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Gordon Craig, the Über-marionette, and the Dresden Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Irène Eynat
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Extract

The Über-Marions notebooks were written by Gordon Craig during 1905 and 1906. The main interest of these unpublished manuscripts lies in the rich information on the über-marionette which, oddly enough, Craig initially thought to ‘find’ or ‘collect’, and the project for a theatre in Dresden. Many entries give a new insight into these subjects while other notes emphasize the direct link between the über-marionette and Craig's theory as it was formulated in The Art of the Theatre (1905), and in ‘The Artists of the Theatre of the Future’ (1907) and ‘The Actor and the Über-marionette’ (1907).

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1980 , pp. 171 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1980

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References

Notes

1. Über-Marions. Berlin. 1905. 1906., Gordon Craig Collection, Bibliothèque de l'Arsénal, Paris. I am indebted to H. E. Robert Craig, Administrator of the Edward Gordon Craig, C.H., Estate for his permission to use and quote this material and Gordon Craig's letters to Ellen Terry and Martin F. Shaw. Throughout, I shall use Craig's own short titles for the notebooks, UM-A and UM-B, and his pagination.

2. The Theatre Advancing (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1963), p. 111.

3. See Simonson, Lee, The Stage is Set (New York: Dover, 1932), pp. 20–1Google Scholar; Marotti, Ferruccio, Gordon Craig (Bologna: Capelli, 1961), pp. 98, 151–2.Google Scholar

4. See Bablet, Denis, Edward Gordon Craig, trans. Woodward, Daphne (New York: Theatre Art Books, 1966), pp. 105–9Google Scholar; Lyons, Charles R., ‘Gordon Craig's Concept of the Actor’, in Total Theatre, ed. Kirby, E. T. (New York: Dutton, 1969), pp. 66–77Google Scholar; Grossman, Harvey, ‘Gordon Craig and the Actor’, Chrysalis, VI, No. 7–8 (1953), 3–14Google Scholar; Leeper, Janet, Edward Gordon Craig: Designs for the Theatre (London: Penguin Books, 1948), p. 22.Google Scholar

5. Newman, L. M., Gordon Craig Archives: International Survey (London: Malkin Press, 1976), pp. 18–19 and 36 n. 211.Google Scholar

6. Index to the Story of My Days (New York: Viking Press, 1957), p. 287.

7. Correspondence with Martin F. Shaw, Gordon Craig Collection, Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. The German translation of The Art of the Theatre appeared on 3 August 1905.

8. UM-A, p. 12.

9. There is a discrepancy in the information we have on these two exhibitions. In Index to the Story of My Days Craig lists only the exhibition held in May, whereas the biographical note he wrote in 1913 and included in A Living Theatre (Florence, 1913) mentions only that of November. Edward Craig refers to the May exhibition only (Gordon Craig: The Story of His Life [London: Victor Gollancz, 1968], p. 208). Ifan Kyrle Fletcher and Arnold Rood indicate only the November exhibition (Edward Gordon Craig: A Bibliography [London: Society for Theatre Research, 1967], p. 98).

10. UM-A, p. 15v.

11. ibid., p. 17v.

12. UM-B, p. 25v.

13. Correspondence with Martin F. Shaw, Craig Collection, University of Texas. Craig came to London for a short visit late in 1905. His next visit was to take place nine months later, in July 1906. Legally, he became Isadora's manager on 10 October, 1905. Shaw joined him in Berlin as Isadora's conductor in January or February 1906. See Shaw, Martin F., Up to Mow (London: Oxford University Press, 1929), pp. 58–80Google Scholar; Steegmuller, Francis, ed., Your Isadora (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. 105, 122Google Scholar; Craig, Edward, p. 214.Google Scholar

14. UM-A, p. 32v.

15. UM-B, p. 24v

16. ibid., p. 12v

17. ibid., p. 33r.

18. ibid., p. 2v

19. Steegmuller, , ed., pp. 227–91.Google Scholar

20. Correspondence with Martin F. Shaw, Craig Collection, University of Texas, letter that can be dated as of December 1907.

21. UM-A, p. 12r.

22. UM-B, p. 14r. See also Loeffler, Michael Peter, Gordon Craig und die ‘Purcell Operatic Society’. Ein Früher Versuck zur Uberwindung des Bühnenrealismus (Bern: Theaterkultur-Verlag, 1971).Google Scholar

23. On The Art of the Theatre (London: Heinemann, 1968), p. 84.

24. UM-A, p. 10r.

25. ibid., p. 24v.

26. On the Art of the Theatre, p. 86.

27. UM-B, p. 17r.

28. ibid., p. 18r.

29. ibid., p. 17bv.

30. UM-A, p. 5v

31. See Craig, Edward, p. 292.Google Scholar

32. See p. 173. See also UM-B, p. 30v

33. UM-A, p. 3bv.

34. UM-B, p. 6r.

35. Craig took out a patent on these frames in 1910.

36. UM-A, p. 30r.

37. ibid., p. 25r.

38. UM-B, p. 29v

39. UM-A, p. 29r.

40. Two of the plays mentioned in Craig's letter of October 1905 to Shaw may have been selected from this group.

41. UM-A, p. 26r.

42. UM-B, p. 38r.

43. These are probably the plays mentioned in the letter to Shaw.

44. UM-B, p. 24r.

45. UM-A, p. 19v

46. ibid.; also UM-B, p. 26r.

47. UM-B, p. 32r.

48. ibid., p. 27v.

49. ibid., p 27v

50. ibid., p 6v

51. ibid., p 32r

52. ibid., p. 6v.

53. Francis Cotton tells of two kinds of marionettes that Craig experimented with on his model stage in Florence. One was a flat puppet, a ‘little figurant’, made of thin board; the other was ‘a very impressive creature … It was quite half the size of human life.’ See ‘Gordon Craig's Scheme to Abolish Both Actors and Playwrights’, Washington Post, 1 December 1907.

54. Craig, Edward, p. 292.Google Scholar

55. In a letter to Ellen Terry from August 1905 Craig speaks about arrangements to have ‘absolute possession of the whole theatre’.

56. UM-B, p. 24v