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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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Set model for Turandot in soft colors with a raked platform, stairs, and multiple playing levels. Additional mobile banners and curtains, manipulated by the forestage servants—the commedia characters—created a transformative and transforming stage environment.

Set model for Princess Turandot (Nivinsky)

From Epilogue: The Afterlife of a Death Jubilee

Set model (authorized reproduction, 1927) for Princess Turandot, by Carlo Gozzi, directed by Evgeny Vakhtangov, Moscow Art Theatre Third Studio (1922). 117 × 81 × 75.5 cm. TWS BM202. Copyright © Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Cologne, Germany.

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