The theatre concept of the Bauhaus

Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic)

Authors Raison, William Terry, 1940-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/554662 THE THEATHE CONCEPTS OF THE BAUHAUS

"by William Teixy Baison

r A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

1 9 7 4 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This thesis has Been submitted in partial fulfillment of re­ quirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to "be made available to borrowers under rules’of the Library, Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judg­ ment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholar­ ship, In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained fiom the author.

APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below3

_____ ^ . L . V J J - / X ROSEM^Y P. GIPSONX f Date Assistant ^Professor of Drama ACKNOWIZDGMBHTS

Gratitude is expressed to Rosemary Ps Gipson, Assistant Professor of Drama, for her guidance, advice, and infinite patience. Appreciation is extended to Professor Peter R, fecroney. Head of the Department of Drama, for his support and inspiration throughout my student career. Thanks are also given to Jean Pershing for typing the final manuscript. To Gerald D, Palsson appreciation is expressed for his assistance in French translation, I am grateful to my wife, Vicki, for her understanding, encouragement, and support in reaching this goal. And to my son, Eddie, I give my thanks for giving up so much of our playtime together so that I could study.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ABSTRACT 1, BACKGROUND OF THE BAUHAUS The Post World War I Political Situation in Germany 1 The Post World. War I State of the Arts in Germany , 4 Theatre in Germany Between the World Wars 6 State Theatres 7 Private Theatres o 7 Voiksouhne 8 Proletarian Theatre 8 The Formulation of the Bauhaus Idea , „ 0 10 The Founding of the Bauhaus 14 The Stormy History of the Bauhaus , a , . 16 Weimar 1919-1925 16 Dessau and Berlin 1925-1933 « . « . . 22 THEATRE PRACTICES AT THE BAUHAUS . . . . . 25 Theatre Architecture , , , » 0 « » « » 26 Space Relationship . , . , e e « « 27 Audience Interrelationship „ 32 Functional Relationship 34 Use of the Stage 1 o 36 Scenery, Lighting, and Sound , , 0 « . 43 Costuming ...... «,o . 48 The Performer ...... 49 The Playscrlpt ...... 53 Total Theatre and Theatre of Totality 55

SPREAD OF BAUHAUS THEATRE CONCEPTS oooooo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 59

Public Performances 00000 0 0000900000000

Faculty Collaboration with Professional Theatre 0 0 0 9 0

Bauhaus Publications 00000 0 0000000000000 65

Bauhaus Faculty and Students . 00000000000000 68 LIST OF REFERENCES 77

iv ABSTRACT

The Bauhaus, a school of architecture and design in Germany "between 1919 and 1933» was founded upon the concepts that art is related to the crafts and that form follows function. The contri­ butions made by the Bauhaus to the fields of architecture, design, painting, and sculpture have been recognised by the art community of the world’ in numerous publications, theses, dissertations, and exhibits. However, the important innovations in theatre made by the Bauhaus have been neglected. Therefore, this thesis is an investi­ gation of the background of the Bauhaus; its practices in theatre architecture„ technical theatre, performance, and playscript development; and the way in which the concepts developed from these stage experiments were spread.

v CHAPTER 1

BACKGROUND OF THE BAUHAUS

Geimany, in the period "between the end of the First World War and Adolf Hitler ?s assumption of power in 1933j produced a new dem­ ocratic government which functioned for fourteen years9 despite strong opposition, created a body of art, literature, and theatre based on new concepts, and lost many of its accomplished artists and scientists who fled from Hasism, The 1920’s and 1930’s was also the era in which the Bauhans, a state-supported school of architecture and design, came into being and grew, leaving its indelible mark on education, architecture, design, theatre, and other art areas. The success of the Bauhaus and the character of Germany during this period are closely associated.

The Post World War I Political Situation in Germany During the time of the Bauhaus, several political factions existed in Germany, The three most important of these factions were8 (l) the Social Democratic Party, which founded the Weimar Republic; (2) the German Communist Party, whose strong competition weakened the political strength of the Social Democratic Party; and (3) the Nazi

Party, which ended the Weimar Republic in 1933a On November 9» 1918, in Weimar, Phillipp Scheidemann, a Social Democrat, proclaimed the Weimar Republic, Also in Weimar only a few months later, on April 1, 1919, the first proclamation of the Bauhaus

1 was issued. It was significant that the Weimar Republic and the Bauhaus came into being in such close proximity of time and place. In 1918, the German people were tired of war and ready for something new, Peter Gay, a German historian, expressed German feeling of the time in the following statements Weimar , , . came to symbolize a prediction, or at least a hope, for a new start$ it was tacit acknowledgment of the charge, widely made in allied countries during the war and indignantly denied in Germany, that there were really two Germaniess the Germany of military swagger, abject submission to authority, aggressive foreign adventure, and. obsessive preoccupation with form, and the Germany of lyrical poetry. Humanist philosophy, pacific cosmopolitanism, Germany had tried the way of Bismark and Schlieffen? now it was ready to try the way of Goethe and Humbolt (196811). Germany was ready for pacifism, humanitarianism, Socialism, and pro­ gressive reform, an atmosphere in which artists, such as those of the Bauhaus, could experiment. The Weimar Republic was an era of "creativity in the midst of suffering, hard work in the midst of re­ peated disappointments, and hope in the face of pitiless and powerful adversaries” (Stolper 1968:2), However, the Weimar Republic was not successful because it was not supported by the people; "the trauma of its birth was so severe that it could never enlist the wholehearted

loyality of all, or even many of its beneficiaries" (Gay 1968:8), Under the government of the Social.Democrats, the Germans found con­ fusion, inflation, and economic depression. According to Joachim Remak, a German historian, in the five years between 192? and 1932 unemployment in Germany rose from 1,8 million to 6,0 million and bankruptcies increased from 10,595 in 1928 to 14,138 in 1932 (1969:24) 3 Another reason for the Weimar Republic’s decline was the German Communist Rarty$ an offshoot of the Social Democratic Party, Left-wing socialist Evelyn Anderson says in her book Hammer or Anvili Each of the two parties /Communist and Social Democratic/ saw the weakness of the other through a magnifying glass without finding a way to remove the causes of its own failure, Erom the point of view of both parties, the mutual denunciations seemed justified, , , , The justice of many of the mutual accusations made it impossible for either party to attract the numbers and the followers of the other. For the ordinary German worker it became increasingly difficult to decide which of the two parties deserved more support, . . , If anything, this was clearly a case of choosing "the lesser evil" (l$&5* 142), Political bickering and reciprocal destruction went on between Germany’s two strongest parties, the Social Democrats and the Communist, weakening both factions and making the way clear for the Hasi I&rfcy to grow stronger and eventually come to power in 1933 = Popular trends, both negative and affirmative, came together to create the philosophy of the Nazi Party, There was an abundance of negative ideas, such as anti-Liberalism, anti-rationalism, anti- Marxism, anti-parliamentarianism, anti-clericalism, and anti-Semitism, in the Nazi political theory. All of the affirmative concepts of Nazism, an intense nationalism, a cult of the Nordic, a longing for a simpler and more heroic age, and a pseudobiological explanation of the universe derived from Social Darwinsim, enjoyed popular support in . Germany during the 1920’s, The popular elements of the Nazi philosophy, coupled with the extraordinary political talent of Adolf Hitler," an Austrian immigrant who had been denied admission to Vienna’s School of Architecture and was unable to decide on a career until he discovered that he had talent in public speaking? contributed to the ITazi Party’s rise to power and the downfall of the Social Democratic Party,

The Post World War I State of the Arts in Germany Hitler had some very pronounced ideas on art. He liked scenes of peasant life and realistic nudes painted by Nordic artists. What he did not like was the new art movement, or as he called it in Mein Eampf, "the sickly excrescences of lunatics or of degenerate people which since the turn of the century we have learned to know under the collective conception of cubism or dadaism” (1939^353)• Before the rise of Hitler, German Royalty set a precedence for tasteless and showy art. Gay stated that during the late nineteenth century, "The Emperor William II and his Empress, Auguste Victoria, set the tone, and their taste ran to gaudy parades, glittering medals, sentimental heroic portraits; the Siegasalle in Berlin, an ambitious double row of marble statues commemorating the unmemorable, was expression and symptom, of Wilhelminion taste" (1968;3)o Even among the, German people strong feelings against the new art rose, "As early as 1919 there was talk of ’art Bolshevism which must be wiped out8 and even then there were appeals to the ’national German spirit’ of artists who were to rescue mature art” (Bayer, Gropius, and Gropius 1952s9)= Despite the negative attitude toward new art in Germany, expressionism, a segment of the international movement of experi­ mentation in the arts with antecedents in symbolism and romanticism, became strongly established among the artists of that country. The 5 term was coined in 1901 "by Jullen Serve 9 a French painter9 to describe the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh; Paul Cezanne, and Henri Matisse, Then ten years later the word expressionism was applied to the work of Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, In 1911 Herman Bahr introduced the term to Germany as a label for experimental tendencies already underway in literature and in the visual arts. Groups and associations of artists, such as Die Bracks, The Bridge, founded in Dresden in 1905 by Erich Heckel, Ernst Kirchner 3 and Karl Schmidt-Hottluff g and Per Blaue Reiter, The Blue Eider, founded in Munich in 1911 by Wassily Kandinsky, Alfred Kubin, and Alexi von Jawlensky, exhibited paintings which were influenced by The Fauve painters of France and the Art Nouveau of Holland, and were called expressionistic9 Expressionism also found its way into German sculpture in the work of such sculptors as Wilhelm Lembruck, Georg Kolbe, and Ernst Barlach, " In the art of dance, Mary Wigman, Kurt Jooss, and Harold Kreutzburg experimented with expressionism. Such writers as Franz Kafka, Theodore Daubler, and Franz Werfel were literature's expressionists (Kuhn 1957). , With a private performance of Walter Hasenclever's The Son, in 1916, expressionism made its formal debut into theatre. Playwrights Reinhard Serge, Paul Kornfeld, Walter Hasenclever, Carl Sternheim, George Kaiser,- Oskar Kokoschka, Ivon Goll, Amolt Bronnen, Ernst Toller, and Bertolt Brecht wrote plays which had qualities attributed to expressionistic dram,, Expressionistic drama can be defined by the material with which it dealt, the way in which it was constructed, and the manner in which it was presented. The writers of expressionistic dram, dealt with both abstract and concrete material. In the realm of the abstract, expression!stic dram tried to present subjective values and to see beyond reality to emotional truth „ In its concrete material, expressionistic drama was drama.of immediate revolt which attacked war, business, and government. The structure of expression- istic drama was apt to be episodic; its dialogue ranged from lyric to telegraphic $ its characters were usually types rather than represen­ tations of individual human beings; and its dialogue was punctuated with reflective monologues. Productions of expressionistie drama used symbols; flat, angular, distorted scenery; projections of subjective

ideas; and mechanical movement of actors. (Sokel 1963)0 Expressionistie dram seemed to thrive on the uncertainties which characterised the first five years of the Weimar Republic and

during the five year period between 1918 and 1923s expressionism dominated the German stage. Then in"1923, when economic stability returned to Germany, the popularity of expressionist dram subsided, and by 1925 expressionism was dead as a conscious movement. As expressionistie dram faded from the stage if was replaced by a revival of pre-World War I realism and naturalism called Heue Sachlichkeit, Neo-realism, and by the politically oriental prolitarian drama.

Theatre in Germany Between the World Wars Between 1919 and 1933 Germany enjoyed a wide range of theatre experience, A theatre-goer could choose between expressionistie dram or classical drama at one of the state theatres; popular drama at a privately owned theatre; inexpensive entertainment at the Yolksbuhne;

or political drama at a Proletarian Theatre (Broekett 1968), State Theatres In 1919s when Germany became a democracy under the Social Democratss the royal theatres were renamed state theatres. The old royal theatres of Germany, such as the theatre of the Duke of Saxe-Meifiingen, had been providing inexpensive drama for the German people since the first state-supported theatre was established at Gotha in 1775. In 1919; when the censorship of theatre imposed during the First World War was lifted, the state theatres began to experiment. For example, the expressionistic work of Leopold Jessner was done at the Berlin State Theatre, However, despite his fame as an expres­ sionist director, Jessner*s repertory was composed primarily of classics. As well as the classics and the new experimental dramas, the state theatres presented opera and music festivals (Brockett 1968),

Private Theatres Private theatres were owned and operated by German businessmen in order to make a profit. Because of the chaotic, post-war economic situation, private theatre owners chose plays with wide popular appeal. Even Max Reinhardt, who worked in both private theatre and the Volksbuhne and was the dominant director in post-Wcrld War I theatre, felt the economic pressure in his enormous Grosse Schausoielhaus, In order to continue to present plays such as Aeschylus’ Orssteia, Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar, and Hauptmann’s The Weavers, and still attract an audience, Reinhardt set his ticket prices at approximately one-half those charged by other major theatres in Berlin, Lower ticket prices did not offset economic problems and in 1922 Reinhardt abandoned the Grosse Schanspielhaus, his one remaining theatre enterprise in Berlin at the time, and moved to Austria, After economic stability had returned to Germany in 1924, Reinhardt resumed his Berlin operations. The other private theatre operators, despite the improved economic conditions, continued their practice of choosing only entertainment for their theatres which was sure to draw large audiences (Brockett and Findlay 1973:401),

Volksbuhne The Volksbuhne, the peopled stage, originated in the 1890's, and was a champion of naturalistic drama at its inception. Prior to World War I the Volksbuhnen movement was active primarily in Berlin and Vienna, but during World War I, Volksbuhne productions were practically non-existent. With the end of the war the Volksbuhne increased the scope of its activity, Hugh F, Garten, German theatre historian, stated that in 1918 the VolksbtBine in Berlin presented "revivals of Strindberg's Road to Damascus and Luther as well as outstanding specimens of expressionist dram such as Georg Kaiser's Die Berger Von Calais and Gas, and Ernst Toller's Mass Hensch" (1959$168), The growth of the Volksbhhnen movement after the First World War was phenomenal. The two original VolksbShnen movements in Berlin and Vienna generated so much interest that "by 1933 there were more than 300 Volksbuhnen groups in Germany” (Brockett and Findlay 1973 $397)®

Proletarian Theatre The German Proletarian Theatre had its beginnings in the work of Karlheinz Martin, who based his work on the Russian Agitprop 9 Theatre, Martin founded the Tribune Theatre in Berlin In 1919 through which he hoped to establish a link between the theatre and the working class. In 1920 Martin joined the Proletarian Theatre, a theatre which was milder In its communal and partisan ideals than the Tribune Theatre, There Martin combined his ideas with those of Erwin Piseator, who was in control of the Proletarian Theatre, In 1920 Martin resigned from the Proletarian Theatre and went to work for Reinhardt, Piseator carried on the work in political theatre and stated the following dramatic theories in an article published in the October 1920 issue of The Antagonists (1) drama must be subordinated to revoluntionary ends, even if this means altering scripts$ (2) production style should be simple and direct so that the revoluntionary aim remains clear to all 5 (3) new techniques should be used only insofar as they help to convey meaning; (4) productions should represent a collective effort of all workers; (5) actors should be recruited from the working class rather than being a separate professional group (Brockeit and Findlay 1973:407), Thus,' Piseator8 s earliest interest in theatre was in reaching socio­ political goals. From 1921 to 1924 Piseator worked in the Central Theatre in Berlin until financial problems caused him to close. The Berlin Volksbuhne appointed Piseator to its directing staff in 1924, and he took the opportunity to create proletarian drama as opposed to merely providing standard plays for a working class audience. In 1927 Piseator was forced to resign over the controversy aroused by his reshaping of the playscript of Ehm Welk’s Storm over Gothland, After 10 his resignation from the Volksbuhns, Piscator organised his own theatre in Berlin where until 1930 he experimented with filmed sequencesg cartoons, treadmills, and segmented settings in order to draw strong parallels "between the dramatic event and the real situation, Piscator1s experiments were associated with epic theatre of which Bertolt Brecht became the major theoretician and dramatist,. In 1933? with the advent of Hitler, theatrical activity that was not acceptable to the Nazi Party came to an end, German theatrical workers, who did not want to follow Nazi Party guidelines emigrated, stopped producing, or went underground (Brocket*.and Findlay 1973),

The Formulation of the Bauhaus Idea Nearly forty years before the Bauhaus was founded, William Morris, an Englishman, formulated the concepts which were expanded and modified into the Bauhaus idea, Morris9 concept, that art was inseparable from labor, had resulted from his reaction to the artistic confusion of the 18809s and from his observation of the adverse effect of machine-made products on craftsmen and artists. In an article written for Commonweal magazine in April 1885, Morris stateds The chief source of art is man’s pleasure in his daily necessary work, which expresses itself and is embodied in that work itself$ nothing else can make the common surroundings of life beautiful, and whenever they are beautiful it Is a sign that men’s work has pleasure in it, however they may suffer other­ wise, It is the lack of this pleasure in daily work which has made our towns and habitations sordid and hideous, insults to the beauty of the earth which they disfigure, and all the accessories of life mean, trivial, ugly— in a word, vulgar (Morris 19628140-141), Morris proposed that people do without items which had to be 11 mass-produced, thus allowing workers to return to the crafts and do only work which had its "basis in art. Craftsmen were to produce only goods whose production expressed the joy they found in their labor,. Morris* aim was to improve the world by improving the lot of the worker. In a lecture to a graduating class of the Birmingham School of the Arts, Morris said; If, we then, with our eyes cleared, could but make some sacrifice of things which do us no good, since we unjustly and uneasily possess them," then indeed I believe we should . sow the seeds of a happiness which the world has not yet known,' of a rest and content which would make it what I . cannot help thinking it was meant to be? and with that seed would be sown also the seed of real art, the expression of man's happiness in his labour,--an art made by the people, and for the people, as a happiness to the maker and the user (Morris 19^8;534-535)» Morris* concepts found their way into the Deutefaer Werkbund, the German Peoples Work Union, through the Grand Duke of Hesse, who commissioned Charles Ashbee, one of Morris* followers in England, to execute designs for work at the castle at Darmstadt0 Herman Muthesius, a German architect, became interested in Ashbee*s work at Darmstadt and . made a study of it, Muthesius was among the founders of the Deutcher Werkbund, The statutes of the Werkbund stated that its purpose was to unite "artists, craftsmen," experts and patrons, intent on an improve­ ment of production through colloboration of art, industry, and the crafts, through training, publicity and the forming of a united front" (Scheidig 1967s9). Morris* early contribution to the Deutcher Werkbund was recognised by Walter Gropius, a member of that organization, when he stated that Morris* Ideas were taken up in the late nineteenth century "by a group of architects who later, in 1907, founded the Deutcher WerKbund (1936:43), Henry van de Velde, one of the founders of the Deutcher WerKbund, was the first to put Morris’ ideas into practical applica­ tion in a German school of arts and crafts. Van de Velde, director of the Weimar School of Arts and Grafts from 1902to 1914, based the work done in his school on the idea of individual craftsmanship competing economically with mass production, but rising above it, in quality (Scheidig 1967:12). Three architects, who studied in the United States, contributed another idea to the concept of the Bauhaus, Adolf Loos, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright were the first architects to insist that form follow function in architecture. Alexander Domer says of Loos, "By 1900 Adolf Loos, a Viennese partly trained in the United States, dared to banish all ornament from his buildings" (Domer 1952:11). Joseph Watterson, writer and lecturer on architecture, wrote the following about Louis Sullivans "By 1899» in the building now occupied by the Carson Pirie Scott department store in Chicago, Sullivan showed the full development of his theory that the design of a building should express its construction and its function" (1968:359). Finally, Frank Lloyd Wright in a speech to the University Guild in Evanston, Illinois, in 1894, said, "Avoid all things which have no real use or meaning, and make those which have especially significant, for there is no one part of your building that may not be made a thing of beauty in itself as related to the whole" (Gutheim 1941:3). The idea of art related to the crafts proposed by Morris«, adopted by the Deatcher Werkbund, and taught by van de Verde; and the idea of form related to function established by Loos, Sullivan, and Wright were the primary ideas of the Bauhaus under the directorship of Walter Gropius, Gropius, born in Berlin in 18839 constructed the first build­ ings of his own design in 1906-190? in Pomerania, and went on to establish his reputation with the designs for the Fagus shoe-last factory at Alfeld-on-the-Seine in 1911 and the model factory for the Werkband Exhibition in Cologne in 19X4» In April of 1919 Gropius declared his conception of the Bauhaus in the statement of purpose which he wrote to accompany the First Proclamation of the Bauhausg The Bauhaus strives to reunite arts and crafts— sculpture, painting, applied art, and handicrafts— as the permanent elements of a new architecture. The ultimate, though distant aim of the Bauhaus is the Einheitskunsiwerk (Universal work of art)— . the great construction that recognizes no boundaries between monumental and decorative art. The Bauhaus wants to educate architects, painters and sculptors of all sorts to become qualified craftsmen or independent creative artists (Gropius 1970s9), The term Bauhaus was coined to complement the concept of the school Gropius wanted to create, Bauhaus “was a new adaptation of the medieval concept of the Bauhutte, the headquarters of the cathedral builders5’ (Wensinger 1961850), In the First Proclamation of the Bauhaus, published on April 1, 1919» Gropius summarized his thoughts on education and the arts, and projected the Bauhaus ideas 14 The complete building is the final aim of the visual arts. Their noblest function was once the decoration of buildings. Today they exist in isolation, from which they can be rescued only through the conscious, cooperative effort of all crafts­ men, Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognise anew the composite character of a building as an entity. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit that it lost when it became a "salon art,” The old art schools were unable to achieve this unity and, after all, how could they, since art cannot be taught? They must be absorbed once more by the workshop. This world of designers and decorators, who only draw and paint, must finally become one of builders again. If the young person who feels within him the urge to create again, as in former times, begins his career by learning a handicraft, the unproductive artist will, in the future, no longer remain condemned to the creation of mediocre art, because his skill will redound the benefit of the handicrafts, in which he will be able to produce things of excellence. Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all turn to the crafts! Art is not a profession. There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies a source of creative imagination. Let us create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist. Together let us conceive and.create the new building of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will rise one day toward heaven from the hands of a million workers, like the crystal symbol of a new faith (Gropius 1970*9). With the First Proclamation of the Bauhaus, Gropius advanced the concepts of Morris even further than had the Werkbund and Interrelated the architectural ideas of Loos, Sullivan, and Wright,

The Founding of the Bauhaus In Weimar just before World War I there were two state- supported schools associated with the arts* the Weimar School of 15 Fine Arts, involved primarily with teaching painting and sculptureg and the Weimar School of Arts and Grafts, under the directorship of van de Velde, and concerned with advancing the ideas of the Deutcher Wer&bund. The Bauhaus came into existence when the Weimar School of Fine Arts and the Weimar School of Arts and Grafts were united under the direction of Gropius, The combination of the two schools was important in the development of the idea of the relationship of art to the work done in industry? ”By achieving this union in 1919 at the Bauhaus, he /Gropius/ took a most important and- decisive step, for every student at the Bauhaus was trained by two teachers in each subject— by an artist and a master craftsman” (Dorner 1952?12), Hot only was Walter Gropius the first director of the Bauhaus, but he was the school’s raison d'etre. In July 1914 van de Velde resigned under political pressure as the director of the Weimar School of Arts and Grafts, When the First World War began for Germany on August 4, 1914, the plans for continuing the school under a new director were postponed. The Weimar School of Arts and Grafts was officially closed on the first of October 1915s not to be reopened until after the war. In 1915? (the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar contacted Gropius, who was serving as a lieutenant in the German Army, about the directorship. Gropius was interested, but was unable to leave the army at the time. During the reminder of the war, Gropius corresponded with the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, • In 1918, Gropius used his correspondence with the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar to convince those newly in power in Weimar that he should be appointed not only director 16 of the School of Arts and Grafts, hut also director of the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts; Having asked for, and been accorded, full powers in regard to reorganisation I assumed control of the Weimar School of Arts and Grafts, and also the Weimar Academy of Fine Art, in the spring of 1919. As a first step towards a much wider plan— in which my primary aim was that the principle of training the individual's natural capacities to grasp life as a whole, a single cosmic entity, should form the basis of instruction throughout the school instead of in only one or two arbitrarily "specialized" classes— I amalgamated these institutions into a Hochschmle fur Gestaltung, or High School of Design, under the name of Das Staatliche Bauhaus Weimar (Gropius 1936;35-36), With the combination of the School of Arts and Grafts and the School of Fine Arts, Gropius established the Bauhaus, a school in which he could foster his ideas on art, crafts, industry, architecture, and design.

The Stormy History of the Bauhaus

Weimar 1919-1925 Several of the faculty members already in place at the two - Weimar schools did not fit into Gropius' concept of an ideal faculty. The ideal faculty for the new school, according to Gropius, would be a group of talented artists and craftsmen who shared his ideas on art’s relationship to industry and who would work , toward realizing these ideas; I saw that an architect cannot hope to realise his ideas unless he can influence the industry of his country sufficiently for a new school of design to arise as a result; and unless that school succeeds in acquiring authoritative significance, I say, too, that to make this possible would require a whole staff of collaborators and assistants; men who would work, not automatically as an orchestra obeys its conductor’s baton, but Independently, although in close cooperation, to further a common cause (193683^-35)» 17 Gropius9 task was to find artists and craftsmen capable and willing to become part of his ideal faculty. With the initiation of the Bauhaus in 1919» Gropius chose three new faculty members. One of the new teachers was Johannes Itten, a nan who would cause an internal controversy at the Bauhaus which would nearly destroy it. The conflict arose between Gropius9 ideas of functional art and Itten9s ideas of art as a separate entity from technology, "To Itten art was primarily a psychic means of expression, of high ethical and educational value, Itten did not follow Gropius9 pragmatic tendencies in his philosophical determined teaching a fact which, especially during 1921-1922, caused very tens© relations within the Bauhaus" (Wingler I969A 9). ^he relations did not improve because neither Itten nor Gropius could change their view. While Gropius urged students and faculty to see art in terms of the reality of everyday living, Itten sought to transcend reality in his art. The tense situation continued and separate factions became apparent within the Bauhaus, The conflict between Itten and Gropius could have destroyed the school except for the diplomacy of Gropius, He did not insist that Itten or any of the faculty abandon their philosophies and in this way won many friends to his cause, Lyonel Feininger, an instructor at the Bauhaus, wrote the following in a letter to his wife, "Gropius sees in art the craft— I see the spirit. But he would never ask me to modify my approach to art and I will stand by him in every possible way because he is a genuine and sincere man, a great idealist, and totally without egotism" (Wingler 1969*34), 18 At the end of 1922, Gropius made an effort to end the conflict and sent the following statement to the Bauhaus staff; Itten , . , has recently challenged us— we must each decide - for ourselves whether we should pursue our individual talents in opposition to the outside world or whether we should seek - an affinity with industry, , , , I am seeking for unity in the combination, not in the separation of these two ways of life (Naylor 1968:70). Gropius9 defense against the challenge of Itten was a firm restatement of the principles on which the Bauhaus had 'seen founded. In 1921, Theo van Doesburg, a Dutch painter and architect, arrived in Weimar with his de Stijl group theories on constructivism. De Stijl theories, much akin to the Bauhaus theories, "were dedicated to the fusion of art and life and art and technology in order to create a more acceptable environment for twentieth century man” (Naylor 196887l)o Van Doesburg was attracted to the Bauhaus because of the school’s ideas on art related to the crafts, but was repelled by the artistic theories of Itten, In his magazine, De Stijl, van Doesburg stated that, "Itten’s preliminary course was not a suitable preparation for architecture, on the basis of a craft” (Scheidig 1967324)„ The hiring of van Doesburg could have been a simple solution to the conflict between Itten and Gropius, The artistic ideas of Gropius and van Doesburg’s constructivism were compatible and van Doesburg seemed to have a personality strong enough to offset that of Itten, However, Gropius was not interested in forcing any of the many art movements of the time on his Bauhaus students, not even movements that paralleled his own ideas. 19 Gropius did not hire van Doesimrgg but rather hired Wassily Kandinsky, Because of Kandinsky’s established reputation as a famous expressionist painter, the Bauhaus gained in stature. After Kandinsky’s appointment to the Bauhaus faculty, van Doesburg published an article in Be Sti.jl in which "the Thuringian State was blamed for committing a crime against civilization by spending large sums of money on a project like Gropius’ Bauhaus" (Scheidig 1967:28). How Gropius had opposition, from van Doesburg as well as Itten, In the spring of 1923 the problems with both van Doesburg and Itten were solved, Itten resigned because of "the limitations of his work imposed by the re-arrangements in the workshops at Kandinsky’s appointment" (Scheidig 1967:29). Gropius made peace with van Doesburg by hiring a young Hungarian constructivist named Laszlo Moholy-Nagy to replace Itten. By diplomacy and some important staff changes, Gropius kept an internal conflict from destroying the young Bauhaus. The problems between Itten, van Doesburg, and Gropius were not the only conflicts which confronted the Bauhaus in the first six years of its life. FTom the very beginning of the Bauhaus in 1919» Gropius and the citizens of Thuringia, the state in which Weimar is located, had not been in agreement on the purpose of the school: . What made the Bauhaus suspect in the eyes of the residents of Weimar was not only the novelty of its artistic conceptions, but most of all its social tendencies, which were labeled anarchistic, „ , , What the Bauhaus produced turned out to be something quite different from the kind of achievement in craftsmanship the public had come to expect from the postulates of the program. The suspicion deepened further when, in the beginning, practically nothing was produced (W ingler 1969:4). The suspicion on the part of the people of Weimar grew into dislike with two events. First, Gropius hired Feininger to fill one of the positions in the Bauhaus which had been vacated during the First World War, Feininger had been a resident of Weimar from 1906 to 1914 and was well-known but not necessarily liked by the townspeople!. Walther Scheidig states in Grafts of the Weimar Bauhaus, "By appointing Lyenel Feininger, Gropius had lost the sympathy of circles close to the Lord Chamberlain6s /of Thuringia/ office, and of the Weimar reactionaries" (1967115)0 Furthermore, Gropius sparred the dislike of the citizens of Weimar with his hiring and discharging of faculty members, "Replacement ©f certain members of the old staff, who did not fit into the new educational line at the Bauhaus, led to bitter controversy with the older generation of artists in Weimar" (Bayer, Gropius, and Gropius 1952*18), The tension caused by the hiring of Feininger and the firing of certain teachers smoldered under the surface temporarily, because Gropius’ opponents believed that he had had the backing of the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar as well as the State Commissioner, When, in the early part of 1920, Fritz Hackensen, Gropius’ predecessor at the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts, declared the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar had not backed Gropius the underlying tension surfaced in the form of government opposition to the Bauhaus, "On 4 April 1921 the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts was re-opened as an independent institution, not under Gropius, but in the same building. The painters, Walther Klemm 21 and Max Ihedy, and the sculptor, Richard Engelmann, ceased to "be Bauhaus teachers” (Scheidig 1967=23)» In addition, beginning in 1922 government officials stopped cooperating with Emil Bangs, the Bauhaus business manager. In a letter to Gropius, Lange stated, "The official attitude, which had hitherto been indifferent, has changed to open animosity" (Bayer, Gropius, and Gropius 1952:90), Then in 1923 the Thuringian government demanded the Bauhaus show its work and thereby prove its worth. An exhibition of Bauhaus work was scheduled, against Gropius’ will, for the summer of 1923, The exhibition was a success, "Only a few realized In the summer of 1923» how Gropius and his Bauhaus community had turned an exhibition, forced on them prematurely, into an outstanding success" (Scheidig 1967*32), The success of the exhibition did not bring Gropius and the government together. The opposition to the Bauhaus continued and on December 23, 1924, the government served notice that the Bauhaus could only continue on a six-month-at-a-time renewal basis. This was reasoned by government officials to be necessary because of the financial problems that were plaguing Germany at the time, Gropius’ reaction to this move was quick and final: As a reply to this unreasonable suggestion, which did not allow for continuous work at the school, Gropius and the Formmeister published, three days later, on 26 December, 1924, a declaration of the closing down of the Bauhaus in Weimar, as from 31 March 1925 when their contracts would come to an end. The government accepted this declaration, though a state institution could not actually be dissolved by a director and staff under notice (Scheidig 1967:36), With this December 1924 declaration, the Weimar era of the Bauhaus came to an end. Dessau and Berlin 1925-1933 In April of 1925 the Banhaus moved to Dessau, Despite uncertainty about whether or not the school would re-open, Gropius, Feininger, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Moholy-Nagy, Georg Muche, and Oskar Schlemmer remained with the Banhaus when it moved to Dessau, The first four years in Dessau brought the application of the Banhaus ideas in the construction of new buildings, a new approach to teaching, a wider acceptance of the Banhaus form of art education, and the resignation of Gropius as director of the Banhaus, , Dr. Frits Hesse, mayor of Dessau in 1925, was the man most responsible for the Banhaus moving to Dessau, "On his Jesse’s/ initia­ tive, the Banhaus was transferred from Weimar to Dessaui he loyally supported Its principles§ and thanks to him it was able to develop relatively undisturbed for a number of years" (Bayer, Gropius, and Gropius 1952898), Hesse also convinced the Dessau city government to provide money for seven houses for the former Weimar instructors and a new building to house the Banhaus«, Gropius used the opportunity of putting up new buildings to apply the Banhaus ideas "The acid test of attempting to coordinate several different branches of design in the actual course of building proved entirely successful , . , the band of fellow workers inspired by a common will I had once dreamed of had became a reality" (Gropius 1936s64), Also in Dessau, Gropius installed a different form of teaching than he had had in the Weimar Banhaus 0 At Weimar each class had been taught by two instructors, one craftsman and one artist, Gropius 23 explained the Dessau approach,to teaching in his book The Hew Architecture and the Bauhaus s The dual control of each workshop by a teacher of design and a practical instructor was now superseded by that of a single master. In point of fact the fusion of their separate spheres had (as was hoped) been automatically effected in the course of training the first generation. Five old Bauhaus students were chosen as heads of the new workshops (1936s63)* The five former Bauhaus students who became Dessau Bauhaus instructors were Joseph Albers 9 Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Hinnerk Scheper, and Joost Schmidt, During the first Dessau years, 1925 to 1928, the Bauhaus enjoyed much success and acceptance of its ideas. Several art schools and technical schools at home and abroad adopted the Bauhaus curriculum as their pattern, German industry began to mass-produce Bauhaus models and to seek our collaboration in the design of new ones. Many former Bauhaus pupils obtained prominent positions in industrial concerns on account of their all-round training; others were appointed to teaching posts in foreign institutes. In short, the intel­ lectual objective of the Bauhaus had been fully attained (Gropius 1936567), Gropius saw the success of the Bauhaus as an assurance that the school would continue in the future and he resigned as director to return to the practice of architecture, ”In 1928, when I felt the stability and future of the Bauhaus were assured, I handed over control to my successor; and returned to practice in Berlin where I could devote more of my time to the sociological and structural aspects of housing"

(Gropius 1936:65), The Bauhaus school continued under the direction of Hannes Meyer, director of the Bauhaus architecture workshop and long time friend of Gropius, until 1930, Meyer fell into conflict with the local government and resigned„ Miles van der Eohe immediately replaced Meyer, In October 1932 when the Nazi Party took control of Anholt, the state in which Dessau lies, the Bauhaus was forced to move to Berlin, The school functioned in temporary quarters as a private institution until closed "by the Nazi Party in April 1933. When the Bauhaus closed in 1933 its fourteen years of operation had resulted in the establishment of the idea of art as related to the crafts and technology, the training of the approximately 1250 students, a new type of art education adopted "by art schools both in Europe and abroad, a practical application of the theory that form follows func­ tion in both architecture and design, new concepts in the arts, and a dedicated faculty and alumni who spread the Bauhaus ideas to Europe, America and Australia, CHAPTER 2

THEATRE PRACTICES AT THE BAUHAUS

The Bauhaus had a stage workshop from 1921 ? when Lothar Schreyer was appointed to the faculty, until Oskar Schlemmer left the school to teach In Breslau in 1929. However, theatre activity at the Bauhaus began before the stage workshop was formally established, "From the first day of its existence, the Bauhaus sensed the impulse for creative theatre? from that first day the play instinct was present” (Schlemmer 1961b:82), Theatre activity manifested itself as early as 1919 to the form of costume parties, improvisations, and parodies. In 1921 Gropius hired Lothar Schreyer, the director of the theatre at Der Sturm Galleries in Berlin, to head the new Bauhaus stage workshop, Schreyer taught at the Bauhaus until 1923, when he resigned over a conflict between his expressionist views and the artistic views of Gropius, Schlemmer, director of the Bauhaus sculpture workshop, replaced Schreyer as stage workshop director immediately. Except for a period of six months during the time the Bauhaus was being relocated to Dessau and the stage workshop was not officially active, Schlemmer was the director of theatre activity at the school. During the period of official inactivation of the stage workshop, theatre activity was carried on at the Bauhaus by Alexander Schawinsky, a former student at the Weimar Bauhaus, In 1929, a year after Gropius resigned as Bauhaus

25 26 director (, Schlemmer left the school and the stage workshop was officially closed. The freedom of expression enjoyed ■'by B&uhaus students in the other workshops was also present in the stage workshop. In the eight- year existence of the Bauhaus stage workshop, its teachers and students produced varied and inventive, approaches to theatre architecture, the use of the stage, scenery, lighting, sound, and costume, the role of the performer, and the development of the playseript. The theatre practices which came out of the stage workshop contributed to the composition of the Bauhaus concepts of total theatre and theatre of totality.

Theatre Architecture In their designs for theatre "buildings Bauhaus architects dealt with three different relationships8 (l) space relationship or the arrangement of the play action with the audience, (2) audience inter­ relationship or the communion "between spectators because of their proximity, and (3) functional relationship or the suitability of the theatre "building for the kind of production being presented in it. Hone of the four theatres designed by Bauhaus architects were ever built and their treatment of space relationship, audience inner- relationship, and functional relationship remained theory for others to put into practice. 27 Space Relationship Bauhaus architects attempted to remove artificial harriers between audience and action in their theatre designs; "There would be further enrichment if the present isolation of the stage could be eliminated. In today’s theatreg STAGE AND SPECTATOR are too much separated, too obviously divided into active and passive, to be able to produce creative relationships and reciprocal tensions" (Moholy-Nagy

1961167)0 Furthermore, the deep stage of Germany in the 1920’s was considered limited by Bauhaus theatre architects; Much as spatial separation of the two different worlds, the auditorium and the stage, has helped to bring about technical progress, it fails to draw the spectator physically into the. orbit of the play; being on the other side of the curtain or orchestra pit, he remains beside the drama, not in it. The theatre is thereby robbed of one of its strongest means to make the spectator participate in the drama (Gropius 1961s 22)a The Bauhaus theatre architects designed theatres in which they experi­ mented with the use of different space relationships in an attempt to overcome the limitations of the deep stage. Gropius and three Bauhaus students, Schawinsky, Andreas Weininger and Farkas Molnar, formulated plans for theatres which used various space relationships to cause the audience "to shake off its inertia when it experiences the surprise of space transformed" (Gropius 1961:12). Gropius and Molnar experimented with new concepts applied to conventional theatre buildings while Schawinsky and Weininger abandoned the traditional theatre building for an architec­ tural sphere in their designs. The Space Theatre„ designed by Schawinsky, varied the relation­ ship of the audience to the action of the play by suspending various stages such as an elevator tower, bridges, revolving platforms, trampolines, and a large glass tank filled .with water, above, beside, and below suspended audience platforms. The intermixing of the audience and the play action within the space of the theatre permitted "a performance to take place on different levels—-above, below, opposite or sidewards from the viewer, , „ . The action was to take place through the whole interior" (Schawinsky 1971s4l=A2) „ Schawinsky8s plan to reduce the artificial barriers was to mix the spectators and the action on suspended platforms within a sphere. There was, however, still an artificial separation inasmuch as the spectators were confined to their platforms while the performers were confined to theirs. In his Spherical Theatre, Weininger, a performer in Schlemmer’s productions, seated the audience around the action by placing the spectators in seats on the inner surface of the globe. The stage consisted of spiral footpaths, square platforms of different sizes, trapeze equipment, and a rotating ball all emanating from a pole which was mounted at the vertical axis of the sphere, Weininger saw the novel arrangement as a way to create a new space relationships- "Because of their all-encompassing view, because of centripetal force, they find themselves in a new psychic, optical, acoustical relation­ ship; they find themselves confronted with new possibilities for concentric, eccentric, multi-directional, mechanical space-stage phenomena" (Weininger 1961a89), Weininger8s Spherical Theatre offered 29 a new space relationship from that found in deep stage theatres "by surrounding the action with the audience. Because its stage allowed vertical movement, the Spherical Theatre made possible more space relationships than traditional arena theatre. The artificial barriers were reduced in Weininger’s theatre design compared to deep stage and arena and the possibilities for varied space relationships were increased, but the audience remained physically separated from the action, Gropius and Molnar envisioned structures more conventional than spheres in their theatre designs, and based their ideas on the traditional stage forms which, according to Gropius, were the central arena, the Greek proscenium, and the deep stage, Molnar, in his design for the U-Theatre, planned for varying space relationships by arranging raked auditorium seating in the shape of the letter U around a combination of four different stages, a cylindrical elevator with bridges, and an unspecified number of other bridges. The first of the four stages, 12 meters by 12 meters, was a thrust which jutted out into the U-shaped audience area to the first row of seats at the curved part of the U0 The stage could be raised and lowered as a whole or in parts. In its mid-position the first stage was slightly below the level of the first row of seats. Action was visible from three sides up to 270°, Molnar intended the first stage for productions such as dance, acrobatics, and experimental work, such as Schlemmer*s,

Directly behind the first stage and on the same level as the first row of the auditorium was the second of the four stages, which measured 6 meters by 12 meters „ The hack wall of the second stage consisted of two metal sheets on rollers. By rolling the metal sheets off into the wings, the third stage, framed by a proscenium, was revealed. The floor of the third stage was a wheeled platform which could be moved to either side or the rear for scenery changes. The floors of the second and third stages were on the same level. In combination or separately, the two stages were meant for, "traditional intimate theatre productions" (Molnar 1961:74), Suspended directly above the second stage, the fourth stage, added a vertical dimension to the U-Theatre’s space relationships. The fourth stage was above the main auditorium seating, directly across from the single balcony, and below the two loges. The fourth stage was 6 meters by 12 meters and was intended for both musicians and stage action. Space relationship could be changed during a production in the U-Theatre by moving the action from one stage to another or by having action on two or more stages at the same time, Molnar offered variation in space relationship beyond that of the four stages with a cylindrical elevator which was moveable in all directions above the first, second, and fourth stages and the auditorium. The two doors of the elevator opened onto a long narrow platform which Molnar called a bridge. This bridge was attached to the cylinder and provided a means for the actors to reach the balcony and loges. With the mobility of the elevator and its bridge Molnar offered the possibility of changing space relationship without a break in the play. The action on the elevator could be moved closer to or farther 31 away from certain sections of the audience and the bridge allowed the performers to enter the audience area, Molnar also mentions, "but does not explain in his plan, other suspended bridges and drawbridges between the stages and the balconies. The director in the U-Theatre could place the play action behind a proscenium, on a thrust, above the audience, below the audience, or in the audience. Action could be limited to one area such as the deep stage or spread to the entire space of the theatre. In 1927 Piscator commissioned Gropius to design a theatre building which would be a showplace for Picator’s theatrical experiments. In the Synthetic Total Theatre, the building he designed for Piscator, Gropius said he was attempting to achieve "unity of the scene of action and the spectator, the mobilization of all three- dimensional means to shake of the audience's intellectually directed apathy, to overwhelm them, stun them, and to force them to participate in experiencing the play" (Wingler 1969§419)« To accomplish his goals Gropius designed his theatre with four kinds of staging, two kinds of scenery, and a single seating area, Gropius incorporated the three stage forms into one theatre. The deep stage was a cresent-shaped area on the same level as the seats in the front rows of the audience, A translucent cyclorama with provisions for rear projection provided most of the scenery. Other scenery, as needed was rolled on from the wings. A thrust stage was created in the theatre by removing the seats in the orchestra, and this stage was raised or lowered to allow action to be presented at different levels in relation to the auditorium. Scenery was projected on the cyelorama, or rolled on stage on wagons«, or a combination of both. The third stage form, arena, was achieved by the rotation of a circular platform on which the thrust stage and the front rows of auditorium seats were mounted. When the rotation was accomplished, the the thrust stage was relocated into the approximate center of the auditorium with the audience encircling the action. By the use of technology Gropiusf plan not only provided for all three stage forms in one theatre, but allowed a change from one form to another during a performance. Beyond the three basic stage forms, Gropius provided for an annular space relationship in the Synthetic Total Theatre, by including an acting ledge completely around the oval-shaped auditorium. Scenery for the acting ledge was projected onto screens behind the ledge or the scenery from the deep stage was rolled along the edge around the audience. Filmed scenery was also projected onto screens on the ceiling in the form of motion pictures or still photographs.

Audience Interrelationship An aspect Piscator wanted in the theatre, which he commissioned Gropius to design, was the elimination of class distinction in the audience. There were to be no boxes or galleries to break up the mass of the audience, Gropius considered the idea of the audience seated as one large mass a good one, but not for the same reason as Piscator, Eliminating class distinction was not the advantage Gropius saw in the audience as a single group; rather he saw this seating arrangement as an opportunity to advance his concept of the entire theatre space as the scene of the action. With the audience in one group rather than in boxes and galleries? Gropius felt he could surround them with and involve them in the action of the play more completely; "In my Total Theatre, I offer not only the three basic stage forms, but also the possibility of placing the whole public space— -walls and ceiling— in an interior of filmed action. In this way the public meets again, for example in the middle of a swelling mass of men running around them on all sides” (Gropius 1964;104). Around the perimeter of the audience Gropius placed twelve columns. Inside the columns were slide and motion picture projectors which threw Images on screens mounted on the walls between and in back of the columns. Screens were also mounted on the ceiling allowing a director to surround his audience with filmed action. In Schawinsky's Space Theatre the audience was separated into small groups and intermixed with the action within the space of a sphere, an idea which was the opposite of Gropius8 concept of the audience as a single group. Interrelation seems probable among the members of each small group, but because of the separation of the groups, a single reaction from the entire audience In the Space Theatre seems unlikely. The audience in Weininger’s Spherical Theatre was seated in a single layer around the interior of the sphere. Each spectator had one person on each side of him and one above and one below. The spectators were spread out, but could see a large portion of the rest of the audi­ ence as well as the action. Audience interaction in Weininger’s 34 theatre would seem to be diluted by the diffusion of the individual spectators. The U-Theatre of Molnar retained the audience arrangement which Piscator had insisted Gropius eliminate in the design for the Synthetic Total Theatre, The auditorium was divided into amphitheatre, balcony, and loges which separated the audience into groups. The theatre’s seating was in swivel chairs and the separation caused by the large space required to turn them 360° without collision with the next seat would seem to individualize the audience. Thus, in Molnar*s theatre the audience was divided into groups of spectators watching and reacting to the action as isolated individuals, i Functional Relationship ' Heininger and Schawinsky designed their theatres with only one type of production in mind, Molnar and Gropius designed their theatres with the purpose of providing for as many kinds of productions as possible, Weininger’s theatre was designed for the presentation of purely mechanical plays in which the actors were replaced by machines. The Spherical Theatre was to be "the home of the mechanical play"

(Weininger 1961s89), Schawinsky designed his theatre for what he called a space event, a combination of mechanical theatre, acrobatics, underwater acts, and abstract plays such as those of Schlenuner8s workshop, "The action was to take place through the whole interior and become a space event" (Schawinsky 1971s42), < Molnar specified which stage in his theatre should be used for what type of production. The first stage was, "For spatial 35 productions such as human and mechanical performances, dance, acrobatics, vaudeville (experimental work? Exzentrik), etc,” (Molnar 1961$73)o The second and third stages were for "traditional intimate theatre productions" (Molnar 19618 73). The fourth stage was for musical productions or stage action 0 The elevator and bridges were to be used for aerial acrobatics and to supplement the other stages. By specifying what type of production was meant for each stage, Molnar indicate! he had a wide range of functional relationships in mind when he designed the U=Theatre. Piscator wanted a building which would accommodate drama, opera, film, dance, musical concerts, sporting events, and assemblies, Gropius designed his theatre to meet Piscator*s demands8 In my Total Theatre „ „ I have tried to create an instrument so flexible that a director can employ anyone of the three stage forms by the use of simple, ingenious mechanisms. The expenditure for such an interchangeable stage mechanism would be fully compensated for by the diversity of purposes to which such a building would lend itself# for presentation of drama, opera, film, and dance? for choral or instrumental music? for sports events or assemblies. Conventional plays could be just as easily accommodated as the most fantastic experimental creations of a stage director of the future (Gropius I96I3I2), The functional relationship of the total theatre was its adaptability to whatever kind of production was presented in it, Bauhaus architects used spherical buildings, multiple stages, bridges, and elevators in their attempts to eliminate the artificial barriers between audience and action. Seating the audience in one large group, in small groups intermixed with the action, around the inside of a sphere, and in boxes and loges were ways in which audience Interrelationship was dealt with at the Bauhaus, Both theatres with a single purpose and multipurpose theatres were designed "by Bauhaus architects.

Use of the Stage Hie theatrical performances of the Bauhaus stage workshop under Schlemmer were primarily experiments in using the stage as abstract space and for the production of purely mechanical plays, Schlemmer said that abstraction and mechanisation were two of the emblems of his time which the theatre could not ignore (196las17=18), In discussing abstraction Schlemmer said, "What does abstract mean? To put it brieflyt it signifies simplification, reduction to the essential, to the elementary, to the primary, in order to compare the multiplicity of things to a unity" (Schlemmer 1964s106), In his abstract use of the stage Schlemmer experimented with the basic elements of the stage art which he said were space, man, form, sound, motion and color, "Man the human organism stands in the cubicali, abstract space of the stage, Man and Space, Each has different laws of order. Whose should prevail?" (Schlemmer I96las22), For Schlemmer, the answer to the question, "Whose laws shall prevail?" was the determination between illusionistie realism and abstract stage. If the stage space was adapted to the laws of man, the result was realism. On the other hand, if man was changed to adhere to the laws of space, the result was abstract stage, Schlemmer said, form and color, "invented by the human mind, can be called abstract by virtue of their artificiality and insofar 37 as they represent an understanding whose purpose, contrary to natures is order" (1961ai21)„ Because the stage was the arena for successive and transient action, Schlemmer believed it offered form and color, also the elements of painting and sculpture, in motion, A series of stage demonstrations given to the Circle of Friends of the Bauhaus, an organisation which gave financial support to the school, on March 16, 1927, was an example of Schlemmer*s abstract use of the stage. The demonstration began with Schlemmer describing a play i in which the ability of the stage curtain to create suspense by separating the audience from the play was the basis for the action. Next the stage space was defined in terms of geometry by drawing perpendicular lines on the floor which divided its area into four equal parts, and by stretching taut wires from the floor to the ceiling to divide the space above the floor. Once the stage space had been divided, a human performer was added, Schlemmer said, "From this point on, two fundamentally different creative paths are possible. Either that of psychic expression, heightened emotion, and pantomime$ or that of mathematics in motions the exactitudes of rhythmicss and gymnastics" (I96lbs95)» Schlemmer also said the two paths could be combined to create a unified work of art. The demonstration continued as a combination of the two artistic paths in a series of dances, The Space Dance was a dance in which three men in tights and masks performed eurythmics and gymnastics to the beat of a kettledrum, a snare drum, and wooden blocks. Next a ball, a club, a wand, and a pole were given to the performers and their movements using these props created the Form Dance, For the Gesture Dance which came next, the same three performers were given mustaches and glasses for their masks, stylized dinner jackets and each a particular way of walking. At the conclusion of the Gesture Dance, the three original performers were joined "by a musical clown whose costume included a bare-ribbed umbrella, glass curls, a colored pompom tuft, goggle eyes, an inflated nobnose, a toy saxaphone, an accordian chest plate, a xylophone arm, a miniature fiddle," one funnel-shaped leg with a drum attached, a gauss train, and floppy shoes. Schlemmer said the costume was designed with the intention of making the clown appear grotesque. After a short interaction between the original three performers and the clown, they were joined by, "a chorus of gray and ghost-like stereotype figures and all perform the ‘Ghoric Pantomime6" (Schlemmer 1961b$ 100). Along with the abstract stage at the Bauhaus, there was a concept of a purely mechanical stage. The two leading proponents of mechanical stage at the school were Moholy-Nagy and Schlemmer, but the students of the stage workshop also experimented with this type of stage. A look at Moholy-Nagy’s views on theatre history is helpful in understanding the way in which he arrived at his concept of the purely mechanical stage which he called the Mechanized Eccentric. Moholy-Nagy saw the theatre’s beginnings "as ’dramatized’ legend, as religious or political propaganda, or as compressed action with more or less transparent purpose behind it" (1961:49). Theatre passed through several forms, according to Moholy-Nagy: an epic of historical dram characterized by illusion, subordinated to narration or propagandas.a drama of action, such as the conunedia dell6arte, where the elements of dynamic-dramatic movement began to crystalizes and Shakespeare’s dram characterized by an unhampered ^concentration on action, "With August Stromm, a Westphalian poet and dramatist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth Gentries, drama developed away from verbal context, from propaganda, and from character delineation, and toward explosive activism" (Moholy-Nagy I96I150). With the Dada and Futurist theatre of the 1920’s, Moholy-Nagy believed theatre had reached a point in its development where the logical, intellectual, and literary aspects should be eliminated. "Yet, in spite of this, man, who until then /the early 1920’s/ had been the sole representative of logical, casual action and of vital mental activities, still dominated" (Moholy-Nagy

196l«52). The Mechanized Eccentric, a purely mechanical stage, was, to Moholy-Nagy, the logical consequence in theatre’s historical development. Since man was the representative of literary, logical, casual action, he must be eliminated from the stage in order to free the stage from such non-theatrical elements. Moholy-Nagy called for a totally mechanized stage which would be "a precise and fully controlled organization of form and motion, intended to be a synthesis of dynamically contrasting phenomena (space, form, motion, sound, and light)" (1961s54). In the Mechanized Eccentric, Moholy-Nagy sought to create a synthesis of space, form, motion, sound, and light completely through 40 the use of machines eliminating all non-theatrical elements from the stagei Even if the conflicts arising from today’s complicated social patterns, from the world-wide organization of technology, from pacifist-utopian and other kinds of revolutionary movements, can have a place in the art of the stage, they will he significant only in a transitional period, since their treat­ ment belongs properly to the realms of literature, politics and philosophy (Moholy-Nagy 1961s62), Moholy-Nagy later changed his mind about the complete elimination of human performers from the stage and included them as part of his theatre of totality, Schlemmer’s concept of the purely mechanical stage, which he called the Figural Cabinet, grew out of his wish to overcome, "the primary limitation of the human forms the law of gravity, to which it is subject" (Sehlemmer 196la:28), Schlemmer sites E, T„ A, Hoffman, Heinrick von Kleist, Edward Gordon Graig, and Valery Brjusov as setting the precedent for mechanical stage. Technological advances of the 1920’s such as, "precision machinery? scientific apparatus of glass and metal; the artificial limbs developed by surgery; and the fantastic costumes of the deep-sea diver and the modem soldier" offered extraordinary possibilities for the mechanical stage (Schlemmer 196las28=29), As a part of the Bauhaus exhibit of 1923, Figural Cabinet I was presented in the Jenna Municipal Theatre in Weimar, Schlemmer describes the action as follows; Half shooting gallery— half metaphysieum abstractum. Medley, l,e,, variety of sense and nonsense, methodized by Color, Form, Nature, and Art; Man and Machine, Acoustics and Mechanics, Organization is everything; the most heterogeneous is the hardest to organize. 41 The great green face, all nose, languishes for its its vis-a-vis, where woman peeks out, name's Gret, she’s got a "blabbermouth and a swivelhead and a nose like a trumpetI Meta is physically complete s head and body disappear alternately. The rainbow eye lights up. Slowly the figures march bys the white, yellow, red, blue ball walks; ball becomes pendulum; pendulum swings; clock runs. The Body-like-a-Violin, the Guy in Bright Checks, the Elemental One, the ^Better-Glass Gent,” the Questionable One, Miss Rosy- Red, the Turk, The bodies look for heads, which are moving in opposite direction across the stage, A jerk, a bang, a victory march, whenever there is a union of head and body; the Hydrocephalus, the Body of Mary and the Body of the Turk, Diagonals, and the Body of the "Better Gent," Gigantic Hand says; Stop!— The varnished Angel ascends and twitters tru-lu-lu , , , In the midst, the Master, E, T, A, Hoffmann’s Spalansani, spooking around, directing, gesticulating, telephoning, shoot­ ing himself in the head, and dying a thousand deaths from worry about the function of the functional. Imperturbably the window-shade roller unwinds, showing colored squares, an arrow and other signs, comma, parts of the body, numbers, advertisementst "Open a Commercial Account,” "Kukirol," „ . , At each side abstract linear figures with brass knobs and nickel bodies, their moods indicated by barometers, Bengal illumination, Fips the Terrier sits up, „ , , The bell jangles. The Gigantic Hand — Green Man— Meta— The Bodies— , , „ Barometers get out of hand; screw screws; an eye glows electrically; deafening sounds; Red. To end it all, the Master shoots himself— as the curtain falls— and this time successfully (Schlemmer 196las4o)Q The action of Figural Cabinet I lasted for fifteen minutes and was called by an observer, "Babylonian Confusion, full of method, a potpourri for the eye, in form, style, and color" (Wingler 1969*59)o An example of the student concepts of mechanical stage at the Bauhaus is the experimental work of Heinz Loew, Loew designed a model for a mechanical stage in which the action consisted of the movement of carts, wheels, pin wheels, balls, a barber pole, and a small puppet. The interaction of the objects was controlled mechanically by a single person In accord with Schlemmer’s idea that man’s place in mechanical stage was as, "the perfect engineer at the central switchboard” (Sehlemmer 196las22), Because of the new technology and machines Loew felt that backstage activities were often "the most interesting aspect of the theatre" (Sehlemmer 1961b;84), He designed his mechanical stage with its gears, pullies, belts and tracks in full audience view. In the theatre of the future Loew saw, "technical personnel as important as the actors” (Sehlemmer 1961b;84), The job of future technical personnel would be to bring the backstage apparatus into view of the audience. Pure mechanical stage did not dominate the Bauhaus stage workshop. Moholy-Nagy relented from his position of excluding the human actor from the stage when he formulated his theatre of totality saying, "He is no longer to be pivotal— as he is in traditional theatre— but is to be employed on an equal footing with the other formative media" (Moholy-Nagy 1961:57)« Sehlemmer eventually mixed mechanical stage and human performers. In a working drawing for a set design called The Two Solemn Tragedians, Sehlemmer puts human actors on stage with two monumental mechanical figures as tall as the theatre’s proscenium. The two mechanical figures were intended to represent such concepts as power and courage, truth and beauty, or law and freedom, "By contrast, and to give the proper scale, there is natural man with his natural voice, moving about , , , establishing the dimensions vocally and physically" (Sehlemmer 1961ai31), Other Bauhaus experi­ ments which mixed mechanical stage and human performers were Schawlnsky’s Feminine Repetition,, in which there was a mechanical tap dancer9 Kurt Schmidt’s "ballet I-lan and Machine, in which a human actor and a robot performed togetherj and Moholy-Nagy’s design for Hin and Zurucfc in Berlin which included among other mechanical props a mechanized dove that fluttered across the stage as a prologue and returned after the last act as an epilogue to the actions of the human performers.

Scenery, Lighting, and Sound Stage artists at the Bauhaus experimented with mathematicals mechanical, and optical scenery, Schlemmer said, "we are not concerned with imitating nature and for this reason use no painted flats or "backdrops to transplant a kind of second rate nature onto the stage— since we have no interest in make-believe forests, mountains, lakes, or rooms— we have constructed simple flats , „ 0 which can be slid back and forth on a series of parallel tracks" (I96lbi96)0 The scenery used in Bauhaus productions for the most part was mathematical in nature, i0e,, the lines, planes and solids of geometry. For example,, the taut lines used in the stage demonstration given for The Bauhaus Circle of / Friends in 1926 were geometrical lines used as scenery, Schawinsky’s use of flats in Olga Olga, a ballet-pantomime, demonstrated planes as scenery, Schawinsky explained, "A set was built on the bare, black stage by bringing in flats that were all the same size but painted differently. We played with them by shifting them around, exchanging them, until they seemed to be in the right order. It was a Kulissen-spell, a play with flats" (Schawinsky 1971s^3), In the 44 Box Play a written By Schlemmer and performed by Werner Sled off, a - student at the Bauhaus, geometrical solids in the form of building blocks were the only.scenery on a black stage0 During the performance, Seidoff moved the blocks around creating new shapes. In other pro­ ductions done by the Bauhaus stage workshop different geometrical forms were combined in the scene design. Mechanical scenery was also used in productions staged at the Bauhaus and in stage designs done by Bauhaus designers for outside theatres, Schawinsky’s mechanical tap dancer and Schmidt’s robot, already mentioned, were used as a kind of mechanical scenery in Bauhaus productions,. Other examples are a mechanical horse which moved up and down with a human rider in Schawinsky’s Circus and the two exaggerated heroes from Schlemmer8s Grandiose Scene, who were large robots dressed in metal armor, > Outside of the Bauhaus Schlemmer used mechanical scenery in his design for Murder, Hope of Women produced in Stuttgart’s Landestheatre in .1921 in which ”by means of moveable architectural props the prison tower is transformed into a gate of freedom" (Schlemmer 196las44), Moholy-Nagy used mechanical scenery for his set designs at the State Opera in Berlin, Hans Curjel, manager of the Krolloper State Opera House where Moholy-Nagy did his opera designs, said about Moholy-Nagy’s set for Hin und Zuruck, which was done at that opera house in 1930, "The stage itself was a collage of mechanical props— coffeepot, yam- ball, pistol, chair— moving like wind-up toys” (Curjel 1970s94), In his set for Madame Butterfly, staged in the same theatre, Moholy-Nagy 45 used rotating scaffolding and a garden on a moving plane as part of the scenery. The concept of optical scenery at the Bauhaus was divided into motion pictures as scenery and still projections as scenery, Gropius called for the use of film in his plan for the Synthetic Total Theatre, A translucent curved cyclorama allowed for the projection of slides or motion picture "behind the action on the deep stage, Gropius also planned to surround the audience with filmed scenery by projecting images onto the screens which encircled the audience and onto screens mounted on the ceiling, Moholy-Nagy used still projections as scenery in his design for Madame Butterfly in Berlin, In combination with moveable scenery, still projections were employed to change the scene from a garden, to the interior of a house, to a public park (Kostelanetz 1970s Figures 41=44) o The stage artists of the Bauhaus used relatively common materials in the construction of their scenery. The optical scenery required the most advanced materialss cameras, films, projectors, and screens. The mechanical scenery was constructed of metal, glass, wood, canvas and papier-mache, The mathematical sets used by Schlemmer were primarily "simple flats of wood and white canvas" (Schlemmer 1961b$96), Stage properties at the Bauhaus were used sparingly and were limited to common objects. In the stage demonstrations in 1926 a swivel chair, an armchair, and a bench were the only stage properties. Wooden boxes of various sizes and shapes were the stage properties for 46 Schlenuaer’s Banlcastenspill. In Schlemmerfs Equilibristics two small portable step units, each with three steps were the stage properties. Stage lighting at the Bauhaus was employed for its natural properties of color and form, Schlemmer said, "¥e do hot want to imitate sunlight and moonlight, morning, noon, evening, and night with our lighting. Bather we let the light function by itself, for what it is8 yellow, blue, red, green, violet, and so on" (1961bi96), Schlemmer looked upon light as forms "Hon-rigid, intangible form occurs as light, whose linear effect appears in the geometry of the

light beam and of pyr©technical display, and whose solid and space creating effect comes through illumination" (Schlemmer 196las22)0 Moholy-Nagy on the other hand was interested in the effects of light and shadow on stage. The movement of light within defined space became a subject of interest to Moholy-Hagy in his work on the light display machine, a moving sculpture that created a light show on the walls of a cubical room. From his work with the light display machine and his studies on vision and light in motion Moholy-Nagy concluded that "light without shadow is lifeless" (Moholy-Nagy 1947826J)), Moholy-Nagy observed the traditional theatre designers of his time pur­ posely diffusing stage lighting to eliminate shadow and thereby losing many of its artistic possibilities. In order to get the most from the light on stage, Moholy-Nagy said it must be modulated. Light modula­ tion, as Moholy-Nagy explained it, was the reflection of light with varied intensity giving a wide range of light and shadow. To achieve light modulation on stage, Moholy-Nagy recommended that the designer 4? "dissolve the straight and plain surfaces into curved planes and /use/ skeleton trails which cast open, not solid shadows” (Moholy-Nagy 1947*

265)0 In his set for Tales of Hoffmann in Berlin in 1930, Moholy-Nagy achieved light modulation by using variously textured and shaped panels suspended in the air, attached to set units, and free-standing on the

floor0 Moving light on these panels, some of which were mobile them­ selves, created a display of light and shadow of varying intensities. In tune with the lighting concepts of Schlemmer and Moholy-Nagy, reflected-light compositions were created and performed by two Bauhaus journeymen, Kurt Schwerdtfeger and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, "Templates in various colors were superimposed and moved back and forth in front of a spotlight, projected on the back of a transparent screen, thus producing a colored and kinetic abstraction on the front of the screen” (Wingler 1969070) 0 The compositions usually followed a plan, but improvisation was also employed in the shows, Moholy-Nagy believed sound should be used in an abstract manner along with the other stage elements In the future, SOUND EFFECTS will make use of various acoustical equipment driven electrically or by some other mechanical means, Sound waves issuing from unexpected sources— for example, a speaking or ringing arc lamp, loud­ speakers under the seats or beneath the floor of the auditorium, the use of new amplifying systems— will raise the audience's acoustic surprise-threshold so much that unequal effects in other areas will be disappointing (Moholy-Nagy 1961:64). Sound, for Moholy-Nagy, was one of the important elements of stage and he advocated using it on an equal basis with light, space, form, and man. Costuming. Schlemmer felt that the purpose of costume on the abstract stage was to aid in adapting man to the laws of the stage space and he offered four basic costume designs for this metamorphosis„ In the first, the cubical space of the stage was applied to the parts of the body and the head, torso, arms, and legs became cubical forms producing what Schlemmer called "Ambulant Architecture," Schlemmer produced what he called the "Marionette" with his next costume design. The forms of the body were exaggerated to emphasize their mechanical functions pro­ ducing egg-shaped heads, hourglass torsos, and ball-shaped joints, "A Technical Organism" resulted from Schlemmer*s third costume design, in which the laws of motion were applied to the human form. Finally, Schlemmer designed a costume which, "symbolized the various members of human body8 the star shape of the spread hand, the sign of the folded arms, the cross shape of the backbone and shoulders" (Schlemmer

1961as27)o This costume Schlemmer called "Dematerialization," Three of Schlemmer*s dancers performed the Triadic Ballet, which consisted of twelve different dances, wearing eighteen costumes based on the four designs, Schlemmer received criticism for his attempts at using costume to adapt man to the abstract space of the stage. For example, Walter B, Fuerst and Samuel J, Hume, followers of Apple's theories, said about Schlemmer8s four stage costumes, "At the Bauhaus, a complete failure to understand the necessities of the body is camouflaged by a mass of altogether ridiculous pseudo-scientific language" (1928:8$), 49 Masks were common on the Bauhaus stage. This writer has only found evidence of two Bauhaus productions in which no masks were used, Schleiamer*s Musical Clown8 performed by him, and his Box Dance, performed by Siedhoff, The object of the frequent use of masks seemed to have been two-fold„ First, the mask was intended to help the actor to change from his usual being to something new, Sehlemmer said, The actor is so , , „ susceptible to being altered, transformed, or bewitched by each of the objects applied to him— mask, costume, prop— that his habitual behavior, his physical and psychic structure are thrown off or put into a different balance" (Wingler 1969s474), The other use for masks was as part of the overall costume, "to regroup the various and diffuse parts of the human body into a simple, unified form" (Sehlemmer 196ls97)«

The Performer The performer of the Bauhaus stage workshop did not receive the traditional training the student at a 1920°s theatre arts institute might expect. Training for the Bauhaus performer was in eurythmics and dance, Hans Haffenrichter, a student in the Bauhaus stage workshop, described his training under Schreyer as follows s First we worked under his direction on dances and movement, with costumes and instruments. We developed a "Song to Mary,"danced in front of a large tapestry painted by Schreyer, a "Dance of the Wind Spirits," with rhythms played on an African calabash xylophone, and a "Trooper’s Dance" in full costume, which we designed ourselves. At the same time in many conversations Schreyer explained the connection between what we were doing and his stage plays, , , „ The Splelgang, as he named his specific scores, made his intentions clear in every detail. The long daily training stood us in particularly good stead for the Klangsprechen (speaking on a particular pitch) of the 50 poetry. The player had first to find his own Grundton (base note). and from this find his own inneren Klang (internal sound), The words of the poem were strictly rehearsed in the rhythm and bar of the Spielgang and in the pitch and intensity of the Klangsprechen until the "spiritual dimension" became actuality. The movements of the players derived from the tone of the words. Thus, every individual movement and our paths across the stage were accurately rehearsed in costume and with dance props (1970s69). When Schlemmer became the director of the stage workshop, he continued the training Schreyer had begun by having the performers, "measure out their space, so to speak, in time to a kettledrum, a snare drum, and wooden blocks" (Schlemmer 1961b; 97)* The stage productions were an important part of performer training at the Bauhaus, Haffenrichter

said, "Work on the play always remained the main thing" (1970369), The stage demonstration presented to The Circle of Friends of the Bauhaus was a series of polished training exercises made ready for presentation to an audience, The performer in a Bauhaus production was looked upon as living architecture, a dancer, a pantomimist, and the creator of language for the stage, Gropius said, "My own great impression of Schlemmer*s stage work was to see and experience his magic of transforming dancers and actors into moving architecture" (1961;9)* Schlemmer began his work at the Bauhaus as a sculptor and painter, and as his interest in animated sculpture grew so did his view of the performer, Schlemmer, who by 1923 had worked with both live performers and mechanical stage, said, "Since we do not yet have a perfected mechanical stage „ , , man remains perforce our essential element" (19618 91)° However, the concept of mechanical movement remained in Schlemmer*s stage work, 51 and in 1926 he wrote, "as for myself, I am for the body-mechanical dance, the mathematical dance" (Wingler 1969s118). Thus, what Gropius saw as actors and dancers transformed into moving architecture in Schlemmer's work was probably an architect’s evaluation of the geometrical appearance of performers using body-mechanical movements and dressed in costumes designed to adapt human forms to an abstract, mathematical stage0 In Schlemmer’s attempt to adapt man to the abstract * space of the stage he turned to the dance because the dancer, "obeys the law of the body as well as the law of space§ he follows his sense of himself as well as his sense of embracing space" (Schlemmer 196la$25)„ Schlemmer felt that man’s emotion and reason altered his true body- mechanical movements and that the dance, because of its relationship to space, was the means by which these movements could be freed. If we propel ourselves into space, then and necessarily we are "obsessed by space," part of it, surrounded and capti­ vated by it and thus, by the release from the control of emotion and reason are enfolded in a dance of space, by which space and body can be united into an indissoluble bond (Schlemmer 1964s108), Schlemmer required of his dancers that they free their body movements from the control of their consciousness. Pantomime was used in conjunction with dance on the stage of the B&uhaus, For example, in Bolger’s Rokokokoette, "There was a love affair in dance and pantomime" (Schawinsky 1971s32), There were also pure pantomimes such as Meta or the Pantomime of Places. In Meta the action on stage was determined by placards which announced such things ass enter; exit; intermission; suspense; first, second, and 52 third crisis? passion; conflict; and climax. As each placard was flashed the actors would pantomime a scene to match it. The actions were in a prearranged order, ' Hand properties at the Bauhaus were used as a means of extending the movement and gesture of the performer. About the use of hand properties Schlemmer said, ”If we put certain basic forms, such as a ball, a wand, and a pole, into their /the performers/7 hands , „ . their gestures and movements instinctively follow what the shapes convey to them” (1961bs97), Man, the performer, was adapted to the abstract stage of the Bauhaus by costume, dance, pantomime, and hand properties, but he was not given language to use on that stage, Schlemmer did not ignore language but rather considered it an element of stage, "He /Sazyr is the herald, indeed he is the creator of possibly the most important element of theatres SOUND, WOBD, LANGUAGE" (Schlemmer 1961b$91), Although Schlemmer felt that language was the most important element of theatre, he did not provide words for his performers to repeat. In Schreyer’s Bauhaus work Schlemmer had seen actors convey meaning with inarticulate speech reinforced with pantomime, movement, sound, color, and light, and he concentrated his efforts in the silent elements of stage convinced language would take care of itself, "For the time being we must be content with the silent play of gesture and motion— that is, with pantomime— firmly believing that one day the word will develop automatically from it" (Schlemmer 1961b$91). The Playscript The playscript at the Bauhaus was usually a plan to he followed "by the operator of a mechanical stage or a scenario derived from the stage action, Schlenuner attempted a kind of playscript with his diagram for the Gesture Dance, a drawing, "giving the linear indication of the paths of motion and a projection of forward movement on the stage surface" (Schlemmer 196l"bs86), The lines on the diagram converge at the center and create an unintelligible mass of circles, dots, spirals, squares and rectangles„ Schlemmer himself said, "The more completely such a script tries to fix the total action, the more the multitude of essential details complicate the matter and obscures the very purpose of such a score, namely, legibility" (1961s86), T, Lux Feininger, a student in the Bauhaus stage workshop, described Schlemmer*s approach to playwriting as followss The stage elements were assembled, regrouped, amplified, and gradually grew into something like a "play," we never found out whether comedy or tragedy, , , , The interesting feature about it was that, with a set of formal elements agreed upon and, on this common basis, added to fairly freely by members of the class, "play" with meaningful form was expected eventually to yield meaning, sense or message5 that gestures and sounds would become speech and plot (1970*183)• Moholy-Nagy saw the playscript as a plan for the mechanical stage and as a plan for his theatre of totality, A score for a musical variety show which Moholy-Nagy created for use with his Mechanised Eccentric is an example of the playscript as a plan for the mechanical stage. The score, a color drawing, contained four columns to indicate the sequence of events in the play. The first column showed the movements of the machines on the largest of the Mechanised Eccentric’s three stages, On the large stage was such action as arrows plunging§ disks rotating; colored grids shooting up, down, hack, and forth; explosions erupting; and mechanised men wrestling. No words were used in the score, only drawings of the intended action. The second column indicated the action on the other two stages as well as the sequence of films to he projected onto a screen ahove the three stages. The actions shown in the second column were arrows plunging, lowered shutters opening and closing, and disks rotating. The film, Moholy-Nagy said, was to he, "running backward, action, tempo, wild" (l96l;48), The third column on the score indicated the lighting for the play, Various colors were painted in hands of different widths down the column. The color on the score corresponded to the color of the lighting to he used on the stage. The width of the hand indicated the duration of its particular color of light. Darkness was represented hy black. The fourth column was for sound effects and music and consisted of music staffs on which notes and other marks to indicate various sound effects were placed. The four columns were placed side hy side on the page and by looking down them the operator of the Mechanized Eccentric determined the sequence of action, lighting, or sound. Simultaneous action, lighting, and sound was ascertained hy reading horizontally. To Moholy-Nagy, the typical playscript of the 1920*8, consist­ ing primarily of dialogue, was an "unjustifiable transfer of intellectualized material frpm the proper realm of literary effective­ ness (novel, short story, etc,) to the stage" (Moholy-Nagy 1961850), 55 Moholy-Nagy, just as Schlenuner, felt the playscript should be created by the interaction of the stage elements0 Rather than have an actor interpret the work of a playwright, Moholy-Nagy would have had him "use the spiritual and physical means at his disposal PRODUCTIVELY and from his own INITIATIVE submit to the over-all action process” (Moholy-Nagy 1961*58), In Moholy-Nagy’s theatre of totality the play­ script was not dialogue, but a plan for stage action created out of various combinations of the elements of the stage art.

Total Theatre and Theatre of Totality Within the Bauhaus the term total theatre was applied to Gropius’ design for Piscator’s theatre building and theatre of totality was used for Moholy-Nagy’s stage concepts as set down in his chief article on theatre. Theatre, Circus, Variety, Apparently Gropius referred to his theatre design as a total theatre for two reasons. First Gropius seemed to think the design was of a total theatre because it was, ”an instrument so flexible a director can employ any one of the three stage forms , , , for the presentation of drama, opera, film, and dance; for choral or instrumental music; for sports events or assemblies" (Gropius 1961*12), The other reason for which Gropius applied the term total theatre to his design was that he intended the entire theatre building to be used for the presentation of the action, Gropius said of his design, "The playhouse itself, made to dissolve into the shifting, illusionary space of the imagination, would become the scene of the action itself" (1961*14), For Gropius the term total theatre was associated with the space and 56 functional relationships and the audience interrelationships of the theatre building,

Moholy-Nagy9 s concept of the theatre of totality was associated with the abstract elements of the stage and their interrelationship with each other. The theatre of totality is an "organism with the multifarious complexities of light, space, plane, form, motion, sound, man— and with all the possibilities for varying and combining these elements" (Moholy-Nagy 1961:60). The variation and combination of the above seven elements of the stage should produce a concentration of action by which the artificial barriers between audience and stage action would be broken down. Moholy-Nagy includes man as a stage element in his theatre of totality. However, he says, "Man may be active only as the bearer of those functional elements which are organically in accordance with his specific nature" (Moholy-Nagy

1961360)0 Man could be used on stage by "the REPETITION of a thought by many actors, with identical words and with identical or varying intonation and cadence, could be employed as a means of creating synthetic, creative theatre (This would be the CHORUS— but not the attendant and passive chorus of antiquity!)" (Moholy-Nagy 196ls62)<, Finally Moholy-Nagy said that for the theatre of totality to be realized there must be "an enhanced control over all formative media, unified in a harmonious effect and built into an organism of perfect equilibrium" (Moholy-Nagy 1961870), Moholy-Nagy saw theatre of totality as the formation of the various elements of the stage into 57 concentrated action which would transcend the artificial "barriers "between audience and play, Moholy-Nagy's theatre of totality and Gropius' total theatre

were products of Bauhaus artistic experiments9 and the primary artistic experiments at the Bauhaus were in the areas of theatre architecture, technical theatre, and performance, In theatre architecture Weininger, Sehawinsky, Molnar, and Gropius experimented with new space relation­ ships, audience interrelationships, and functional relationships, The stage in Bauhaus theatre was used either as an abstract space or as a showplace for mechanical plays. The elements of abstract stage for Bauhaus artists were space, form, color, sound, motion, and man, Schlemmer felt that man, controlled both by emotion and reason, had to be adapted to the abstract stage. The adaptation was to be accomplished through costume, dance, and pantomime. Scenery used by the Bauhaus was mathematical, mechanical, or optical. The mathematical scenery consisted of geometrical forms such as lines, planes, and cubes. Mechanical scenery developed out of the mechanical stages of the Bauhaus and included such items as a mechanical tap dancer and two large robots in metal armor. Motion pictures and projected still photographs were also used as scenery. In Gropius' Synthetic Total Theatre, he planned to surround the adience with filmed scenery. Stage lighting in Bauhaus productions was not used to imitate the light found in nature, but was used as color anfi form. In the case of the reflected-light compositions, moving, illuminated color provided 58 the play’s action„ Light without shadow was felt to he lifeless hy Moholy-Nagy and he advocated using curved planes and skeleton walls in set designs to give open shadows on stage. The performer for the Bauhaus stage was trained in eurythmics, dance, and pantomime and was looked upon as living architecture and the creator of language. The Bauhaus playscripts were either plans for the operation of mechanical stages or scenarios derived from stage action. In architecture, the total theatre was a building which would accommodate all types of productions from opera to sporting events and which would become, in its entirety, the scene of the action. The theatre of totality, as conceived by Moholy-Nagy, was a stage on which light, space, plane, form, motion, sound, and man were all employed equally, but in varying combinations. The stage practices of the Bauhaus were experiments in new art forms and not experiments in art for art’s sake. CHAEPER 3

THE SHEAD OF BAUHAUS THEATRE CONGEFTS

The theatre concepts of the Bauhaus were disseminated "by public stage perfozmncesg collaboration of Bauhaus faculty members with professional theatre people, Bauhaus publications, and the dispersal of Bauhaus faculty and students.

Public Performances ' The Bauhaus stage workshop gave public performances between 1923 and 1929, Public performances were only to be given when the members of the stage workshop felt their experiments were ready to be seen, Schlemmer said of the Bauhaus stage experiments, Ӵe intend to protect this work from the curiosity and activity of the public. Whatever achievement, in our opinion, will have taken definite shape, shall then no longer be kept from public view" (Wingler 1969s11?), In accord with Schlemmer"s policy of conducting his stage experiments in private, relatively few public performances were given by the stage workshop. Because the Bauhaus at Weimar had no theatre of its own, any public performances given in that city were presented in the Jena Municipal Theatre. When the Bauhaus moved to Dessau a theatre was included in the new school building and public performances were given there. Beginning in 1926 the stage workshop also made tours outside of Dessau,

59 60 During the Bauhaus Week of the summer of 1923s Schlemmer’s Figural Cabinet I and-Triadic Ballet, and Bolger’s Mechanical Ballet • were presented in Weimar's Jena Municipal Theatre on August 17, 1923, as the first public showing of Bauhaus stage work, Gillian Naylor, art historian, says of the success of Bauhaus week, "It was visited by 15,000 people, and acclaimed by critics in Europe, America, and Canada" (l968:93)o Two Bauhaus stage productions, Meta or Pantomime of Scenes and Schawinsky’s Circus, were performed publicly in Weimar during 1924, Also in 1924 Hirschfeld-Mack and Schwerdtfeger took their reflected-light compositions on tour to the Berlin Volksbuhne and to Vienna's Festival of Music and Theatre, Because of the school’s move to Dessau in 192j), no stage tours were made that year. After the re­ establishment of the stage workshop in 1926, Schlemmer took his Figural Cabinet I to Frankfort-on-Main for a public showing and his Treppenwitz and Musical Clown were presented publicly in the Bauhaus theatre. In 192? Treppenwitz and Musical Clown were presented publicly again on the Bauhaus stage and figurines wearing costumes from the Triadic Ballet were displayed at the German Theatre Exhibition at Madeburg, Schlemmer called the Bauhaus display "the most modern at the Exhibition” (Wingler 1969:472), Treppenwitz and a new version of Musical Clown were presented to the Dessau public in 1928 and "the Bauhaus players performed with distinction" at the Second German Congress of Dance at Essen (Wingler 1969:472), Other performances were given privately at the Bauhaus by the stage workshop between 1923 and 61 1928, "but the audience was composed primarily of the school’s faculty and students. After the Bauhaus performance at the Second German Congress of Dance at Essen, Schlemmer felt the productions of his workshop were "ready for the most sophisticated audiences" (Wingler 19698520), In February of 1929 the Bauhaus stage workshop embarked upon a three month tour of German and Swiss cities. The stops on the tour were the Berlin Volks'knUhne, Breslau’s Stadttheatre, the Shauspielhaus in Frankfurt-on- Main, and Stuttgart’s Landestheatre in Germany and the Stadttheatre in Basel,' Switzerland, The extensive repertory, which was a cross section of Schlemmer’s ideas, consisted of Dance in Space, Dance of Forms, Dance of Gestures, Dance of Stage Wings, The Box Play, Dance of Slats, Dance in Metal, Dance with Glass, Dance of Hoops. The Wives Dance, and The Company of Masks, When additional material was needed, Schlemmer’s House Py and the student’s improvisation, 3 against 1 were performed, Hans M, Wingler, a student of the Bauhaus, said of the results of the

1929 tours Elements of the Bauhaus stage were occasionally taken over, accepted, and copied by other dance groups and were even filmed. For instance, unmistakable variations on Schlemmer’s masks reappeared in one of the Utopian films of the late nineteen twenties and in the most successful dance pantomime of the years around 1930 (1969:520), The 1929 tour was a major factor in the exposure of Schlemmer’s concepts of abstract stage to the dance art. However, dance historians minimize Schlemmer’s effect upon the dance until the 1950’s. For example, Walter Sorrel,' professor of dance and theatre history at Columbia University, said that Schlemmer’s "new functionalism , , , 62 resulted in "beautiful shapes in motion," "but this choreography was the child of a nondancer's fantastic notions0 It was not "before the early fifties that Alwin Nikolais took up this idea again and gave it the exciting effect of total theatre” (1967s184)j

Faculty Collaboration with Professional Theatre Faculty members of the Bauhaus helped to spread the theatre concepts of the school by their work with professional theatre,

Gropiusy Moholy-Nagy,1 Schawinsky, and Kandinsky all worked with pro­ fessional ,theatre either during their tenure at. the Bauhaus or after they left, Gropius' professional theatre work primarily consisted of his design of the Synthetic Total Theatre which he did for Piscator, Although the theatre was never built, Gropius apparently influenced Piscator's thinking about staging during their work together, Maria L@y»Piscator, Piscator9s wife, said of her husband's formation of his concept of total theatres “Piscator drew directly on quotations from Gropius to define Total Theatre" (1967:188), "Piscator never possessed the capital to build a Gropius-Theatre, but adapted what means he could to achieve a comparable effect" (innes 1972sl4o). For example, Piscator's 1930 production of Tai Yang Awakes turned the entire theatre into a workers' hall, Moholy-Nagy worked as set designer and film director for Piscator8s 1930 stage production of The Merchant of Berlin, which caused a riot between the Nazis and Social Democrats in the audience the night it opened. The riot discouraged Moholy-Nagy and he never worked with Piscator again. However, Piscator adopted and modified Moholy-Nagy9s concept of the theatre of totality: The assumption that drama is the sum of all the parts of a production was taken a step further by Piscator, who emphasized the mechanical aspects of direction at the expense of the actor. Concentrating on "total effect” he leveled all the various elements of the theatre and defined the relative importance of the actor, the only channel for communicating the words, as "simply having a function to fulfill, exactly like light, colour, music, structure, text” (innes 1972:148), Piscator9s concept of total theatre, which he later called Piscator theatre, then epic theatre, was based in part upon his work with Gropius and Moholy-Nagy (Ley-Piscator 196? s149).

In I929, shortly after leaving the Bauhaus, Moholy-Nagy was hired to design at the Krolloper, the more progressive of Berlin9s two state opera houses. Between 1929 and 1931 Moholy-Nagy designed settings for three operas at the Krolloper: Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach, Hin und Zuruck by Hindesmith, and Madame Butterfly by Puccini, Moholy-Nagy9s scene design for Tales of Hoffmann "was an attempt to create spaces out of light and shadow. Among other things, flats and back drops turn into tools for the interplay of shadow effects. Everything is transparent, and all these transparencies com­ bine into a rich yet still perceivable articulation" (Curjel 1970:95)0 Moholy-Nagy9s wife, Sibyl, said, "Moholy9s Hoffmann was the event of the season, arousing an equal amount of enthusiastic support and fierce denounciation" (Moholy-Nagy 1969:4-9), The mechanical stage properties and scenery of Moholy-Nagy9s design for Hin und Zuruck presented the Bauhaus idea of mechanized stage to the opera audiences of Berlin, In Madame Butterfly, Moholy-Nagy9s final design for the Berlin Opera, he 64 A transformed ,rbs.sic Japanese materialss wood structures, movable partitions, folding screens" into "constantly new space effects through light and color projections on the stage horizon" (Gurjel 19703 96)a Moholy-Nagy’s design for Madame Butterfly was denounced as "cultural Bolshevism" by the Berlin critics who had been swept up in the Nazi Party’s campaign against new art (Moholy-Nagy 1969:^6)* Schawlnsky, a student and teacher at the Bauhaus, left the school in 1926 to become the stage designer at the Municipal Theatre in Zwickau, Germany, In Zwickau he worked with a dance group which had been trained by Mary Wlgman’s school of modern dance in Dresden, Schawlnsky said that the whole staff of the Municipal Theatre had been changed “into an avant-gard ensemble , , „ an opportunity to make use of the stored-up ideas from my painting and other work" (I971s4l) „ The ideas of the Bauhaus theatre and the concepts of Wigman met on the stage of the Municipal Theatre in Zwickau, However, Wigman’s concepts of the dance art did not combine with those of the Bauhaus through this meeting, Wigman professed, "Without ecstasy there is no dance" (Sorrel 19673184-185), Schlemmer maintained, "The natural feelings can contribute to the raising of one’s self-awareness, or the joy of living," or the seduction of the body; they can serve educational ends— for art they are without purpose" (19648107), Kandinsky, primarily a painter and teacher of painting at the Bauhaus, assisted Schlemmer on designs for masks, costumes, and sets in the Bauhaus stage workshop both at Weimar and Dessau, Kandinsky’s stage work outside of the Bauhaus was his set design and direction of Pictures at an Exhibition,' a musical poem written by Modest Muss or sky and staged in Dessau in 1928. In his poem Mussorsky transformed sixteen water color paintings into "absolute music" (Wingler 1969$478) 0 Kandinsky designed "visual equivalents by following the movement of the musical phrases with movable colored forms and projections of light" (Wingler 1969s478)„ Colored forms and light projections moving to the rhythm of music are reminiscent of the eurythmics of Schlemmer?s living architecture and of Hirshfeld-Eaek’s reflected-light compositions. ,

Bauhaus Publications The writings of Bauhaus people appeared in the Bauhaus books and the Bauhaus Journal as well as in publications which were not sponsored by the school. In 1924 Moholy-Nagy and Gropius began planning to print a series of books "covering all aspects of intel­ lectual life7 of no less than 50 titles" (Wingler 1969:130). Gropius and Moholy-Nagyp who were the editors, said in an advertisement for the books that they had "enlisted the cooperation of the most knowledgeable experts from various countries who are trying to integrate their specialized work with the totality of phenomena of the modem world" (Wingler 1969:130). In 1927 , eight books were published § International Architecture by Gropius§ Pedagogical Sketchbook by Paul Klees An Experimental House by the Bauhaus and The Theatre of the Bauhaus edited by Walter Gropiusg New Design by Piet Mondrian, a follower of van Doesburg; Principals of the New Art by van Doesburg; New Work of the Bauhaus Workshops and Painting, Photography and Film "by Moholy-Nagyp The hooks were published by the Albert Langen Kress of Munich," Germany, and were available in either clothboxmd or hardbound . editions. By 1931 six new titles were addedi Point and Line in Plane, by Kandinsky? The Architecture of Holland by Jacobus Oud$ The Nonobjective World by Kasmir Malevich? The Bauhaus Buildings in Dessau by Gropius? Cubism by Albert Gleizes? and The New Vision by Moholy-Nagy, and some of the original eight books were in second or third editions, "The primary distinction of the Bauhaus books was their function as authentic text written by the creators of new art forms and not by disciples of disciples" (Moholy-Nagy 1969*37)o The Theatre of the Bauhaus contained articles by Gropius,' Schlemmer, Moholy-Nagy,' and MolnEr, In the "Introduction" to the book Gropius discussed his plan for the Synthetic Total Theatre, Schlemmer had two articles in the book? "Man and Art Figure," in which he explained his theories of abstract stage, and "Theatre (Buhne)," which was taken from the lecture-demonstration given for the Circle of Friends of the Bauhaus on March 16, 1927, Moholy-Nagy’s article, "Theatre, Circus, Variety," in which he defined his concept of the Mechanized Eccentric and the theatre of totality, was his contribution to the book, MolnSr’s offering to the book was an article entitled "U-Theatre," in which he explained his theatre plan of the same name. The book was also filled with photographs and drawings of the work of the Bauhaus stage workshop. The Theatre of the Bauhaus was translated into English in 1961 by Arthur S„ Wensinger, Nicholas Benton, a book critic for Architectural Forum magazine, said in his review of The Theatre of the Bauhaus that the ideas of Moholy-Nagy, Schlenuner, and their associates at the Bauhaus were "reborn and reappraised through this remarkable little volume" (1962*168), Thomas DeGaetani, book reviewer for Progressive Architecture, called The Theatre of the Bauhaus "as vital a theatre book as one is likely to find for some time o o . as pertinent to certain aspects of the contemporary American scene as it was to the turmoil of post World-War-I Germany" (1962*166). In 1926 the first issue of the Bauhaus Journal, a quarterly magazine was published. Until 1928 Gropius and Moholy-Nagy were the editors in collaboration with other Bauhaus members. Between 1928 and

19319 the publication schedule was erratic and the editorship varied. A total of fifteen issues of the Bauhaus Journal was published and sent to subscribers in both Eastern and Western Europe. Only two of the fifteen issues carried articles on theatre. The third issue of the Bauhaus Journal in 192? consisted of a transcript and pictures of Schlemmer's lecture-demonstration given to the Circle of Bauhaus Friends in March of that same year. The fourth issue of 1929 carried an article by Schlemmer titled "The Theatre," in which he discussed his ideas on the abstract stage. In addition to the theatre articles printed in the Bauhaus books and Journal, Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, Schlemmer, and Schreyer published articles and books independently from the school. In his listing of "Publications by and about the Masters of the Bauhaus," Wingler recorded five articles by Gropius on theatre architecture in five different periodicals from four different countries„ Wingler lists Moholy-Nagy as having two publications on the theatre of totality# four on lighting# one on film in theatre# and one on theatre architecture. Six of Moholy-Nagy's articles were published in German and two in English, In the listing# Schlemmer is credited with twenty-one publications on theatre subjectss ten on abstract theatre# five on dance# one on costume, one on mechanical theatre# one on theatre architecture# one on the work of Piscatory and two on opera. All of Schlemmer's articles were written in German

(Wingler 19692636=645)« In 1956 Schreyer wrote Memories of Sturm and i Bauhaus # in which he discussed his stage work at the Bauhaus,

Bauhaus Faculty and Students The faculty and students were audiences for Schlemmer*s theatrical experiments from the very beginning of the stage work at the school. Therefore# the majority of the Bauhaus people were familiar with the practices of the stage workshop and carried with them some of the theatre concepts when they left the school. However# the people who were most responsible for spreading the Bauhaus theatre concepts after leaving the school were Schreyer,J Haffenrichter# Gropius,' Schlemmer# Moholy-Nagy,' and Schawinsky, In 1923 Schreyer left the Bauhaus and from 1924 until 192? he was director of the art department at Per Weg school in Berlin, In 1927 he moved to Hamburg where he published articles on Christian art,

Schreyer died in Hamburg on June 18# 1966, Haffenrichter left the Bauhaus shortly after Schreyer in 1924 to become a guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen, Denmark, for two years0 In 1927 Haffenrichter replaced Schreyer as the director of Per Weg's art department. Of his work at Per Weg Haffenrichter said," "I presented among other things a light play for which Lothar Schreyer provided the text The Birth of a Flower— an echo of the work at Weimar— and a reflected-light play hy Kurt Schwerdtfeger" (Haffenrichter 1970:70-71). After leaving Berlin in 1933» Haffenrichter worked as a painter and designer in Heidelberg and Wiesbaden," Germany, Since I96I Haffenrichter has been retired in Hittenkirchena small German town near the Austrian border, , Gropius left the Bauhaus in 1928 to practice architecture in Berlin, With Hitler’s assumption of governmental control in 1933 Gropius decided to leave Germany and emigrated to London in 1934, In 1937 Gropius was appointed Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University and one year later Chairman of the Department of Architecture at the same school, Gropius founded the Architects Collaborative," "a team of architects with whom he has executed a number of gigantic design commissions since the late nineteen fifties— the overall concept for the University of Bagdad, the American Embassy in Athens, ’Grand Central City’ in New York" (Wingler 19698237)o Gropius did not forget the Bauhaus when he left Germany and was involved in several efforts to rekindle interest in the school’s works After the Second World War Gropius joined the effort to reopen the Bauhaus at Dessau and supported the planned Bauhaus exhibition, which was to have been in Dessau, 1948, Gropius, together with his wife, Ise Gropius, and Herbert Bayer had 70 arranged the exhibition on "Bauhaus 1919-1928" the Museum of Modem Art in New York in 1938, Gropius promoted the founding of the Bauhaus Archive in Darmstadt and attended its opening in i960. He granted the director of the Bauhaus Archives the rights to new editions of the series of hooks on the Bauhaus, Gropius gave full support to the exhibit "Bauhaus— Idea, Form, Purpose, Time", arranged in 1964 at the Goppinger Gallery in Frankfurt and he assisted the preparation of the current exhibition "50 Years of the Bauhaus",' which is now touring Europe, the United States, and Japan (Neuman 1970s15-16), Gropius * attempt to reopen the Dessau Bauhaus failed, but the exhibits. he arranged brought attention to the artistic practices of the Bauhaus, Gropius died on July 5, 1969, in Boston, Massachusetts, Schlemmer remained in Germany after he left the Bauhaus in 1929, From the time he left the Bauhaus until 1932 Schlemmer was a teacher at the Breslau Academy in Breslau, Between 1932 and 1933 Schlemmer taught in Berlin at the United States Schools for Art, In 1933 Schlemmer began having troubles with the Nazi Party which made it impossible for him to function as an artist or teachers In March 1933, an exhibition of his ^Schlemmer^ work was shut down by the Nazis, During the same year he was dismissed as a teacher and moved his family to Eichberg near Baden, In 1937 the Sehlemmers moved to Sehringen near Badenweiler, , , „ He never had a chance to work there due to Germany's attitude toward modem art. In 1937, he was denounced in the /Nazi sponsored/ exhibit "Degenerate Art" (Neuman 1970s153), From 1938 to 1940 Schlemmer had to support his family by painting houses and he died,1 after a long illness, on April 13, 1943, Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus four days after Gropius, and moved to Berlin where he did the design work for Piscator and the Berlin Opera discussed earlier in this chapter. Between 1931 and 1933 Moholy-Nagy was a free lance film maker in Berlin, The titles of Moholy-Nagy's films made in Berlin were Marseille,,' Light-Play Black-White-Gray, and Berlin Still Life, In 1933 Moholy-Nagy left Germany for Holland and in 1937 he moved to London, In "both England and Holland Moholy-Nagy worked as a designer and continued his film making. Late in the year 1937» on a recommendation from Gropius,' Moholy-Nagy was selected "by the Association of Arts and Industries in Chicago, Illinois," to "be the director of the New Bauhaus, a school of industrial design in that city, Moholy-Nagy said that he was founding the school on the idea that "in the future we can never speak about a single thing without relating it to the whole" (Moholy-Nagy 1969:150)« The courses required of each student seemed to indicate that-Moholy- Nagy lived up to the idea on which he founded the school. The courses at the New Bauhaus, which was housed in the remodeled Marshall Field mansion," were biotechnique and biology, chemistry, physics," mathematics, geometry," psychology, philosophy,' sociology, painting,' sculpture," architecture," photography," weaving, and product design, Moholy-Nagy headed the New Bauhaus from 1937 until it failed financially in 1939« BTom 1939 until his death in 194-7," Moholy-Nagy directed his own private Institute of Design in Chicago where he carried on the work he started in the New Bauhaus, Although there was no stage workshop at either the New Bauhaus or the Institute of Design," music was a required course" at the Institute of Design, John Cage," precursor of the theatre of mixed means," was the instructor of the music course, Moholy-Nagy said of Cage’s work," "The group formed by him excelled in improvisation with 72 self made percussion instruments'' (194-7:66), The ideas of Moholy-Nagy and Gage were compatible since, "long before he ^iotioly-Nagy/ employed Gage, Moholy-Nagy acknowledged the freedom of unpitched, unstructured, and even aleatory musical sounds" (Kostelanets 1970:14-), Gage came into contact with Bauhaus people in the persons of Schawinsky and

Josef Albers at Black Mountain College in North Carolina after he left the Institute of Design, After Schawinsky left the Bauhaus in 1928 he worked as a free lance designer in Germany, Switzerland," and Italy until 1936, Albers stayed at the Bauhaus until it closed in April of 1933 and later the same year was invited to teach at the recently opened Black Mountain College, In 1936 Albers became the head of the Fine Arts Department at Black Mountain College and invited Schawinsky to come to North Carolina to teach in that department, When Schawinsky inquired as to what he would teach/ he was given the freedom to choose any course he wanted, Schawinsky decided on a stage studies course, which he described as follows: This course is not intended as training for any particular branch of the contemporary theatre but rather as a general study of the fundamental phenomena: Space, form, color, light, sound," music, movement, time, etc. The studies take place on the stage, , , , The method of study is through active participation and experimentation, improvisation, self-education in mobility on the stage, and.presentation to the college of the conclusions arrived at (1971:44-), Schawinsky8s course contained the Bauhaus concept of employing, on an equal basis, all of the elements of the abstract stage in an atmosphere of experimentation, Schawinsky taught his stage studies course at Z . ' Black Mountain College until 1939 when he designed the North Carolina P&villion at the World's Pair in New York, Schawinsky did not return to Black Mountain," hut stayed in New York where he worked as a designer. After Schawinsky left, Albers retained the stage studies course established hy Schawinsky until 19^9» In 1950 Albers was hired as Head of the Department of Design at Yale University, and in i960, at the age of 72, he retired in New Haven," Connecticut, In 19^7 Gage and Merce Cunningham, an associate of Cage's

■f since 1940",' were hired to teach and perform at Black Mountain College, Cage worked at Black Mountain College intermittently and in 1952 he presented his Theatre Piece # 1 at the school. The arrangement of the audience in relation to the action in Theatre Piece # 1 was,' according to Cage," intended to split the focus on stage. The spectators were seated in four triangular sections on the floor of a rectangular room. The apexes of the triangular sections merged toward the center of the room," but did not touch," leaving an X-shaped playing area. The sides of the triangular seating sections opposite the apexes did not touch the walls of the room, and provided another playing area between the room's perimeter and the audience. The action of the piece consisted of a moving picture being shown at one end of the room; a slide show being projected onto a screen at the other end of the room; a pianist playing classical music at the middle of one of the room's longer walls; Cage lecturing from a ladder in one of the corridors between the triangular seating sections; two poets alternately climbing another ladder situated in a different corridor, reading their poetry, and then descending; Robert Rauschenburg, an abstract painter, playing scratchy records on an antique, wind-up phonograph in a third corridorg and Cunningham’s dance group performing around and amid the audience. The actions were performed simultaneously only during specified time periods, which were determined by flipping a coin, but were in no way dependent upon one another„ Certain Bauhaus theatre concepts were evident in Theatre Piece # 1, For example, motion pictures and slides were used with live action in Theatre Piece # 1 as they were in Gropiusv plan for The Synthetic Total Theatre and in Moholy-Nagy* s set design for Madame Butterfly in Berlin0 Cage surrounded his audience with the action of the piece, a space relationship Gropius designed into his Synthetic Total Theatre „ The action in Theatre Piece # 1 was not dictated by a predetermined script, a practice in accord with Bauhaus playscript development„ Cunningham’s-dance was on ”an abstract or mathematical plane” (Roose-Evans 19708136), Abstract and mathematical were terms Schlemmer applied to the dance of the Bauhaus, Finally, all of the elements of the productions light, sound, movement, performers were used on an equal basis as in Moholy-Nagy’s theatre of totality,

“Cage’s Theatre Piece # 1 , „ 0 is npw generally considered to have been the real beginning of the trend in this country towards Happenings and multi-media shows of all kinds" (Tomkins 1968 s 259-260), In his book, Moholy-Nagy, Richard Kostelanetz, a modern theatre historian, wrote, "Moholy-Nagy’s Theatre of Totality is a remarkable precursor to the recent Theatre of Mixed Means" (1970s14), The path from theatre 75 of totality to the theatre of mixed means leads through Moholy-Nagy, Sehawinsky, Albers, Cage, and Cunningham, Bauhaus stage concepts were present in the dance theatre of Nikolais, who began his work in the late 1940's, "The theatre of Alwin Nikolais represents , , , a synthesis of Artaud’s concept of non-verbal theatre, Craig's idea of moving abstract masses, and the early techni­ cal experiments of the Bauhaus" (Roose-Evans 1970s?), Nikolais felt that the dance had become too involved with man's relationship to man, and, that dancers needed to find the relationship between man and the other elements of stage, Nikolais said that a "dancer doesn’t even have to be a person— he can be a thing, a place or a time" (Roose-Evans 1970«136), In order to achieve the transfer of his performers into figures reminiscent of Schlemmer’s living architecture, Nikolais began to assign them "various props, masks, and sculptural objects, disguising them so as not to look like people, costuming them like shapes, moving them about the stage like mobile sculpture" (Roose-Evans 1970s136), Nikolais extended the bodies of his dancers by attaching to their arms and legs such things as kites on wires, yards of tape, tubular projections, resounding disks, and cone-shaped tents, Nikolais' view of the theatre seemed to be along the lines of Moholy- Nagy and Schlemmers "Nikolais approaches the stage as a painter and sculptor, , „ 0 His aim is theatrical totality" (Sorrel 19678251), Other Bauhaus people carried the school’s theatre concepts to different parts of the world. For example, Hirschfeld-Mack went to Melbourne, Australia to teach art? Molnar moved to Budapest, Hungary and worked as an architect and designer? Kandinsky went to Paris ^ France where he continued to paint privately? and Kurt Schmidt became a designer and architect in Gera, East Germany, Today, Bauhaus theatre concepts are evident in the theatre of mixed means in which an attempt is made to break down the barriers be­ tween the different arts and between the performers and spectators by the use of the artistic and technical elements of the stage on an equal basisy unusual space relationships to involve the audience, and loosely structured productions which are intended to evoke action from the participantso Gropius* idea of multiform or convertible theatre is incorporated in the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard and in the Vivian Baumont Theatre in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York City, Electronically controlled changes in the platforms and seating can make the Loeb into a proscenium,' thrust,5 or arena theatre? and the Vivian Baumont into either a proscenium or an open stage, Bauhaus theatre concepts are also present in the modern dance of Trisha Brown, a student of both Cunningham and Ann Halprin, which uses improvisation, audience participation, multi-media, and pure gesture, John Nealy's light paintings are reminiscent of the reflected-light compositions of the Bauhaus, The walk-through and environmental sculptures of Barbara Ijepworth and Isamu Noguchi reflect Schlemmer”s idea of man's relation­ ship to abstract space.

Daring the few years of its existence, the Bauhaus embraced the whole range of visual arts, and from the tiny workshop stage of the Bauhaus, came some of the theatre's most imaginative ideas. LIST OF REFERENCES

Anderson, Evelyn„ Hammer or Anvil; The Story of the German Working Movement, Londons Victor Golloancz Ltd,, 19^5» Bayer,' Herbert, Walter Gropius, and Ise Gropius, eds, Bauhauss Weimar 1919-1925e Dessau 1925-1928„ Boston; Charles T, Branford Company, 1952. Benton, Nicholas, "The Theatre of the Bauhaus," Architectural Forum, CXVI (March 1962), 168, l?4e Brockett, Oscar G, History of the Theatre, Boston; Allyn and Bacon, Inc,, 1968, ' • ■ and Robert R, Findlay. Century of Innovations A History of European and American Theatre and Drama Since 1870, Englewood Cliffs, New Jerseys Rrentice-Hall, Inc,, 1973. Gurjel, Hans, "Moholy-Nagy and the Theatre,” Moholy-Nagy; Documentary Monographs in Modem Art, Ed, Richard Kostelanets, New York: Rraeger Publishers, 1970, DeGaetani, Thoms,s, "A Theatre Flexible and Spacious," Progressive Architecture, XLIII (February 1962), 166, 168, 170, 172, Dorner, Alexander, "The Background of the Bauhaus," Bauhaus: Weiroar 1919-1925, Dessau 1925-1928, Eds, Herbert Bayer, Walter Gropius, and Ise Gropius, Boston: Charles T. Branford Company, 1952. Feininger, T, Lux, "The Bauhauss The Evolution of an Idea.” Bauhaus and Bauhaus People: Personal Opinions and Recollections of Bauhaus Members and Their Contemporaries, Ed, Eckhard Neuman, Trans. Eva Richter and Alba Lorman, New York; Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1970, Fuerst," Walter R, and Samuel J, Hume, Twentieth Century Stage Decoration. London: Alfred A, Knopf, Inc., 1928, Garten, Hugh F, Modem German Drama. Fair Lawn,' New Jersey: Essential Books, 1959. Gay, Peter, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1968. Gleizes, Albert, Cubism, Munich: Albert Langen Press, 1931. 77 78 Gropius, Walter, ed. An Experimental House by the Bauhaus, Munichj Albert Langen Press, 1927a, ______o International Architecture. Municha Albert Langen Press, 1927b, ______, The Bauhaus Buildings in Dessau, Municht Albert Langen Press, 1931- . , The Few Architecture and the Bauhaus, Trans, P, Morton Shand, Londons Farber and Farber Ltd., 1936, ______ed, "Introduction," to Theatre of the Bauhaus, Trans, Arthur S, Wensinger, Middletown, Gonhecticut: Wesleyan University Press, I96I, ______, "On Modem Theatrical Architecture,” Compagnie Madelene Renaud— -Jean-Louis Barrault, trans, Gerald D, Palsson, XLVI (October 1964), 102-104-. ' . ' "Program of the Staatliches Bauhans in Weimar," Bauhaus and Bauhaus Peoples Personal Opinions and Recollections of Bauhaus Members and Their Contemporaries, Ed, EcKhard Neuman, Trans, Eva Richter and Alba Lorraan, New Yorks Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1970, Gutheim, Fredrick A,, ed, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architectures Selected Writings 189^— 19^-0, New Yorks Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1941, Haffenrichter, Hans, "Lothar Schreyer and the Bauhaus Stage," Bauhaus and Bauhaus Peoples Personal Opinions and Recollections of Bauhaus Members and Their Contemporaries. Ed, Eckhard Neuman. Trans, Eva Richter and Alba Borman. New Yorks Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1970. Hitler," Adolf, Mein Kampf. Trans, John Chamberlain, et al, Bostons Houghton Mifflin Company, 1939» limes, Campbell D. Erwin Piscator's Political Theatres The Development of Modem German Drama, Londons Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, 1972. Kandinsky, Wassily, Point and Line in Plane, Munichs Albert langen Press, 1931o Klee, Paul, Pedagogical Sketchbook, Munichs Albert Langen Press, 19&7 0 Kostelanetz, Richard, ed„ Moholy-Nagya Documentary Monographs In Modern Art, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970, Kuhn, Charles L, German Expressionism and Abstract Art, Cambridge, Massachusettss Harvard University Press, 1957« Ley-Pisc&tor, Maria, The Piscator Experiments The Political Theatre New York: James H, Heineman,"1967” Malevich, Kasmir S, The Nonob.iective World, Munich % Albert Langen Press, 19310 Moholy-Nagy,' Laszlo, New Work of the Bauhaus Workshops. Munichs Albert Langen Press, 1927a, , Painting, Photography, and Film.- Munich: Albert Langen Press, 1927b, o The New Vision, Munich: Albert Langen Press, 1931= o Vision in Motion, Chicago: Paul Theobald, 194?, , "Theatre, Circus, Variety," in The Theatre of the Bauhaus, Ed, Walter Gropius, Trans, Arthur S„ Wesinger, Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, Moholy-Nagy," Dorothea M, Sibyl, Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 19^9= Molnar, Parkas, "U-Theatre," in The Theatre of the Bauhaus, Ed, Walter Gropius, Trans, Arthur S, Wensinger, Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, Mondrian, Piet C, New Design, Munich: Albert Langen Press, 1927, Morris,' William, "The Art of the People," William Morris: Stories in Prose, Stories in Verse, Shorter Poems, Lectures, and Essays, Ed, G, D, H, Cole, London: The Nonsuch Press, 1948 , "The Worker’s Share of Art," William Morris: Selected Writings and Designs. Ed, Asa Briggs, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1962,

Naylor, Gillian, The Bauhaus, London: Studio Vista Ltd,, 1968, Neuman,' Eckhard, ed„ Bauhaus and Bauhaus People: Personal Opinions and Recollections of Bauhaus Members and Their Contemporaries Trans, Eva Richter and Alba Dorman, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1970, 80 Oud, Jacobus J„ P, The Architecture of Holland, Munichs Albert Langen Press, 1931. Kemak, Joachim, The Nazi Years; A Documentary History, Englewood Cliffs, New Jerseys Prentice-Hall, Inc,, 1969, Boose-Evans, James, Experimental Theatres From Stanislavsky to Today, New Yorks Universe Books, 1970„ Scheidig, Walther, Crafts of the Weimar Bauhaus 1919-1924s An Experiment in Industrial Design, Trans, Ruth Michaelis-Jena and Patrick Murry, New Yorks Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1967, Sehawinsky, Alexander, "Prom Bauhaus to Black Mountain," The Drama Review, LI (Summer 1971)V 30-44. Schlemmer, Oskar, "Man and Art Figure," in The Theatre of the Bauhaus, Ed, Walter Gropius, Trans, Arthur S, Wensinger, Middletown, Connecticuts Wesleyan University Press, 1961a, ______„ "Theatre (Buhne)," in The Theatre of the Bauhaus. Ed, Walter Gropius, Trans, Arthur S. Wensinger. Middletown, Connecticuts Wesleyan University Press, 1961b, , "Abstraction in Dance,” Compagnie Madelene Renaud— Jean- Louis Barraltp trans, Gerald D, Palsson, XLVI (October 1964), 106-108, Schreyer, Lothar, Memories of Sturm and Bauhaus, Munichs Langen Muller Press, 1956? ~ Sokel, Walter R,, ed. An Anthology of German Expressionist Dramas A Prelude to the Absurd. Garden City, New Yorks Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1963, Sorrel, Walter, The Dance Through the Ages, New Yorks Grosset and Dunlap, Inc., 1967. Stolper, Toni K, Ein Leben in Brennpunkten Zeits Gustave Stolper, 1888-1947, Quoted in Peter Gay, Weimar Cultures The Outsider as Insider. New Yorks Harper and Row Publishers, 1958. . Tomkins, Calvin. The Bride and the Bachelorss Five Masters of the Avant Garde! New Yorks The Viking Press, 1968, van Doesburg, Theo, The Principles of the New Art, Munichs Albert Langen Press, 1927. 81 Watterson, Joseph. Architecture: A Short History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1968, Velnlnger, Andreas, "The Spherical Theatre," In The Theatre of the Bauhaus, Ed, Walter Gropius, Trans, Arthur S, Wensinger, Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1961, Wensinger, Arthur S,, trans. The Theatre of the Bauhaus. Ed. Walter Gropius. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. Wingler, Hans M. The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago. Ed, Joseph Stein. Trans. Wolfgang Jabs and Basil Gilbert. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1969#