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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.

ISBN(s)

978-0-8101-3355-6 (paper)
978-0-8101-3356-3 (hardcover)
978-0-8101-3357-0 (e-book)

Subject

Performing Arts

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Filtering by: Format image Section Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia

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Two-page order that lists the many charges against the Kamerny Theatre and gives details for how the theater is to be reorganized, including appointing V. V. Vanin to replace Tairov as Artistic Director, firing a quantity of the theater’s creative staff, and developing a repertoire aggressively centered on new Soviet and classic plays.

Committee for Artistic Affairs Order 408

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

Committee for Artistic Affairs of the USSR Council of Ministries, Order 408 (May 27, 1949). F. 529, ed. khr. 195, НВ2519/19:1–2. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

Two characters talk downstage at a distance from one another on a set constructed around simple circles and curves. Upstage of them sailors stand in rows that emphasize the sweeping spiral of the stage.

Photo of a scene from An Optimistic Tragedy

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

Scene from Vishnevsky’s An Optimistic Tragedy, directed by Alexander Tairov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: December 18, 1933). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2030, op. 1, ed. khr. 337: 21.

Photograph of Alexander Tairov in a blazer and tie, looking gently to one side.

Photo of Alexander Tairov

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

Photo portrait of Alexander Iakovlevich Tairov (né Kornblit, 1885–1950). Laurence Senelick Collection.

In this costume design for Crimson Island, the monotony of the bespectacled male figure’s dull, tan uniform is broken only by a black tie striped red at the top.

Male costume design for Crimson Island

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

Vadim Ryndin, male costume design, probably for Savva Lukich, the censor. Crimson Island, by Mikhail Bulgakov, directed by Alexander Tairov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: December 11, 1928). КП 238272/354. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

Cover page for the production text of Crimson Island with the censor’s cuts and stamp in red at the bottom. This script is burned around the edges, as are many of the items in the Kamerny Theatre collection that were rescued from a fire at the Bakhrushin Museum in the early 1950s, where the Kamerny’s papers were stored in the years immediately following the theater’s forced closure.

Typescript of Crimson Island with censor’s cuts

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

Mikhail Bulgakov, Crimson Island. Typescript of the play with handwritten censor’s cuts and stamp approving the play for performance at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre. Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2030, op. 1, ed. khr. 247, Moscow.

Set model of the streamlined, angular simultaneous setting for The Hairy Ape. It depicts three levels of action: an upper deck, cabins, and the stokehole deep in the bowels of an ocean liner.

Set model for The Hairy Ape

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

Set model (authorized reproduction, 1927) for The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Alexander Tairov and L. L. Lukianov, designed by the Stenberg brothers, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: January 24, 1926). 87.5 × 66 × 71.5 cm. TWS BM89. Copyright © Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, University of Cologne, Germany.

This photograph shows The Hairy Ape’s stokehole workers, bare-chested with white-painted faces. The rhythm of their coal shoveling is arrested by the unexpected appearance of Mildred, who cries out in alarm at their animal-like conditions.

Photo of the stokehole scene, The Hairy Ape

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

Stokehole scene, The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Alexander Tairov and L. L. Lukianov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: January 24, 1926). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (1902–1968) Collection, THE B MS Thr 402, Box 38, Folder 13. Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

This photograph shows the mannequin-like Fifth-Avenue fox-trotters in The Hairy Ape. The women are made up to look like dolls, while the men wear half masks with distorted mouths on the lower portions of their faces. Yank (left) gazes at them in anger and alarm.

Photo of the Fifth Avenue scene, The Hairy Ape

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

Fifth Avenue scene, The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Alexander Tairov and L. L. Lukianov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: January 24, 1926). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2030, op. 1, ed. khr. 329: 27.

Photograph of Alisa Koonen in the armor of Joan of Arc, her heavily gloved hands clasped in front of her, her eyes to one side.

Photo of Alisa Koonen as Joan in Saint Joan

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

Alisa Koonen in the role of Joan in Shaw’s Saint Joan, directed by Alexander Tairov, Moscow Kamerny Theatre (premiere: October 21, 1924). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2768, op. 1, ed. khr. 29: 2.

Poster for the Kamerny Theatre’s 1923 German tour

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

Poster for the Kamerny’s 1923 tour in Germany, advertising performances for the week of April 7–23. КП 14598. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.