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The Fire of Demons and the Steam of Mortality: Edward Gordon Craig and the Ideal Performer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 December 2014

Paola Degli Esposti
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Extract

More than a century after Edward Gordon Craig published “The Actor and the Über-Marionette” (1908), the core of his conception of acting still poses a hermeneutical challenge to the theatre scholar. Many intriguing interpretations have stemmed from his statements on acting: from Denis Bablet's or Christopher Innes's argument that the Über-marionette is a metaphor for the perfect performer, to Irène Eynat-Confino's thesis that it is a real, oversized puppet; from the idea (Lindsay Mary Newman's or Cesare Molinari's, for instance) that the concept evolved with time along with the details of Craig's acting theory, to Patrick Le Boeuf's recent hypothesis that the Über-marionette is a full-body puppet. Le Boeuf's interpretation is somehow a telling example of the puzzling quality of Craig's acting theory: his studies originally led him to believe that the Über-marionette was a technically perfect gymnast, in perfect control of his own body, but he was induced to reconsider his hypothesis only a couple of years later, in the light of newly recovered documents. The same ineffable quality Jane Goodall detects in “stage presence” seems to be an inherent feature of Craig's ideal performer, and as with presence, the Über-marionette appears to be best definable by approximation.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 4 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2015 

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References

Endnotes

1. Craig, Edward Gordon, “The Actor and the Über-Marionette,” The Mask 1.2 (1908): 3–15Google Scholar. All citations from articles published in The Mask are from the New York reprint of the journal published by Benjamin Blom in 1966–8. The spelling in Craig's quotations has been standardized.

2. See Bablet, Denis, The Theatre of Edward Gordon Craig, trans. Woodward, Daphne (London: Eyre Methuen, 1981), 92–116Google Scholar; Innes, Christopher, Edward Gordon Craig: A Vision of the Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 123–6Google Scholar; Eynat-Confino, Irène, Beyond the Mask: Gordon Craig, Movement, and the Actor (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Newman, Lindsay Mary, intro. to Craig, Edward Gordon, Black Figures: 105 Reproductions with an Unpublished Essay (Wellingborough, UK: Christopher Skelton, 1989), 21Google Scholar; Molinari, Cesare, “Le teorie sul teatro di Gordon Craig,” Critica d'arte 4.21 (1957): 178–95, at 186–91Google Scholar; Boeuf, Patrick Le, “On the Nature of Edward Gordon Craig's Über-Marionette,” New Theatre Quarterly 26.2 (2010): 102–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Goodall, Jane, Stage Presence (London and New York: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar.

4. Craig, Edward Gordon, “To Madame Eleonora Duse,” The Mask 1.1 (1908): 12–13Google Scholar.

5. See Roach, Joseph R., The Player's Passion (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. See Craig, Edward Gordon, “Blue Sky: A Sketch for a Little Farce for Marionettes,” The English Review 32 (March 1921): 198–212Google Scholar. The play has been newly published in Craig, Edward Gordon, Le Théâtre des fous / The Drama for Fools, édition bilingue établie par [bilingual edition prepared by] Plassard, Didier, Chénetier-Alev, Marion, Duvillier, et Marc (Montpellier: L'Entretemps, and Charleville-Mézières: Institut International de la Marionnette, 2012), 186–99Google Scholar.

7. Yoo-no-hoo [Craig, Edward Gordon], “On Learning Magic,” The Mask 6.3 (1914): 234–7Google Scholar. On the connection between this essay and the farce, see Esposti, Paola Degli, “Tre drammi per marionette di E. G. Craig,” in Gesto e parola: Aspetti del teatro europeo tra Ottocento e Novecento, ed. Artioli, Umberto and Trebbi, Fernando (Padua: Esedra, 1996), 189–222, at 204–17Google Scholar.

8. Roach, 161.

9. Craig, Edward Gordon, Henry Irving (London: Dent, 1930), 7–18Google Scholar. Subsequent citations of this work will appear parenthetically (as HI) in the text.

10. Craig, “Actor and the Über-Marionette,” 3.

11. Craig, Edward Gordon, “The Artists of the Theatre of the Future,” The Mask 1.3–4 (1908): 57–70Google Scholar, at 58. This was the second installment of the essay; the first part was published in The Mask 1.1 (1908): 3–5Google ScholarPubMed.

12. Bablet, 110.

13. Craig, Edward Gordon, preface to On the Art of the Theatre ([1924]; New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1956), ix–xii, at ix–xGoogle Scholar.

14. See also Goodall, 169–71.

15. Craig, “Actor and the Über-Marionette,” 3.

16. Craig, Edward Gordon, “Gentlemen, the Marionette!,” The Mask 5.2 (1912): 95–97, at 97Google Scholar.

17. Newman, Lindsay Mary, ed., The Correspondence of Edward Gordon Craig and Count Harry Kessler, 1903–1937 (Leeds: W.S. Maney for the Modern Humanities Research Association and the Institute of Germanic Studies, 1995), 33–47Google Scholar.

18. Duncan, Isadora, My Life (New York and London: Liveright, 1995), 143–8Google ScholarPubMed. On this production, see Simoncini, Francesca, Rosmersholm di Ibsen per Eleonora Duse (Pisa: ETS, 2005)Google Scholar. In marginal notes in his copy of Duncan's memoirs, Craig denies the truthfulness of several episodes there related. See Craig's copy of Duncan, Isadora, My Life (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1927)Google ScholarPubMed, Reserve 8 EGC 2634, Microfilm R84634, Fonds Edward Gordon Craig, Département des Arts du Spectacle, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (hereafter, DAS–BnF). I thank Maria Ines Aliverti for pointing out to me the relevance of this source.

19. Duncan (1995), 147–8.

20. Ibid., 147.

21. Ibid., 149–50.

22. The episode is reported by a member of the company. See Noccioli, Guido, Duse on Tour: Guido Noccioli Diaries, 1906–07, trans. and ed. Pontiero, Giovanni (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 65Google Scholar. Craig himself denies the supposed quarrel with Duse related by Duncan; see Craig's holograph note in Duncan (1927), 207.

23. Edward Gordon Craig, “A Letter to Eleonora Duse from Gordon Craig,” Washington Post, 1 December 1907, SM4.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Craig, “To Madame Eleonora Duse,” 12.

27. Goodall, 101–7.

28. Craig, “To Madame Eleonora Duse,” 12.

29. Ibid., 13.

30. See Schino, Mirella, Il teatro di Eleonora Duse (Rome: Bulzoni, 2008), 94Google Scholar; Molinari, Cesare, L'attrice divina: Eleonora Duse nel teatro italiano fra i due secoli (Rome: Bulzoni, 1987), 20Google Scholar; and Valentini, Valentina, Il poema visibile: Le prime messe in scena delle tragedie di Gabriele D'Annunzio (Rome: Bulzoni 1993), 77Google Scholar.

31. Craig, “To Madame Eleonora Duse,” 13, my italics.

32. Ibid.

33. Duncan (1995), 148.

34. Craig, “Gentlemen, the Marionette!,” 97.

35. Craig, Edward Gordon, “To Eleonora Duse,” in Craig, The Theatre—Advancing (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1919), 241–7Google Scholar. There had also been a 1920 British edition, but the very limited number of copies issued (only thirty, for private circulation) makes this edition substantially irrelevant in this context.

36. Eynat-Confino is here taken as a reference point, although other critics more recently maintain a similar thesis, because her monograph Beyond the Mask is so far the best-documented and most exhaustive work that maintains that the Über-marionette is a puppet.

37. Entry for 1910, probably February or beginning of March in Edward Gordon Craig, “Day-book 1. November 1908 to March 1910,” 223, Edward Gordon Craig Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. This manuscript will be henceforth cited as “Day-Book 1.”

38. Entry for 18 September 1909, in “Day-Book 1,” 151.

39. Craig, “Artists of the Theatre of the Future,” 58.

40. Eynat-Confino, 71.

41. Balance, John [Craig, Edward Gordon], “Sarah Bernhardt,” The Mask 1.3–4 (1908): 71–2Google Scholar; Edward Gordon Craig, “Yvette Guilbert,” in Craig, Theatre–Advancing, 229–31.

42. Edward Gordon Craig, “Über-Marions. Berlin 1905-1906,” A–B, EGC Ms A 23 (1–2), Fonds Edward Gordon Craig, DAS–BnF. Hereafter “Über-Marions Berlin (A)” for Ms A 23 (1) and “Über-Marions Berlin (B)” for Ms A 23 (2)

43. See Edward Gordon Craig, “Dresden. CK [Count Kessler] MM [Maurice Magnus] etc.,” EGC Ms B 741, Fonds Edward Gordon Craig, DAS–BnF. Henceforth cited as “Dresden.” This folder contains projections of profits and expenses and a few notes by Craig on the Dresden Über-Marionette International Theatre project. The leaves are numbered and bound together in small bundles, but the numbering does not seem to follow a chronological order.

44. Craig, “Über-Marions Berlin (A),” recto of the interleaved page between 2v and 3r, 5r and 6r. When Craig produced his Dido and Æneas in 1900 he used masks, at least in the witches' scene. See Cox, Mabel, “Dress,” The Artist 27.7 (1900): 130–32, at 131Google Scholar; Burden, Michael, “Purcell's Operas on Craig's Stage: The Productions of the Purcell Operatic Society,” in Early Music 32.3 (August 2004): 443–58, at 447CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45. Craig, “Über-Marions Berlin (A),” 5r and 6r.

46. Ibid., recto of the interleaved page between 2v and 3r, my italics.

47. Ibid., 5r. Quote on 4v, my italics.

48. Ibid., 24v–25r. See also another of Craig's early notebooks: “1904 Germany berlin weimar 1905 weimar,” EGC Ms C 436, Fonds Edward Gordon Craig, DAS–BnF, 32v.

49. Craig, “Über-Marions Berlin (A),” 5v. The figure is drawn on ibid., 6r.

50. Craig, “Über-Marions Berlin (B),” 31r.

51. Craig, “Gentlemen, the Marionette!,” 97.

52. “Dresden,” 4r.

53. Ibid., 7r, 13r, 37r (detailed projections); 8r, 10r, 14r, 16r, 19r, 26r, 38r, 40r (syntheses of projected costs and profits). The salary of the Über-marionette would amount to the salary of an actor with no “star” status.

54. Craig, “Über-Marions Berlin (A),” 13r.

55. Ibid., 15r. Craig's deletion.

56. On St. Matthew Passion, see, for instance, Craig, Edward, “Gordon Craig and Bach's St. Matthew Passion,” Theatre Notebook 26.4 (1972): 147–51Google Scholar; Siniscalchi, Marina Maymone, “E. G. Craig e la Passione secondo S. Matteo di J. S. Bach,” English Miscellany 23 (1972): 263–314Google Scholar.

57. Duncan (1995), 147.

58. Rilke, Rainer Maria, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, trans. Pike, Burton (Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press, 2008), 171Google Scholar; Artioli, Umberto, “Dionisismo ed estetica della luce nella teoresi teatrale rilkiana,” in Scritti sul teatro by Rilke, Rainer Maria, ed. Artioli, Umberto and Grazioli, Cristina (Genoa: Costa & Nolan, 1995), 17–46, at 19–20Google Scholar; Grazioli, Cristina, “Gli ‘attori senza volto’ nella critica d'arte di Rainer Maria Rilke,” in Attraversamenti: Studi sul teatro e i generi para-teatrali fra Sette e Novecento, ed. Randi, Elena (Padua: CLEUP, 2012), 87–98, at 96–8Google Scholar.

59. “Dresden,” 44r.

60. Craig, “Artists of the Theatre of the Future,” 58.

61. Ibid., my italics.

62. Ibid., 58n.

63. Craig, “Actor and the Über-Marionette,” 5.

64. Roach, 133.

65. Craig, “Actor and the Über-Marionette,” 7–8.

66. Entry for 4 May 1909, “Day-Book 1,” 111.

67. Craig, “Actor and the Über-Marionette,” 9–12, 14–15.

68. Ibid., 9.

69. On the connections between Craig and Kantor and on death as a vital element see Surmarionnettes et Mannequins: Craig, Kantor et leurs héritages contemporaines, ed. Guidicelli, Carole (Laverùne: L'Entretemps, and Charleville-Mézières: Institut International de la Marionnette, 2013)Google Scholar.

70. Entry for 16 May 1909, “Day-Book 1,” 125.

71. Craig, “Actor and the Über-Marionette,” 11.

72. von Kleist, Heinrich, “On the Marionnette Theatre,” trans. Foresti, Amadeo, The Marionnette 4 (1918): 105–13Google Scholar. As this periodical is quite rare, in my analysis I will refer to von Kleist, Heinrich, “On the Marionette Theatre,” trans. Neumiller, Thomas G., The Drama Review 16.3 (1972): 22–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73. See, for instance, Taxidou, Olga, The Mask: A Periodical Performance by Edward Gordon Craig (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 166–72Google Scholar; Mango, Lorenzo, “Corpi senz'organi e marionette metafisiche,” Annali: Sezione Romanza 45.2 (2003): 341–59, at 350Google Scholar; and Roach, 164.

74. Kleist, 24.

75. Ibid., 26.

76. Entry for 16 May 1909, “Day-Book 1,” 125.

77. Coomaraswamy, Ananda, “Notes on Indian Dramatic Technique,” The Mask 6.2 (1913): 109–28, at 111Google Scholar. Coomaraswamy says an address by Richard Pischel, given on 12 July 1900, is Craig's source (109). See Pischel, Richard, The Home of the Puppet-Play (London: Luzac & Co., 1902)Google Scholar.

78. Craig, “Gentlemen, the Marionette!,” 97.

79. Craig, Edward Gordon, “A Plea for Two Theatres,” The Mask 8.5 (1915): 17–19, at 19Google Scholar. The essay was published in 1915 in four installments of vol. 8 of The Mask (no. 4, 14–16; no. 5, 17–19; no. 6, 21–3; no. 8, 29–31). Most probably Craig's source is Ananda Coomaraswamy, several of whose works were reviewed in The Mask.

80. Craig, Edward Gordon, “Asia America Europe,” The Mask 8.8 (1915): 31–2Google Scholar.

81. Mango, 341–51.

82. Craig, “Actor and the Über-Marionette,” 8.

83. Mango maintains that the Über-marionette is “an absolute, transfigured, phantomlike body, the solemn body of Death as opposed to the paltry body of life. No organs, no physiology, no flesh; only light and ideal abstraction” (350; translation mine). His hypothesis offers an iconic image that confirms (or at least partly agrees with) my thesis.