealism and relying heavily on classical material from the east and west. However, in 1928, the Kamerny put on Purple Island by Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...

, which was a satire that openly mocked the government. As a result, Stalin labeled the Kamerny 'a real bourgeois theater'. Thereafter, the theater had need to reform their presentation. The Soviet authorities developed a deep distrust of Tairov, calling him the last representative of the "bourgeois aestheticism".

In 1937, the Realistic Theater was merged with the Kamerny. In World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the theater was heavily bombed during the siege of Moscow and it did not re-open until December 25, 1943. The last production staged at the Kamerny was The Seagull by Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

 in 1946. The same year the Soviet communist party "condemned all formalism and experimentation in literature and the arts". The Kamerny was closed in 1949 as a result of the Zhdanov Doctrine

Zhdanov Doctrine

The Zhdanov Doctrine was a Soviet cultural doctrine developed by the Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov in 1946. It proposed that the world was divided into two camps: the imperialistic, headed by the United States; and democratic, headed by the Soviet Union...

.