Edward Gordon Craig

Edward Gordon Craig CH OBE, civil 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, stage designer, graphic artist and author. He is considered one of the most important theater reformer of the 20th century.

His name is closely associated with symbolist tendencies in the theater turn of the century, the style stage, which he developed in 1905, 1908 described in the essay The Actor and the over- puppet construct the over- puppet - a larger than life inanimate figure, which in the actor intended to replace a future theater - sat realism against an artificial stylization. He was editor of The Mask (1908-1929) and The Puppet (1918/1919) and author of writings on the theory of the theater.

Life and work

The son of Ellen Terry and Edward William Godwin debuted in 1889 as an actor Henry Irving in London's Lyceum Theatre. Irving, one of the most famous actors of his time, was a great inspiration for Craig and influenced his conception of the work of the director. After several tours of the English province Craig started in 1900 in order to direct the film himself. 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 Harry Graf Kessler, who became one of his most important patrons, and the dancer Isadora Duncan know, 1905, the distinguished playwright and writer Karl Gustav Vollmoeller. 1905 arises in notebooks ( the so-called over- Marion ), the vision of an international theater of over- puppet, the same year the essay On the art of the theater has been published. Plans in 1906 to introduce the over- puppet on the 3rd German Arts and Crafts Exhibition in Dresden, the public failed. In 1907 Craig in Florence down, which later became the center of his work was. Nearby Karl Gustav Vollmoeller lived. The contact between Craig and Vollmoeller intensified between 1907 and 1910. Their common theme was the puppet and mime. 1908 entrusted Vollmoeller about his friend Max Reinhardt Craig to design a stage set for his handling of the Oresteia of Aeschylus. The project failed soon due to the incompatibility of the characters of Craig and Reinhardt. While Vollmoeller 1911 his miracles was as wordless play successfully staged by Max Reinhardt in London, failed Craig 1913 with its similar staging of the Passion in Paris. In Florence he was found in 1913 together with his assistant Dorothy Nevile Lees, a theater academy in the orphaned Arena Goldoni. Are taught in the context of a holistic theater training the principles of motion, light and working with invented by Craig screens, monochrome painted screens of various sizes that could be variably attached and moves on stage. In Florence, the two theater journals Craig, The Mask and The puppet appear. The latter deals exclusively with aspects of puppet theater. The first publication of The Actor and the over- puppet was made in the second edition of The Mask of 1908. Following the closure of the Florentine School, the First World War, wrote Craig drama for Fools, a cycle of puppet theater pieces. The collaboration with Konstantin Stanislavsky at the Moscow Hamlet of 1912 was his last practical work. Craig designed sets and costumes here. Towards a new theater in 1913 with 40 stage designs testifies. Since the beginning of the 1930s in France, Craig turned towards the end of his life in theater history to: Henry Irving (1930 ) is a tribute to the idol of his youth, Ellen Terry and Her Secret Self (1931 ) paints a picture of his mother and with index to the Story of My Days 1957 he laid before his autobiography. In 1966 he died at the age of 94 years.

For super-marionette

The decisive advantage of the puppet over the actor 's loud Craig the fact that the absence of emotion and selfishness ultimately enables a more intensive representation, as an actor is able to afford ever. The key to the principles of the aesthetics of over- puppet is the statement that art can come to the will of the artist into being only through one hundred percent subordination of creative means. Craig sentenced consequently the realism as mere imitation without genuine artistic expression. The actor lacks both the free availability of its organizational resources, as well as the ability to work independently of specific models, which is why he could not be regarded as an artist - the consequence would be to ban the actor from the stage and in its place About should be replaced by puppet. Although older literature this concept is only indicated as a metaphor for a newly created style of acting, making the notebooks Craigs yet clear how concretely was the idea of over- puppet: drawings show figures in long, gray costumes with masks, as materials leads Craig next paper mache and also fabric to wood.

Honors

• Ritter (French Chevalier ) of the Legion of Honour.

Filmography

Primary texts

• Gordon Craig on movement and dance. Edited, and with an Introduction by Arnold Rood. New York 1977.

Secondary literature

• Wild, Catherine: Beauty. The drama theory Edward Gordon Craig. Theater of the time.
• Bablet, Denis: Edward Gordon Craig. Cologne / Berlin 1965. ( = Collection Theaterwerkstatt books. Vol. 5)
• Craig, Edward Gordon Craig. The Story of his Life. London 1968.
• Eynat - Confino, Irène: Beyond the Mask. Gordon Craig, Movement, and the Actor. Carbondale / Edwardsville in 1987.
• Innes, Christopher Edward Gordon Craig: A Vision of Theatre (Contemporary Theatre Studies) ( Paperback ), 2nd expanded edition, London: Routledge, 1998, ISBN 9057021250
• Laksberg, Olaf: Marionette, che passione! The doll in the work 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. From 1872 to 1966. London 1967.
• Spieckermann, Thomas: Edward Gordon Craig and his Concept of the About Puppet Theatre. Marburg 1994.
• Spieckermann, Thomas: The world lacks and needs a Belief. Studies on the metaphysical aesthetics of theater projects Edward Gordon Craig 1905-1918. Trier 1998. ( = Leaflets. Studies to theater. Vol. 3)
• Fritthum, Michael: "I began to dream dreams ." Observations on the absorption of Edward Gordon Craig in Vienna - Review of a failure to reception. University of Vienna in 2002.