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

Dassia N. Posner

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.

Citable Link

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

Resources

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Portrait of Hoffmann, head and shoulders, full front, eyes gazing to one side.

E. T. A. Hoffmann, self-portrait

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

E. T. A. Hoffmann, self-portrait. Frontispiece to E. T. A. Hoffmann, Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner: Pages from the Diary of a Traveling Romantic, 2nd edition. Bamberg, 1819. Oak Grove Library Center, call number: 833.6 H71f. Courtesy of Northwestern University Library. Photo by the author.

Title page to Fantasy Pieces with an illustration, center, of a harp player and a sphinx.

Title page for Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Title page for E. T. A. Hoffmann, Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner: Pages from the Diary of a Traveling Enthusiast. Bamberg: C. F. Kunz, 1814. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, L.g.o.1135/1. Photo: Gerald Raab.

All the forces of hell explode from every corner of this etching, including bat-winged devils, a massive dragon, and creatures that are part machine, part animal, part gun, part skeleton. On the lower right, a tiny Saint Anthony is besieged by several man-beast devils and a dragon with snakes pouring from its mouth.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (2nd version), etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Jacques Callot, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (second version, 1635). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, by exchange, S3.51. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

This drawing consists of a single whimsical line that wanders, curves, and loops back on itself.

Parodic illustration of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

E. T. A. Hoffmann, parodic illustration (c. 1804, Plock) of the narrative structure of Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–1767). Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, L.g.o.391e/B19. Photo: Gerald Raab.

Photograph from the end of Princess Turandot. The actors hold the costume pieces they have just taken off while peeking out directly at the audience from the partially open curtain that the forestage servants pull back.

Photo of the finale of Princess Turandot (Nivinsky)

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque and Epilogue: The Afterlife of a Death Jubilee

Finale of Princess Turandot, by Carlo Gozzi, directed by Evgeny Vakhtangov, Moscow Art Theatre Third Studio (1922). Courtesy of Andrei Malaev-Babel.

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.

Premiere poster with the production title in eye-catching block letters.

Premiere poster for Inspector General

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Poster for the December 9, 1926 premiere of Inspector General, based on the play by Nikolai Gogol, adapted by Vsevolod Meyerhold and Mikhail Korenev, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Meyerhold Theatre (GosTIM), Moscow. Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 998, op. 1, ed. khr. 2801: 6.

This series of interspersed film clips from episodes 3, 5, and 7 of Inspector General reveals the production's precise choreography of exaggerated movement, ranging from Khlestakov's sweeping gestures to the tiny movements of Anna Andreevna's eyes.

Filmed scenes from Inspector General

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Filmed scenes (episode 3, “The Unicorn,” episode 5, “Full of Most Tender Love,” and episode 7, “Behind a Bottle of Tolstobriushka”) from Inspector General, based on the play by Nikolai Gogol, adapted by Vsevolod Meyerhold and Mikhail Korenev, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Meyerhold Theatre (GosTIM), Moscow (premiere: December 9, 1926). НВ 2544/17. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

Anna Andreevna’s (Raikh) bedroom overflows with officers who serenade her, strumming imaginary strings. One pops out of the top of her cupboard, brandishing an enormous bouquet.

Photo of episode 3, “The Unicorn,” Inspector General

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Episode 3, “The Unicorn,” Inspector General, based on the play by Nikolai Gogol, adapted by Vsevolod Meyerhold and Mikhail Korenev, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold, Meyerhold Theatre (GosTIM), Moscow (premiere: December 9, 1926). Photo by Alexei Temerin. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (1902-1968) Collection, THE B MS Thr 402, Box 34, Folder 6. Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

$This design for the opening of Mystery-Bouffe depicts a half globe topped by the North Pole. International survivors of the “waterless flood” of Revolution slowly make their way onto it. Moscow and Kharkov are marked on the globe, a reference to a different waterless flood, a theatrical one: this was one of many productions of the play that opened in the immediate wake of Meyerhold’s. Behind the globe, shards of bold color pierce the sky, at once recalling the Northern Lights and light refracted through a rainbow prism.$

Scene design for act 1 of Mystery-Bouffe

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Alexander Khvostenko-Khvostov, scene design for the “waterless flood” in act 1 of Mayakovsky’s Mystery-Bouffe. This production, directed by Grigory Avlov at the Kharkov Heroic Theatre (1921), was one of over a dozen that followed in the immediate wake of Meyerhold and Bebutov’s May 1921 staging at Theatre RSFSR 1. Cardboard, pencil, gouache, collage, 58 × 78.2 cm. КП 310777. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

Photograph of Tyltyl (Khaliutina, left) and Mytyl (Koonen, right), holding hands, shoeless, dressed in stockings and three-quarter-length white nightgowns.

Photo of Tyltyl and Mytyl in The Blue Bird

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

Tyltyl (Sofia Khaliutina) and Mytyl (Alisa Koonen) in The Blue Bird (Siniaia ptitsa), by Maurice Maeterlinck, directed by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Leopold Sulerzhitsky, Moscow Art Theatre (premiere: September 30, 1908). Photo: K. A. Fischer, Moscow. Laurence Senelick Collection.

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.

This scene design explodes with riotous color, fragmented angles, painted columns, and curlicues. A staircase spills down the center of the stage, while platforms on the sides and in the rear provide multiple playing levels for the actors.

Scene design for Princess Brambilla

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

Georgy Yakulov, scene design for 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). КП 238272/606. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

This set model, brimming with all the colors of the sunset painted onto its fragmented angles and whimsical curves, gives a keen sense of the three-dimensional, fantastical world in which Tairov’s actors played.

Set model for Princess Brambilla

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

Set model (authorized reproduction, 1927) for Princess Brambilla: A Kamerny Theatre Capriccio, after Hoffmann, based on the novella by E. T. A. Hoffmann, directed by Alexander Tairov, designed by Georgy Yakulov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: May 4, 1920). 89 × 67.5 × 69.5 cm. TWS BM86. Copyright © Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Cologne, Germany.

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.