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