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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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  • Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque
  • Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction
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  • GVYTM
  • biomechanics1
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  • Meyerhold, Vsevolod
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  • 19221
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Filtering by: Creator Meyerhold, Vsevolod Remove constraint Creator: Meyerhold, Vsevolod Keyword grotesque Remove constraint Keyword: grotesque Keyword GVYTM Remove constraint Keyword: GVYTM Keyword studio Remove constraint Keyword: studio Section Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction Remove constraint Section: Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction Section Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque Remove constraint Section: Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque
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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.

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