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‘Brothers in Suffering and Joy’:the Appia–Craig Correspondence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Richard C. Beacham
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Abstract

The names of Appia and Craig are often linked as prophets of the ‘new’ theatre – and as early as 1915 critics were beginning to stake invidious claims as to which was the dominant ‘influence’. In fact, they arrived by separate paths at artistic conclusions some of which were compatible – and some of which reflected their very different temperaments and sense of theatrical priorities. At last, in 1914, the two men met, and until a few years before Appia's death in 1928 conducted an intermittent but intimate correspondence, which has previously been unpublished. Richard C. Beacham, who teaches in the Joint School of Theatre Studies in the University of Warwick, published a study of the relationship between Appia and Jaques-Dalcroze at Hellerau in NTQ 2 and 3, and here provides an illuminating commentary to extensive extracts from the Appia–Craig correspondence. His full-length study of Appia appears in the ‘Directors in Perspective’ series from Cambridge University Press.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 4 , Issue 15 , August 1988 , pp. 268 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

Notes and References

1. Macgowan, Kenneth, The Theatre of Tomorrow (New York, 1921), p. 77Google Scholar.

2. Ibid., p. 78.

3. Van Vechten, Carl, ‘Adolphe Appia and Gordon Craig’, Forum, LVII (10 1915), p. 487Google Scholar.

4. Craig, Gordon, On the Art of the Theatre, preface to the second edition (London, 1912), p. viiGoogle Scholar.

5. Craig, Gordon, Daybook II, entry for 27 12 1911Google Scholar. The copy of the Daybook is at the University of Texas, Austin, Humanities Research Center.

6. The letter from Rouché to Craig, a copy of which is in the Appia Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale, is dated 26 March 1913.

7. Gordon Craig, unpublished letter to William Rothenstein, dated 25 Dec. 1914, in the Rothenstein Collection, Harvard Library, Theatre Collection.

8. Gordon Craig, unpublished letter to Barnard Hewitt, dated 15 Feb. 1960, in the Appia Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale.

9. Gordon Craig, letter to William Rothenstein, 25 Dec. 1914.

10. Ibid.

11. Bablet, Denis, ‘Edward Gordon Craig and Scenography’, lecture printed in Theatre Research, XI, No. 1 (1971), p. 11Google Scholar. The quotation which Bablet uses is from Craig's On the Art of the Theatre, p. 22.

12. Gordon Craig, letter to William Rothenstein, 25 Dec. 1914.

13. Bablet, ‘Edward Gordon Craig and Scenography’, p. 8.

14. Craig, Gordon, Daybook III, entry for 13 02 1914Google Scholar.

15. Gordon Craig, letter to Barnard Hewitt, 15 Feb. 1960.

16. Craig, Gordon, Daybook III, entry for 13 02 1914Google Scholar.

17. Recorded by Mercier, Jean, ‘Adolphe Appia: the Re-birth of Dramatic Art’, Theatre Arts Monthly, XVI, No. 8 (1932), p. 628Google Scholar.

18. Bablet, Denis, The Theatre of Edward Gordon Craig (London, 1981), p. 180Google Scholar.

19. Craig, Gordon, Daybook III, entry for 13 02 1914Google Scholar.

20. Bablet, The Theatre of Edward Gordon Craig, p. 179.

21. Craig, Gordon, Daybook III, entry for 13 02 1914Google Scholar.

22. Ibid.

23. Unless otherwise noted, this and subsequent excerpts from the correspondence between Craig and Appia, most of which have not been published before, are from the Swiss Theatre Collection, Bern. They are quoted by permission.

24. Jacques Copeau, letter to Louis Jouvet, quoted in Volbach, Walther, Adolphe Appia, Prophet of the Modern Theatre (Middletown, Conn., 1968), p. 102Google Scholar.

25. Borgal, Clement, Metteurs en Scène (Paris, 1963), p. 26Google Scholar.

26. Ibid., p. 26.

27. Gordon Craig, letter to Adolphe Appia, 23 Nov. 1915, a copy of which is in the Appia Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale.

28. Gordon Craig, letter to Adolphe Appia, 22 Feb. 1917, a copy of which is in the Appia Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale.

29. Unfortunately, the planned publication in English did not take place at this time, and Appia's preface remains unpublished. Appia's great book, La Musique el la mise en scene, was originally published in German asDie Musik und die Inscenierung in 1899. It was not published in an English translation until 1962, as Music and the Art of the Theatre (University of Miami Press, Coral Gables, Florida).

30. Gordon Craig, quoted in Bablet, ‘Edward Gordon Craig and Scenography’, p. 21.

31. Bablet, The Theatre of Edward Gordon Craig, p. 178.

32. Edward Gordon Craig, On the Art of the Theatre, p. 138.

33. Appia, Adolphe, ‘Theatrical Experiences and Personal Investigations’, unpublished essay of about 1924Google Scholar, trans. Walther Volbach, p. 384 of the typescript in the Appia Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale.

34. Ibid., p. 387.

35. Innes, Christopher, Edward Gordon Craig (Cambridge, 1983), p. 3Google Scholar.

36. Craig, Edward Gordon, Fourteen Notes, ed. Hughes, Glenn (Seattle, 1931), p. 10Google Scholar.

37. Cheney, Sheldon, ‘International Exhibition in Amsterdam’, Theatre Arts Monthly, VI, No. 2 (1922), p. 141Google Scholar. It was at this exhibition that Sarah Bernhardt, gazing at Appia's designs, was heard to remark, ‘la grande Connue devant le grand Inconnu’. A chapter in The Work of Living Art was entitled ‘The Great Unknown and the Experience of Beauty’.

38. Appia, Adolphe, ‘Art Is an Attitude’, an essay of 1920Google Scholar, published as the introduction to Fuerst, Walter and Hume, Samuel, Twentieth Century Stage Decoration, Vol. I (London, 1928), p. xvGoogle Scholar.

39. Innes, Edward Gordon Craig, p. 3.

40. Gordon Craig, letter to Barnard Hewitt, 15 Feb. 1960.

41. Adolphe Appia, unpublished letter to Oscar Walterlin, 12 Jan. 1924, a copy of which is in the Appia Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale.

42. Ibid.

43. Gordon Craig, Fourteen Notes, p. 11.

44. Adolphe Appia, letter to Oscar Walterlin, 12 Jan. 1924.

45. Gordon Craig, letter to Barnard Hewitt, 15 Feb. 1960.

46. Quoted by Jean Mercier, ‘Adolphe Appia: the Re-birth of Dramatic Art’, p. 620.

47. Gordon Craig, letter to Barnard Hewitt, 15 Feb. 1960.

48. Appia's doctor and friend was Dr. Oscar Forel. Karl Reyle, who knew both Appia and Craig, as well as Forel, mentions the visit in two letters to Walther Volbach, dated 19 Dec. 1961 and 24 Mar. 1963, both in the Appia Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale.

49. Gordon Craig, letter to William Rothenstein, 25 Dec. 1914.

Unless otherwise indicated, translations from the French are by Mr. N. Monro-Davies.