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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.
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ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-8101-3356-3 (hardcover)
  • 978-0-8101-3355-6 (paper)
  • 978-0-8101-3357-0 (e-book)
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  • Performing Arts
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Photograph of Samuil Vermel as Pierrot, his costume white with black pompoms, standing, head back, with a hand on a chair.

Photograph of Samuil Vermel as Pierrot

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Samuil Vermel as Pierrot in Pierrette’s Veil, by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi, directed by Alexander Tairov (photo from the 1916 remount at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre). Photo: M. Sakharov & P. Orlov, 1917. Laurence Senelick Collection.

Nina Zarechnaia, shrouded in white, performs on an elevated outdoor stage while spectators sit on a bench looking on, their backs to the real audience beyond the imaginary fourth wall.

Photograph of Nina in The Seagull

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Nina Zarechnaia (Maria Roksanova) in act 1 of Chekhov’s The Seagull, directed by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Moscow Art Theatre (premiere: December 18, 1898; photograph from 1905 revival). Laurence Senelick Collection.

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