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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Etching foreground: two male figures in half masks, round spectacles, and hats adorned with long feathers face one another, talking, a jug on the ground between them. Etching background: two figures sword fight, one with jug in hand, while others look on.

Scapino and Captain Zerbino, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Jacques Callot, Scapino and Captain Zerbino, plate 12 from Balli di Sfessania (c. 1621). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, by exchange, S4.29.4. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Etching foreground: a woman with her hands tucked into her long gown, right, stands facing a man in a half mask and round spectacles, left, his feather-adorned hat in one hand. Etching background: two figures dance to the music of a theorbo while others watch.

Captain Cerimonia and Lady Lavinia, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Jacques Callot, Captain Cerimonia and Lady Lavinia, plate 3 from Balli di Sfessania (c. 1621). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, by exchange, S4.27.2. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Etching foreground: a woman, left, dances to the music of a theorbo, played by a man, right, in a half mask and feather-adorned hat. Etching background: two musicians entertain families and riders on horseback.

Riciulina and Metzetin, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Jacques Callot, Riciulina and Metzetin, plate 8 from Balli di Sfessania (c. 1621). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, by exchange, S4.28.6. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Etching foreground: two male figures in half masks face each other, one holding a wooden sword and cape (left), the other playing a guitar (right). Etching background: a man bows to kiss a woman’s hand.

Franca Trippa and Fritellino, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism, Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque, and Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Jacques Callot, Franca Trippa and Fritellino, plate 23 from Balli di Sfessania (c. 1621). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, by exchange, S4.29.7. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Etching foreground: a woman, left, plays a tambourine, while a man, right, waves a wooden sword and cape. Etching background: two acrobats perform; a strolling guitarist plays; and several others watch.

Fracischina and Gian Farina, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Jacques Callot, Fracischina and Gian Farina, plate 17 from Balli di Sfessania (c. 1621). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, by exchange, S4.27.6. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Etching foreground: two male figures wearing half masks, their hats adorned with long feathers, stand facing one another with crossed swords, one wooden, the other real. Etching background: small groups of people look on.

Taglia Cantoni and Fracasso, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism, Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque, and Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

Jacques Callot, Taglia Cantoni and Fracasso, plate 24 from Balli di Sfessania (c. 1621). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, by exchange, S4.28.2. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Etching foreground: a man with a half mask and wooden sword extends his hat to a woman, who has placed her hand on his elbow. Etching background: a figure, center, waves a sword while another, left, wields a cape.

Pulliciniello and Lady Lucretia, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Jacques Callot, Pulliciniello and Lady Lucretia, plate 9 from Balli di Sfessania (c. 1621). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, by exchange, S4.29.1. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Etching foreground: a woman, left, holds out her shoe, while a man, right, kneels to kiss it. Etching background: pairs of lovers and onlookers talk.

Lady Lucia and Trastullo, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Jacques Callot, Lady Lucia and Trastullo, plate 21 from Balli di Sfessania (c. 1621). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gray Collection of Engravings Fund, by exchange, S4.28.7. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The cover of this souvenir program depicts a small marionette stage with Chauve-Souris (Bat cabaret) impresario Nikita Balieff merrily operating two marionettes while other characters peek at their compatriots from the tiny wings.

Chauve-Souris souvenir program cover

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Sergei Sudeikin, cover for Nikita Balieff’s Chauve-Souris (The Bat) souvenir program. American season produced by F. Ray Comstock & Morris Gest. 1922-1923. Harvard Theatre Collection Souvenir programs, *2008T-415. Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Etching foreground: silhouetted figures sit on an ornately carved frame and peer into the world it encloses. One gazes through a telescope, while another waves a fan, referring back from within the image to the real fans on which Callot’s etching appeared. Etching background: a massive mock battle on Italy’s Arno River, attended by hundreds of onlookers.

The Fan, etching and engraving

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism and Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Jacques Callot, The Fan (1619). Etching and engraving. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, by exchange, S3.69.1. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Two identical male figures in distorted poses and half masks dance in the same position from opposite perspectives.

Two Pantaloni Turning Their Backs, etching

From Introduction: Hoffmann’s Prism

Jacques Callot, Two Pantaloni Turning Their Backs (1617). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, by exchange, S4.3.3. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Photo of Vsevolod Meyerhold

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

A drawing of Meyerhold with an enormous nose and four arms, each reaching out to a different tiny theater building. From left to right: the Alexandrinsky, a film-studio, a studio theater, and the Marinsky.

Caricature of Vsevolod Meyerhold

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

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.

Four competing choruses argue on the forestage in front of a vivid pink curtain that is framed by a bright green proscenium arch with towers on both sides. These towers, decorated in Harlequin-style motley, contain balconies from which fools peer down onto the action below.

Curtain design for the opera Love for Three Oranges

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Boris Israelevich Anisfeld, Russian (1879–1973), design for Prokofiev’s opera Love for Three Oranges, Auditorium Theatre, Chicago (world premiere: December 30, 1921). Pink Curtain #2, from Love for Three Oranges, n.d. Gouache and watercolor, with pen and black ink, gold metallic paint, and charcoal, over graphite, selectively varnished, on off-white laid paper, 565 × 780 mm. Friends of American Art Collection, 1922.84, The Art Institute of Chicago.

Harlequin stands in the foreground, slapstick in hand, in diamond-patterned motley, while two other figures dance in the background.

Costume design for “Harlequin, Dealer of Slapstick Blows”

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Alexander Rykov, costume design for “Harlequin, Dealer of Slapstick Blows,” Borodinskaia Street Studio (premiere: February 12, 1915). Paper on cardboard, gouache, 29.9 × 23 cm. КП 180169/1536. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

This vivid design features several individually curtained balconies from which figures peer into the room below where Olimpia sits, center, playing a harp. A third level is populated by figures in masks positioned against a ceiling painted like the sky.

Scene design for the Olimpia act of Tales of Hoffmann (Sudeikin)

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Sergei Sudeikin, scene design for the Olimpia act of Tales of Hoffmann, by Jacques Offenbach, directed by Fedor Komissarzhevsky, Zimin Opera Theatre, Moscow (1915, production unrealized). КП 60434. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

In this famous photograph, Khlestakov (Garin), the officer-in-transit (Kelberer), and Osip (Fadeev) sit center on a bare stage while white-gloved hands with white packages (the bribes) emerge from the many doors that surround them.

Photo of episode 9, “Bribes,” Inspector General

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Episode 9, “Bribes,” 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. КП 180170/910. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

These wax and papier-maché doubles of the production’s characters stand in an arc on tiny platforms that were pushed through the set’s many double doors while the stage was obscured with a curtain.

Photo of dumb show, Inspector General

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Dumb show, 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. КП 180170/921. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

This photograph shows the Inspector General dumb show mannequins, made by V. M. Petrov, in the process of being created. The bodies are newspaper papier-maché over wire armatures, while the faces (with surprised expressions) are wax. The figures are permanently attached to the small platforms on which they later stood at the end of the production.

Photo of dumb show mannequin construction, Inspector General

From Chapter 1: Meyerhold-Dapertutto: Framing the Grotesque

Making the mannequins for the dumb show, 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. КП 180170/1056. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

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

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Scapino and Captain Zerbino, etching

Captain Cerimonia and Lady Lavinia, etching

Riciulina and Metzetin, etching

Franca Trippa and Fritellino, etching

Fracischina and Gian Farina, etching

Taglia Cantoni and Fracasso, etching

Pulliciniello and Lady Lucretia, etching

Lady Lucia and Trastullo, etching

Chauve-Souris souvenir program cover

The Fan, etching and engraving

Two Pantaloni Turning Their Backs, etching

Photo of Vsevolod Meyerhold

Caricature of Vsevolod Meyerhold

Photo of the finale of Princess Turandot (Nivinsky)

Curtain design for the opera Love for Three Oranges

Costume design for “Harlequin, Dealer of Slapstick Blows”

Scene design for the Olimpia act of Tales of Hoffmann (Sudeikin)

Photo of episode 9, “Bribes,” Inspector General

Photo of dumb show, Inspector General

Photo of dumb show mannequin construction, Inspector General