Chapter I: Front Matter

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_BY KENNETH MACGOWAN
THE THEATRE OF TO-MORROW._

The Redoutensaal, a great and splendid eighteenth-century ballroom in the Hofburg in Vienna, with an arrangement of curved walls, staircases and platforms newly built into one end. Here, under the light of crystal chandeliers, surrounded by the baroque beauty of Maria Theresa’s palace, audience and players unite in a relationship freed from all the associations of modern stage-setting, a relationship essentially theatrical in the newest and the oldest sense of the word. The stage is here shown cleared of all but a few chairs for the wedding scene in Mozart’s _The Marriage of Figaro_. ]

CONTINENTAL
STAGECRAFT

KENNETH MACGOWAN
ROBERT EDMOND JONES

NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO THE
PLAYWRIGHTS
OF AMERICA

Certain of the chapters and illustrations of _Continental Stagecraft_ have appeared in _Vanity Fair_, _The Century Magazine_, _Arts and Decoration_, _The Bookman_, _The Theatre Magazine_, _Harper’s Bazaar_, _The Theatre Arts Magazine_, _The Freeman_, and _Shadowland_.

PREFATORY NOTE

This book is a record of impressions gained from ten weeks of travel through the theaters of France, Sweden, Germany, Czecho-Slovakia, and Austria during April, May, and June, 1922. These impressions are partly reinforced, partly orientated, through previous visits to Paris and London, and through a long sojourn of Mr. Jones in Germany just before the war.

For the purposes of this book, the journey excluded England, because observation and reliable report showed little there that was not a faint echo of what was to be found on the Continent. Russia was regretfully excluded for reasons of time and the difficulties of travel; but fortunately we were able to see in Stockholm a performance by the touring company of the Moscow Art Theater. Though the most interesting evenings of our trip were spent in the Redoutensaal in Vienna, and in the Vieux-Colombier and the Cirque Medrano in Paris, the larger part of our time was passed in Germany, and the greater number of illustrations come from productions seen there. In Berlin, in particular, there were things to be seen which had been much discussed by American visitors—_Masse-Mensch_, the Grosses Schauspielhaus, and the work of Leopold Jessner,—and these, we felt, demanded lengthy study and analysis.

In our ten weeks Mr. Jones and I saw close to sixty performances. We had expected to find it difficult, if not impossible, to see in this time as much as we should have liked of the really significant new work of the Continental theater. But, as it happened, good fortune and the great courtesy shown us everywhere enabled us to see almost everything that we wished. Through special performances arranged by the managements of the Royal Swedish Opera and the Berlin Volksbühne, and by Jacques Copeau, director of the Vieux-Colombier, we saw half a dozen most important productions which we might otherwise have missed. Luck and the repertory system found us at various German theaters in time to witness the most characteristic and significant work of the past few years. Finally, we were fortunate enough to come upon two theaters—one accomplished, the other potential—of extraordinary interest and importance, which had not as yet been seen or discussed by American visitors, the Redoutensaal in Vienna and the Cirque Medrano in Paris. _Continental Stagecraft_ cannot pretend to be so exhaustive a study as a year’s visit would have made possible, but, in view of the exceptional circumstances, I think that it is more than proportionately representative.

With the exception of one sketch of a supposititious production in the Cirque Medrano, the illustrations show exactly what we saw and nothing else. Mr. Jones’s drawings are in themselves a kind of criticism which the modern theater stands much in need of. They give the actual visual quality of the best productions on the Continental stage far better than could photographs of settings and actors, which are usually flashlights innocent of the atmosphere produced by the stage lighting, or the designs of the scenic artists, which are sometimes imperfectly realized and sometimes bettered in actual production. Mr. Jones made his drawings as soon as might be after the performance, working from many rough notes made during the progress of the play. They are, I believe, uncommonly true to the impression gained by the audience. My only reservation would be that they catch the scene and the lighting always at the best moment, and, through the quality of the drawing, they sometimes add a beauty that is perhaps a little flattering to the original.

The text is a collaboration in ideas, though not, with the exception of the captions under the pictures, in writing. It is a compilation of our impressions, reactions, and conclusions. Because the words are my own, I have taken the liberty of the personal pronoun “I” when “we” would be editorially pompous or inexact.

The book began as an attempt to supplement the International Theater Exhibition held in Amsterdam and London during the first half of 1922. This large, varied, and arresting collection of sketches and models showed the art of the theater largely as it existed in the imaginations of the stage designers. Many of these sketches were for productions never made, some had been greatly altered for better or for worse in the course of production. It was our feeling that we might be able to add something to the knowledge which this important exhibition was spreading abroad if we could make some record, however incomplete, of the actual accomplishment of the artists upon the stage, and particularly of the directors and actors, who, after all, have the major share in the art of the theater.

We have seen so much that is interesting, so much that is significant, and a few things so stimulating and inspiriting, that we have been tempted often to push our report of impressions into an anticipation of future progress. We have, I fear, substituted our own imaginations in many places for those of the artists of the International Exhibition.

KENNETH MACGOWAN.

Pelham Manor, N. Y.,
1 August, 1922.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFATORY NOTE vii

CHAPTER

I. BEYOND REALISM 3

Some dull definitions. Realism of the flesh vs. Realism of the
spirit. In _The Cherry Orchard_ Tchehoff and the Moscow Art
Theater reach reality. A mystic picture of life beyond our
Realism.

II. THE LIVING STAGE 17

The art that lies closest to life. Because its materials are living
men and women, it should not seek the illusion of reality. Its
object is to achieve the Form of life.

III. THE PATH OF THE PLAY 27

From Realism through Expressionism. The attempts of Ibsen,
Tchehoff, Wedekind, and Strindberg to reflect the Form of life.
The expressionist movement in the German theater; its violence,
morbidity and failure. Its arresting significance. Some
examples of its vitality. Expressionism and the unconscious
Through Form to beauty.

IV. BLACK CURTAINS 40

The place of Germany in the theater. Its pioneering past and
its natural virtues and failings. A beaten and bruised people
that still makes a fine audience. Berlin becomes Broadway-ized
and morbid. Economy breeds simplicity. A new day dawns on
a black-curtained stage.

V. THE TWILIGHT OF THE MACHINES 54

Relics of the past which was once the future. The abdication
of the designers, Stern and Roller. Reinhardt seeks a new
way out. Linnebach, apostle of the machine, turns apostate.
“_Einfach_” and “_Podium_” the catch-words. Stage machinery
sinks into its place. The designer replaces the mechanician.

VI. LIGHT AS SETTING 68

From Appia’s theories of the ’nineties to the day of projected
scenery. Lamps of six thousand candle-power. Color comes
under control. The dome no longer a sky; a neutral boundary
in Jessner’s _Othello_, a void in _Masse-Mensch_, a wall to be
painted with light in a Stockholm ballet. Settings projected by
Linnebach and Hasait. Light as a dramatic _motif_.

VII. THE GERMAN ACTOR 81

The effect of the war on the German players. The break-up
of Reinhardt’s exceptional company under the pressure of war
and the motion picture. The _Festspiel_ brings them together
again. Ensemble persists in Vienna and Munich. _The S. S.
Tenacity_ as played at the Burgtheater in Vienna and at the
Vieux-Colombier. The players of the Munich State theaters.
Teutonic vitality and intensity which often become violence.

VIII. NEW ACTING FOR OLD 91

Four styles of acting: Impersonation by wigs and spirit, as
practiced by the Moscow Art Theater. Impersonation by type-casting.
The exploitation of personality by great actors.
Presentational acting, and the expository performances of the
Vieux-Colombier.

IX. THE REINHARDT TRADITION 106

In the search for the director who can fuse the new acting
and the new play we come first upon Max Reinhardt. His past
and his present. His virtues and his faults. Powerful theatricalism
in the best sense possible in the old theater. His influence
and his followers. His future.

X. THE ARTIST AS DIRECTOR 118

The advent of the artist in the theater, a functionary unknown
to Molière or Shakespeare. The designer as an originator of
directional ideas. The inevitable union of director and artist,
in the sceneryless theater of the future.

XI. A NEW ADVENTURE IN DIRECTION 130

The methods of the director of the State Theater in Berlin.
The steps and levels upon which he moves his players in
three-dimensional compositions. How he creates effective pictures
and significant groupings in _Richard III_, _Othello_ and
_Napoleon_. Distortion of natural action to make points. The
motionless actor. Arbitrary lighting. A. B. C. conceptions
and limited vision.

XII. MASSE-MENSCH—MOB-MAN 144

Jürgen Fehling of the Volksbühne adds understanding to Jessner’s
freedom and vigor. A drama of industrial revolution
produced in abstract terms and made immensely moving.
Scenery almost disappears and a workmen’s hall becomes a
flight of steps surrounded by blackness. Arbitrary light and a
chorus that speaks as one. Audience, players and play pass
through the black purgatory of revolutionary Germany.

XIII. “THE THEATER OF THE FIVE THOUSAND” 157

Reinhardt’s Grosses Schauspielhaus, the gigantic compromise between
the Greek Theater, the circus and the realistic stage,
in which he made his last effort towards a new type of production.
The failures of the building architecturally. Its
virtues and its possibilities, which the withdrawal of Reinhardt
has left unrealized.

XIV. THE THEATER OF THE THREE HUNDRED 171

Jacques Copeau’s Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris. The
naked stone stage with permanent setting which Copeau and
Jouvet created in their search for a playhouse that should
give the actor full freedom. Three productions: _Les Frères
Karamazov_, _Le Paquebot Tenacity_, _Twelfth Night_. The
quality of writer or expositor in Copeau’s performances. The
future of this theater.

XV. THE REDOUTENSAAL—A PLAYHOUSE OF PERMANENCE 184

The Redoutensaal of Marie Theresa converted by the Austrian
government into a theater without proscenium, machinery or
scenery. Audience and actors lit by crystal chandeliers and
surrounded by Gobelins and a permanent setting of baroque
architecture. Mozart and Reinhardt bring to it an old and a
new theatricalism. The principle applied to the stage and the
plays of to-day.

XVI. THE CIRQUE MEDRANO 198

The little circus on Montmartre as a presage of a theater in
which the audience will surround the players and gain a new
relationship with the play. The attempts of Reinhardt and
Gémier at the circus-theater. _Hamlet_ or _Masse-Mensch_ in the
Medrano.

XVII. THE OLD SPIRIT—THE NEW THEATER 213

Seeking both the new theater and the old spirit, Reinhardt invades
the church. The Cuckoo Theater. Religion in the
terms of the theater a thing of vital and creative spirit in Greek
times and in the Middle Ages. Can the artist of the theater
bring it out of our material age?

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IN COLOR

The Redoutensaal in Vienna _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

He Who Gets Slapped—A Pitoëff Production 24
Die Meistersinger—Setting by Roller 56
Faust—A Reinhardt Production Designed by Stern 108
Samson and Delilah—Setting by Grünewald 120
Richard III—A Jessner Production Designed by Pirchan 140
Masse-Mensch—A Fehling Production Designed by Strohbach 156
The Redoutensaal in Vienna—Scene from The Marriage of Figaro 186

IN HALF-TONE

The Cherry Orchard—A Stanislavsky Production 10
Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen—Setting by Sievert 32
Der Traum, ein Leben—Setting by Strohbach 44
Macbeth—An André Production 54
Der Schatzgräber—Setting by Pirchan 60
Das Rheingold—Setting by Linnebach and Pasetti 64
Das Rheingold: Valhalla 76
Maria Stuart: Westminster—A Weichert Production Designed by
Sievert 112
Maria Stuart: Fotheringay 114
Samson and Delilah—Setting by Grünewald 122
Uncle Vanya—A Pitoëff Production 124
Napoleon—A Jessner Production Designed by Klein 126
Othello: Before Brabantio’s House—a Jessner Production Designed
by Pirchan 128
Othello: The Handkerchief 130
Othello: Cyprus, the Castle 132
Othello: Roderigo Is Wounded 134
Richard III—A Jessner Production Designed by Pirchan 136
Richard III: Richard and His Shadow 138
Richard III: Richmond and His Army 142
Richard III: Richard’s Soliloquy 144
Richard III: Richmond’s Soliloquy 146
Masse-Mensch: Dream-picture, a Courtyard—A Fehling Production
Designed by Strohbach 148
Masse-Mensch: The Revolutionists’ Meeting 150
Masse-Mensch: The Rallying 152
Masse-Mensch: The Machine Guns 154
The Grosses Schauspielhaus: An Impression 164
Judith—At the Grosses Schauspielhaus 168
Les Frères Karamazov—A Copeau Production Designed by Jouvet 174
Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement—A Copeau Production Designed by
Jouvet 180
The Redoutensaal: A Scene from The Barber of Seville 190
The Cirque Medrano: An Impression 206
The Cirque Medrano: A Supposition 208

CONTINENTAL STAGECRAFT

CONTINENTAL STAGECRAFT