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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 Grotesque2
  • Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction6
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  • Eisenstein, Sergei3
  • Meyerhold, Vsevolod3
  • Dementiev, P.1
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  • 19224
  • 19213
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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.

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.

In this production photograph from Tarelkin’s Death, Brandakhlystova’s children ride on a broad, short seesaw.

Photo of a scene from Tarelkin's Death

From Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

Brandakhlystova’s children, played by Vladimir Liutse (left) and E. Bengis (right), in Tarelkin’s Death, based on the play by Sukhovo-Kobylin, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, designed by Varvara Stepanova, State Higher Theatre Workshops (GVYTM) (premiere: November 24, 1922). Negative reproduction, 11.7 × 8.7 cm. ГИК 9302/39, ОН 16024. Copyright © Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music.

Drawing (detail) of P. Dementiev’s proposed solution to how to stage the audience-within-an-audience of Puss in Boots: with the fictional audience sitting along the lip of the stage, their heads ringing the forestage like footlights.

Mise-en-scène drawing for Puss in Boots (Dementiev)

From Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

P. Dementiev, mise-en-scène drawing (detail) for Puss in Boots, based on the play by Ludwig Tieck (December 1, 1921). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 963, op. 1, ed. khr. 1274: 9.

Designs by Eisenstein for Meyerhold's proposed staging of Puss in Boots:Left top: front elevation of the stage with a performance in progress. The prompter, conductor, orchestra musicians, and fictional audience are all depicted simultaneously on the vertical plane.Left bottom: front elevation with the curtain closed.Right top: side elevation of the stage and the vertical positioning of the fictional audience.Right bottom: ground plan of the right half of the stage, including the prompter's box (bottom left of ground plan) and the positions of the orchestra members (marked with circles).

Proscenium theater scene design for Puss in Boots (Eisenstein)

From Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

Sergei Eisenstein, scene design for Puss in Boots, based on the play by Ludwig Tieck (December 28–29, 1921). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 1923, op. 1, ed. khr. 792: 6.

As with Eisenstein’s December 28–29 design for Puss in Boots, this design simultaneously shows the prompter, conductor, orchestra, and fictional audience on a single vertical plane. Gone, however, is the proscenium-theater setting. This constructivist set in yellow, red, orange, and blue was intended for a proposed (though unrealized) outdoor, in-the-round production.

Arena theater scene design for Puss in Boots (Eisenstein)

From Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

Sergei Eisenstein, scene design for Tieck’s Puss in Boots, State Higher Theatre [Directing] Workshops (December 30, 1921). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 1923, op. 2, ed. khr. 1627: 2.

Eccentric Heartbreak House scene design in red, black, yellow, and white, created from string and cutout paper. The center of the design is dominated by a large arched structure with an actor walking along its crossbeam.

Eccentric scene design for Heartbreak House

From Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

Sergei Eisenstein, Eccentric scene design for Shaw’s Heartbreak House, State Higher Theatre Workshops (GVYTM), (June 19, 1922). Paper, applique, ink, 34.7 × 48.5 cm. КП 62005. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

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