The Director's Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde

Posner, Dassia N.

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)

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Performing Arts

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Pencil drawing of Hoffmann, dancing, one knee lifted, smoking a long pipe.

Kapellmeister Kreisler in Insanity, drawing

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

E. T. A. Hoffmann, Kapellmeister Kreisler in Insanity (Berlin, February 1822). Drawing for the first edition of The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, volume 3. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Art.f.23ga. Photo: Gerald Raab.

Watercolor of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler in a brown dressing gown and red hat, smoking a long pipe, standing before a writing table, on which lies Hoffmann’s opera Undine.

Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler in a Dressing Gown, watercolor

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

E. T. A. Hoffmann, Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler in a Dressing Gown, After a Life Drawing by Erasmus Spikher (Berlin, January/February 1815). Original watercolor. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, I R 65. Photo: Gerald Raab.

Playbill for Columbine’s Veil

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Playbill for the December 10, 1910 performance of Columbine’s Veil, based on the pantomime Pierrette’s Veil by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi, adapted by Doctor Dapertutto (Vsevolod Meyerhold), directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, House of Interludes, Saint Petersburg (premiere: October 12, 1910). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 998, op. 1, ed. khr. 2762: 1–1 verso.

Costume design for the Dance Master in polka-dotted knee breeches and an orange tailcoat, the vividness of which is matched only by the blazing red of his hair.

Costume design for the Dance Master, Columbine’s Veil

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Nikolai Sapunov, costume design for Gigolo, the Dance Master, Columbine’s Veil, based on the pantomime Pierrette’s Veil by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi, adapted by Doctor Dapertutto (Meyerhold), directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, House of Interludes, Saint Petersburg (premiere: October 12, 1910). Paper, graphite pencil, watercolor, 30.8 × 22.2 cm. ГИК 5199/291, ОР 10883. Copyright © Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music.

Pierrot’s sparsely furnished room is framed by a red curtain and borders. The space within contains two entrances, symmetrically positioned left and right, a writing desk, center, and the melancholy Pierrot in white on a chair, right.

Scene design for Pierrot’s room, Columbine’s Veil

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Nikolai Sapunov, scene design for acts 1 and 3, Pierrot’s room, Columbine’s Veil, based on the pantomime Pierrette’s Veil by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi, adapted by Doctor Dapertutto (Vsevolod Meyerhold), directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, House of Interludes, Saint Petersburg (premiere: October 12, 1910). ГИК 17156, ОР 23223. Copyright © Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music.

In the design for this wedding-ball setting, the deep red curtains, borders, and entrances from Pierrot’s room remain, but the space now is flooded with color from the costumes of the guests, decked out primarily in warm oranges and reds. Musicians play on a cramped stage, center, conducted by the Kapellmeister/Pianist in blue, his baton aloft.

Scene design for the wedding ball, Columbine’s Veil

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque and Chapter 3: Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax: Eisenstein, the Grotesque, and the Attraction

Nikolai Sapunov, scene design for act 2 wedding ball, Columbine’s Veil, based on the pantomime Pierrette’s Veil by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi, adapted by Doctor Dapertutto (Vsevolod Meyerhold), directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, House of Interludes, Saint Petersburg (premiere: October 12, 1910). КП 176534. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

The Schnellpolka in Pierrette’s Veil

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque and Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Act 2 (wedding ball) Schnellpolka, played on instruments Harlequin has “broken” in his rage, from the pantomime Pierrette’s Veil by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi (1910). Recording copyright © Jia-Yee Tang

Costume design for the Kapellmeister/Pianist in a long blue tailcoat and gold-ochre breeches. Balding with a deeply lined face, his remaining hair, the same blue as his tailcoat, stands entirely on end.

Costume design for the Kapellmeister/Pianist, Columbine’s Veil

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Nikolai Sapunov, costume design for the Kapellmeister/Pianist in Columbine’s Veil, based on the pantomime Pierrette’s Veil by Arthur Schnitzler, music by Ernő Dohnányi, adapted by Doctor Dapertutto (Vsevolod Meyerhold), directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, House of Interludes, Saint Petersburg (premiere: October 12, 1910). Paper, graphite pencil, watercolor, 32.2 × 22.7 cm. ГИК 5199/290, ОР 10882. Copyright © Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music.

This journal cover, painted in blue, beige, and orange, depicts a lavishly curtained stage on which a commedia dell’arte actor stands with three enormous oranges as three other actors peek out from the wings.

Cover design for the journal Love for Three Oranges

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Alexander Golovin, design for the front cover of Love for Three Oranges: The Journal of Doctor Dapertutto, no. 1–3 (1915). PN2007.L5 1915 no. 1/3. André Savine Collection, Rare Book Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

This image shows two drawings, one of a stage with multiple curtained entrances and side balconies (left), the other diagramming how actors were to move across the forestage in relation to one another (right). They are annotated with notes in Meyerhold’s hand that indicate that both illustrations were to appear together on the page following Soloviev’s article.

Illustrations for “Experiments with Staging the Night Scene”

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Proof sheet illustrations by Alexander Rykov for Vladimir Soloviev’s article “Experiments with Staging the Night Scene” (with handwritten notes by Meyerhold) for the journal Love for Three Oranges: The Journal of Doctor Dapertutto (Liubov’ k trem apel’sinam: Zhurnal Doktora Dapertutto) (May 16, 1915). ГИК 17118/2, f. 44, ed. khr. 3. Copyright © Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music.

This unfinished scene design, partly drawn in pencil, partly painted, hearkens directly to medieval "mansions," side-by-side settings that depict multiple locations simultaneously.

Simultaneous setting design for Comedy of the Black Goat

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

Sergei Eisenstein, simultaneous setting, inspired by medieval scene design conventions, for Comedy of the Black Goat, a play that Eisenstein penned as Peregrinus Tyss. (March–June 1920). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 1923, op. 1, ed. khr. 736: 12.