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

Posner, Dassia N.

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.

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

This set model, brimming with all the colors of the sunset painted onto its fragmented angles and whimsical curves, gives a keen sense of the three-dimensional, fantastical world in which Tairov’s actors played.

Set model for Princess Brambilla

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Set model (authorized reproduction, 1927) for Princess Brambilla: A Kamerny Theatre Capriccio, after Hoffmann, based on the novella by E. T. A. Hoffmann, directed by Alexander Tairov, designed by Georgy Yakulov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: May 4, 1920). 89 × 67.5 × 69.5 cm. TWS BM86. Copyright © Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Cologne, Germany.

Set model for Turandot in soft colors with a raked platform, stairs, and multiple playing levels. Additional mobile banners and curtains, manipulated by the forestage servants—the commedia characters—created a transformative and transforming stage environment.

Set model for Princess Turandot (Nivinsky)

From Epilogue: The Afterlife of a Death Jubilee

Set model (authorized reproduction, 1927) for Princess Turandot, by Carlo Gozzi, directed by Evgeny Vakhtangov, Moscow Art Theatre Third Studio (1922). 117 × 81 × 75.5 cm. TWS BM202. Copyright © Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Cologne, Germany.

Set model (reconstruction) in mahogany and green baize with the mannequins from the dumb show positioned in a semi-circle, center, on tiny platforms. Upstage at floor level is one of the mobile stages, preset with the furniture from episode 7, “Behind a Bottle of Tolstobriushka.” High in the flies is the set for episode 4, “After Penza,” with its distinctive curved staircase.

Set model for Inspector General

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

A. E. Shevtsova, set model (reconstruction, 2004) for Inspector General, based on the play by Nikolai Gogol, adapted by Vsevolod Meyerhold and Mikhail Korenev, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Meyerhold Theatre (GosTIM), Moscow (premiere: December 9, 1926). Meyerhold Apartment Museum, НВ 4900. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow. Photo by the author.

Set model of the streamlined, angular simultaneous setting for The Hairy Ape. It depicts three levels of action: an upper deck, cabins, and the stokehole deep in the bowels of an ocean liner.

Set model for The Hairy Ape

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Set model (authorized reproduction, 1927) for The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Alexander Tairov and L. L. Lukianov, designed by the Stenberg brothers, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: January 24, 1926). 87.5 × 66 × 71.5 cm. TWS BM89. Copyright © Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Cologne, Germany.

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

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Set model for Princess Brambilla

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Set model for Inspector General

Set model for The Hairy Ape