Skip to main content
Northwestern University Press
Fulcrum Beta logo beta
  1. Home
  2. The Director's Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde

The Director's Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde

Dassia N. Posner 2016
The Director's Prism investigates how and why three of Russia's most innovative directors— Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Tairov, and Sergei Eisenstein—used the fantastical tales of German Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann to reinvent the rules of theatrical practice. Because the rise of the director and the Russian cult of Hoffmann closely coincided, Posner argues, many characteristics we associate with avant-garde theater—subjective perspective, breaking through the fourth wall, activating the spectator as a co-creator—become uniquely legible in the context of this engagement. Posner examines the artistic poetics of Meyerhold's grotesque, Tairov's mime-drama, and Eisenstein's theatrical attraction through production analyses, based on extensive archival research, that challenge the notion of theater as a mirror to life, instead viewing the director as a prism through whom life is refracted. A resource for scholars and practitioners alike, this groundbreaking study provides a fresh, provocative perspective on experimental theater, intercultural borrowings, and the nature of the creative process.
Buy Book
ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-8101-3356-3 (hardcover)
  • 978-0-8101-3355-6 (paper)
  • 978-0-8101-3357-0 (e-book)
Subject
  • Performing Arts
Citable Link
  • Resources
  • Stats

Resources

Search and Filter Resources

Filter search results by

Section

  • Add filter Section: Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction to constrain search results to 1 item1
Filter search results by

Keyword

  • Add filter Keyword: Eccentrism to constrain search results to 1 item1
  • Add filter Keyword: Pierrette to constrain search results to 1 item1
  • Remove constraint Keyword: alter egos1
  • Add filter Keyword: commedia dell’arte to constrain search results to 1 item1
  • Add filter Keyword: creative process to constrain search results to 1 item1
  • more Keyword »
Filter search results by

Creator

  • Add filter Creator: Eisenstein, Sergei to constrain search results to 1 item1
Filter search results by

Format

  • Add filter Format: image to constrain results to 1 item1
    Filter search results by

    Image Content

    • Remove filter Content: manuscript pantomime draft1
Filter search results by

Year

  • Add filter Year: 1922 to constrain search results to 1 item1
Filter search results by

Exclusivity

  • Add filter Exclusivity: Exclusive to Fulcrum to constrain search results to 1 item1

Search Constraints

Filtering by: Content manuscript pantomime draft Remove constraint Content: manuscript pantomime draft Keyword alter egos Remove constraint Keyword: alter egos
Start Over
1 entry found
  • First Appearance
  • Section (Earliest First)
  • Section (Last First)
  • Format (A-Z)
  • Format (Z-A)
  • Year (Oldest First)
  • Year (Newest First)
Number of results to display per page
  • 10 per page
  • 20 per page
  • 50 per page
  • 100 per page
View results as:
List Gallery

Search Results

Rough notes for the first entrance of Pierrot’s friends in Columbine’s Wedding Veil. All the action for the scenes in Pierrot’s garret was to take place on the crossbars of an enormous vertical window. The first drawing in Eisenstein’s notes shows Pierrot’s four friends splitting into two pairs to enter from both below and above. The second drawing has all four of them instead enter from a trapdoor and cross over the top of the window frame.

Notes for Columbine’s Wedding Veil

From Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

Sergei Eisenstein, preliminary notes for Columbine’s Wedding Veil (May 1, 1922), the pantomime that became Columbine's Garter. Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 1923, op. 1, ed. khr. 815: 2.

Stats

20,593 views since September 28, 2016
Northwestern University Press logo

Northwestern University Press

Powered by Fulcrum Beta logo beta

  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Accessibility
  • Preservation
  • Terms of Service
  • Log In

© Northwestern University Press 2019

x This site requires cookies to function correctly.