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  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
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  • Overview

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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Published: 2016
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-8101-3357-0 (e-book)
  • 978-0-8101-3355-6 (paper)
  • 978-0-8101-3356-3 (hardcover)
Subject
  • Performing Arts

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  • Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque
  • Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction1
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A ground plan of the stage, including a diagram of the tracks along which the two mobile platform stages entered and exited.

Ground plan for mobile stages, Inspector General

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Ground plan for mobile stages, 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). КП 180169/348. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

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

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Schastlivtsev (Igor Ilinsky) and Neschastlivtsev (Mikhail Mukhin) on the long, curved bridge in The Forest, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Meyerhold Theatre (GosTIM) (premiere: January 19, 1924). КП 180170/32. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

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

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Scene from Magnanimous Cuckold, based on the play by Fernand Crommelynck, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Meyerhold Theatre (GosTIM), Moscow (GVYTM premiere: April 25, 1922; photograph from 1928 GosTIM remount). КП 180170/29. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

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

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.

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