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

Photo of Meyerhold as Pierrot in Balaganchik

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque and Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

Vsevolod Meyerhold as Pierrot in Balaganchik, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Vera Komissarzhevskaia Dramatic Theatre, Saint Petersburg (premiere: December 30, 1906). НВ 1567. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

Photograph of Vertinsky in the costume of Black Pierrot in a black smock with white pompoms and cuffs. His black skullcap, eyebrows, and lips contrast sharply with his white-painted face.

Photo of Vertinsky in Black Pierrot costume

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

Alexander Vertinsky in Black Pierrot costume and white face. Photographer: A. Gornshtein, Saint Petersburg. Laurence Senelick Collection.

In this photograph of the biomechanics exercise “The Horse,” also called “Three as a Horse,” one actor holds on to the shoulders of another while a third, one leg aloft, “rides” the horse formed by the lower two.

Photo of the biomechanics exercise "The Horse"

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque and Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

Photograph of Meyerhold’s students performing the biomechanics exercise “The Horse” (“The Ring”). State Higher Theatre Workshops (GVYTM), Moscow (1922). TWS FIN05844. Copyright © Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Cologne.

Photograph of Goluvtin crossing over the audience's heads on an inclined tightrope wearing a tuxedo, with bare feet, holding a parasol. Also visible is some of the detail on the walls and ceiling of this ornate room in the mansion that before the Revolution had belonged to the wealthy Morozov family.

Photo of tightrope act in Wiseman

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

Tightrope act in Sergei Tretiakov’s Enough Stupidity in Every Wiseman, based on the play by Alexander Ostrovsky, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, Proletkult First Workers’ Theatre (premiere: April–May 1923). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 1923 op. 1 ed. khr. 805: 14.

This rare photograph of Eisenstein and Meyerhold together in rehearsal depicts a bustling creative atmosphere with Meyerhold, center, pointing out something on a piece of paper and Eisenstein, left, sitting behind a round table. Those in the photograph—all men—are in jackets and ties, except Meyerhold, who wears a striped sweater under his open blazer.

Photo of Meyerhold and Eisenstein at rehearsals for The Prelude

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

Vsevolod Meyerhold (center) and Sergei Eisenstein (left) at rehearsals for The Prelude, by Yury German, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Meyerhold Theatre (GosTIM) (premiere: January 28, 1933). КП 295518/108. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

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

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Photo of Meyerhold as Pierrot in Balaganchik

Photo of Vertinsky in Black Pierrot costume

Photo of the biomechanics exercise "The Horse"

Photo of tightrope act in Wiseman

Photo of Meyerhold and Eisenstein at rehearsals for The Prelude