Edward Gordon Craig
Edward Gordon Craig CH OBE , real name Edward Henry Gordon Godwin , born January 16, 1872 in Stevenage , Hertfordshire , England ; † July 29, 1966 in Vence , Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur , France was a British actor , director , set designer , graphic artist and author. He is considered one of the most important theater reformers of the 20th century .
His name is closely linked to symbolist movements in theater at the turn of the century , the Stilbühne , which he developed in 1905 and described in the essay The Actor and the Über-Marionette in 1908 - a larger -than- life inanimate figure that the actor in to replace a future theater - countered realism with an artificial stylization. He was editor of The Mask (1908–1929) and The Marionnette (1918/1919) as well as the author of writings on the theory of theater.
life and work
The son of Ellen Terry and Edward William Godwin made his acting debut in Henry Irving 's Lyceum Theater in London in 1889 . Irving, one of the most famous actors of his time, became a great role model for Craig and shaped his view of the work of the director. After several tours through the English provinces, Craig began directing himself in 1900. It originated productions of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Handel's Acis and Galatea for the Purcell Operatic Society. During a trip to Germany in 1904 he met Count Harry Kessler , who became one of his most important patrons, and the dancer Isadora Duncan , and in 1905 the aspiring playwright and writer Karl Gustav Vollmoeller . In 1905 the vision of an international theater of the Über-Marionette emerged in notebooks (the so-called Über-Marions ), in the same year the essay On the art of the theater was published. Plans to present the Über-Marionette to the public at the 3rd German Arts and Crafts Exhibition in Dresden in 1906 failed. In 1907 Craig settled in Florence , which later became the center of his work. Karl Gustav Vollmoeller also lived nearby. The contact between Craig and Vollmoeller intensified between 1907 and 1910. Their common theme was the puppet and the pantomime. In 1908 Vollmoeller entrusted Craig, through his friend Max Reinhardt, with the design of a stage set for his adaptation of the Oresty of Aeschylus . The project soon failed due to the incompatibility of the characters of Craig and Reinhardt. While Vollmoeller had his miracle successfully staged as a wordless play by Max Reinhardt in London in 1911 , Craig failed in 1913 with his similar staging of the Passion in Paris . In Florence in 1913 he and his assistant Dorothy Nevile Lees founded a theater academy in the orphaned Arena Goldoni . As part of a holistic theater training, the principles of movement, light and working with the screens invented by Craig , monochrome painted wall screens in various sizes that could be variably mounted and moved on the stage, are taught. The two theater magazines Craigs, The Mask and The Marionnette also appear in Florence . The latter deals exclusively with aspects of puppet theater . The first publication of The Actor and the Über-Marionette took place in the second edition of The Mask from 1908. After the closure of the Florentine School with the beginning of the First World War , Craig wrote the Drama for Fools , a cycle of puppet theater pieces. The collaboration with Konstantin Stanislawski at the Moscow Hamlet of 1912 was his last practical work. Craig designed the sets and costumes here. Towards a new theater from 1913 with its 40 stage designs is evidence of this. In France since the early 1930s, Craig turned towards the end of his life to the history of theater : Henry Irving (1930) pays homage to the idol of his youth, Ellen Terry and Her Secret Self (1931) paints the picture of his mother and with an index To the Story of My Days he presented his autobiography in 1957 . He died in 1966 at the age of 94.
To the over-puppet
According to Craig, the decisive advantage of the puppet over the actor is the fact that the absence of emotion and selfishness ultimately enables a more intense performance than an actor is ever able to achieve. The key to the principles of the aesthetics of the super-puppet lies in the statement that art can only come about by means of one hundred percent subordination of creative means to the will of the artist. Craig consequently condemns realism as mere imitation without genuine artistic expression. The actor lacks both the free availability of his creative resources and the opportunity to work independently of certain role models, which is why he cannot be considered an artist - the consequence must be to ban the actor from the stage and take his place with the over - Kick puppet. Although older literature only interprets this concept as a metaphor for a new acting style to be created, Craig's notebooks make it clear how concrete the idea of an over-puppet was: drawings show characters in long, gray costumes with masks, Craig uses paper mache as materials and fabric also wood.
Honors
- Knight (French Chevalier ) of the Legion of Honor .
Filmography
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Primary texts
- Gordon Craig on movement and dance. Edited, and with an Introduction by Arnold Rood. New York 1977.
- On the art of the theater. London 1962. (= Mercury Books. No. 27)
- Towards a new theater. Forty designs for stage scenes with critical notes by the inventor Edward Gordon Craig. New York 1969.
Secondary literature
- Wild, Katharina: Beauty. Edward Gordon Craig's Acting Theory. Theater of time.
- Bablet, Denis: Edward Gordon Craig . Cologne / Berlin 1965. (= Collection Theater Werkbücher. Vol. 5)
- Craig, Edward: Gordon Craig. The story of his life . London: Gollancz, 1968
- Eynat-Confino, Irène: Beyond the Mask. Gordon Craig, Movement, and the Actor . Carbondale / Edwardsville 1987.
- Innes, Christopher: Edward Gordon Craig: A Vision of Theater (Contemporary Theater Studies) (Paperback), 2nd expanded edition, London: Routledge, 1998, ISBN 9057021250
- Laksberg, Olaf: Marionette, che passione! The doll in the factory of Gordon Craig. Contributions to the history of puppet theater . Munich 1993. (= Munich University Writings. Munich Contributions to Theater Studies. Vol. 18)
- Nash, George: Edward Gordon Craig. 1872-1966 . London 1967.
- Rose, Enid: Gordon Craig and the theater. A record and an interpretation . London 1931.
- Spieckermann, Thomas: Edward Gordon Craig and his Concept of the Übermarionetten-Theater . Marburg 1994.
- Spieckermann, Thomas: The world lacks and needs a belief. Investigations into the metaphysical aesthetics of Edward Gordon Craig's theater projects from 1905 to 1918 . Trier 1998. (= Brochures. Studies on Theater. Vol. 3)
- Fritthum, Michael: "I started dreaming dreams". Observations on the reception of Edward Gordon Craig in Vienna - review of a non-reception . University of Vienna 2002.
Web links
- Literature by and about Edward Gordon Craig in the catalog of the German National Library
- Edward Gordon Craig in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Edward Gordon Craig in the database of Find a Grave (English)
- Edward Gordon Craig & the Modern Theater of Devising
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Craig, Edward Gordon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Godwin, Edward Henry Gordon (real name); Craig, Gordon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British actor, director, set designer, graphic artist and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 16, 1872 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stevenage , Hertfordshire , England |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 29, 1966 |
| Place of death | Vence , Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur , France |