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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.

ISBN(s)

978-0-8101-3356-3 (hardcover)
978-0-8101-3355-6 (paper)
978-0-8101-3357-0 (e-book)

Subject

Performing Arts

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Playbill for Pierrette’s Veil on a single, elongated sheet that lists the production artists and provides a synopsis of the pantomime.

Playbill for Pierrette’s Veil

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Playbill for a June 29, 1918 performance in Smolensk of Pierrette’s Veil; pantomime libretto by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi. Directed by Alexander Tairov at the Svobodny Theatre, Moscow (premiere: November 4, 1913). Playbill from Kamerny Theatre remount (premiere: October 6, 1916). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2768, op. 1, ed. khr. 446: 7.

Playbill that lists the production artists for the final invited dress rehearsal of Princess Brambilla, printed on pink paper.

Playbill for Princess Brambilla general rehearsal

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Playbill for the May 3, 1920 general (invited dress) rehearsal of Princess Brambilla: A Kamerny Theatre Capriccio, after Hoffmann, based on the novella by E. T. A. Hoffmann, directed by Alexander Tairov, music by Henri Forterre, designed by Georgy Yakulov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: May 4, 1920). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2328, op. 1, ed. khr. 376: 1–2.

Photograph of Giglio (Ferdinandov) and his Doppelgänger (Vigilev), center, wearing half masks with long, curved noses and dueling with swords while others in black half masks look on. Upstage, standing on one of the set’s several raised sections, stands a figure in black, Celionati (Shchirsky), seemingly conducting the duel as it progresses.

Photo of the duel scene, Princess Brambilla

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Duel between Giglio and his Doppelgänger, Princess Brambilla: A Kamerny Theatre Capriccio, after Hoffmann, based on the novella by E. T. A. Hoffmann, directed by Alexander Tairov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: May 4, 1920). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2328, op. 1, ed. khr. 378: 2.

Two characters talk downstage at a distance from one another on a set constructed around simple circles and curves. Upstage of them sailors stand in rows that emphasize the sweeping spiral of the stage.

Photo of a scene from An Optimistic Tragedy

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Scene from Vishnevsky’s An Optimistic Tragedy, directed by Alexander Tairov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: December 18, 1933). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2030, op. 1, ed. khr. 337: 21.

This photograph shows The Hairy Ape’s stokehole workers, bare-chested with white-painted faces. The rhythm of their coal shoveling is arrested by the unexpected appearance of Mildred, who cries out in alarm at their animal-like conditions.

Photo of the stokehole scene, The Hairy Ape

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Stokehole scene, The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Alexander Tairov and L. L. Lukianov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: January 24, 1926). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (1902–1968) Collection, THE B MS Thr 402, Box 38, Folder 13. Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

This photograph shows the mannequin-like Fifth-Avenue fox-trotters in The Hairy Ape. The women are made up to look like dolls, while the men wear half masks with distorted mouths on the lower portions of their faces. Yank (left) gazes at them in anger and alarm.

Photo of the Fifth Avenue scene, The Hairy Ape

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Fifth Avenue scene, The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Alexander Tairov and L. L. Lukianov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: January 24, 1926). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2030, op. 1, ed. khr. 329: 27.

This short film shows the outside of the Kamerny Theatre, Tairov and the Stenberg Brothers (smoking), and several scene excerpts from The Hairy Ape, including the Fifth-Avenue fox-trotters, Yank's attempt to break the bars that enclose him, and the stokehole pantomime for which the production was so famous.

Filmed scenes from The Hairy Ape

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Filmed scenes from The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Alexander Tairov and L. L. Lukianov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: January 24, 1926). НВ 3826/2. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.