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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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  • 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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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

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

Photograph of Perrybingle and Tackleton sitting before a cozy hearth, center, as Maliutka enters in apron and cap, left.

Photo of a scene from The Cricket on the Hearth

Photograph of Meyerhold taken in front of a mirror so that both his face and profile can be seen simultaneously.

Photo of Vsevolod Meyerhold

Photograph of Meyerhold, in profile, eyes gazing upward, in the white costume of Pierrot.

Photo of Meyerhold as Pierrot in Balaganchik

Photograph from the end of Princess Turandot. The actors hold the costume pieces they have just taken off while peeking out directly at the audience from the partially open curtain that the forestage servants pull back.

Photo of the finale of Princess Turandot (Nivinsky)

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"

A row of actors, identically clad in prozodezhda (utilitarian uniform costumes), bowing in unison, traverse the forestage in front of Liubov Popova’s constructivist playground of a set.

Photo of a scene from Magnanimous Cuckold

Two strolling players, one a comedian (left), the other a tragedian (right), slowly descend an elevated catwalk that curves around the stage and ends in the orchestra pit.

Photo of Schastlivtsev and Neschastlivtsev in The Forest

This rare rehearsal photo of episode 1 shows the actors’ long, crisscrossing pipes and their tight semi-circular grouping around the table. The Mayor (Starkovsky, right) stands clutching his heart while Doctor Hubner (Temerin) tends to him.

Rehearsal photo for episode 1 of Inspector General

In this photograph, Khlestakov (Garin) sits bundled up on a Russian tiled stove in his untidy room at the local inn, nursing an ostensible toothache, while Dobchinsky (Mologin, left) and the Mayor (Starkovsky, above) enter down the curved staircase.

Photo of episode 4, “After Penza,” Inspector General

This photograph shows Khlestakov (Garin) in square glasses, a black coat and top hat, and a plaid scarf, with a bagel dangling on a string from his coat lapel.

Photo of Khlestakov in Inspector General

Anna Andreevna’s (Raikh) bedroom overflows with officers who serenade her, strumming imaginary strings. One pops out of the top of her cupboard, brandishing an enormous bouquet.

Photo of episode 3, “The Unicorn,” Inspector General

Khlestakov (Garin) and Anna Andreevna (Raikh) sit on an oversized sofa. In this photograph, he holds her pinkie on a teaspoon to kiss it.

Photo of Khlestakov and Anna Andreevna, episode 7, Inspector General

In this photograph, the officer-in-transit (Kelberer) sprawls on the stage (left) and Khlestakov (Garin) lies collapsed in a chair (right), both in a drunken stupor, while the Major’s wife (Raikh) guides the town officials out on tiptoe.

Photo of end of episode 7, Inspector General

In this famous photograph, Khlestakov (Garin), the officer-in-transit (Kelberer), and Osip (Fadeev) sit center on a bare stage while white-gloved hands with white packages (the bribes) emerge from the many doors that surround them.

Photo of episode 9, “Bribes,” Inspector General

These wax and papier-maché doubles of the production’s characters stand in an arc on tiny platforms that were pushed through the set’s many double doors while the stage was obscured with a curtain.

Photo of dumb show, Inspector General

This photograph shows the Inspector General dumb show mannequins, made by V. M. Petrov, in the process of being created. The bodies are newspaper papier-maché over wire armatures, while the faces (with surprised expressions) are wax. The figures are permanently attached to the small platforms on which they later stood at the end of the production.

Photo of dumb show mannequin construction, Inspector General

Actors stand in a variety of positions, each the personification of shocked dismay, to pose for the creation of the dumb-show mannequins that replaced their live bodies at the end of Meyerhold’s Inspector General.

Photo of actors posing for the dumb show mannequins, Inspector General

In this photograph from scene 7 of The Dawns, Meyerhold and Bebutov bridge the forestage and audience with a chorus of actors who form an unbroken human link between the two.

Photo of a scene from The Dawns

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