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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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  • 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 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia
  • Epilogue: The Afterlife of a Death Jubilee1
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  • Vakhtangov, Evgeny1
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  • 19221

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In this photograph, the cast of Princess Turandot stands on the forestage in evening dress, the curtain closed behind them, looking directly at the audience. Four commedia characters, their faces painted to look like masks, peer between them.

Photo of opening parade, Princess Turandot (Nivinsky)

From Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia and Epilogue: The Afterlife of a Death Jubilee

Opening parade for Princess Turandot, by Carlo Gozzi, directed by Evgeny Vakhtangov, Moscow Art Theatre Third Studio (1922). Photo courtesy of Andrei Malaev-Babel.

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