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

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

Dassia N. Posner
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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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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

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  • Chapter 2: Tairov-Celionati: Mime-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Commedia4

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Photograph of Giglio (Ferdinandov) and his Doppelgänger (Vigilev), center, wearing half masks with long, curved noses and dueling with swords while others in black half masks look on. Upstage, standing on one of the set’s several raised sections, stands a figure in black, Celionati (Shchirsky), seemingly conducting the duel as it progresses.

Photo of the duel scene, Princess Brambilla

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

Duel between Giglio and his Doppelgänger, 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). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2328, op. 1, ed. khr. 378: 2.

Design that suggests the costume for one of Nikolai Bykov’s characters in Princess Brambilla rather than exhaustively depicting it. The costume contains splashes of red, white, yellow ochre, and black with green gloves, a feathered hat, and a hint of a mask.

Design for Nikolai Bykov’s costume, Princess Brambilla

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

Georgy Yakulov, design for actor Nikolai Bykov’s costume, 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 238272/594. Copyright © A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, Moscow.

In this production photograph, carnival revelers in black half masks dance with wild abandon, the curves of their bodies consonant with the curves of the whimsical set.

Photo of a carnival scene, Princess Brambilla

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

Carnival scene, 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). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2328, op. 1, ed. khr. 378: 5.

Harlequin lies on a table painted with a skull and crossbones. Two of his rivals hack him to pieces with an enormous knife as others look on. The actor playing Harlequin, Alexander Rumnev, had by now been replaced with a dummy that could be cut apart painlessly.

Photo from the main pantomime, Princess Brambilla

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

Main pantomime, 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). Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, f. 2328, op. 1, ed. khr. 378: 10.

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