Nikolai Evreinov and Edith Craig As Mediums of Modernist Sensibility', New Theatre Quarterly, Vol

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Nikolai Evreinov and Edith Craig as Mediums of Modernist

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Citation for published version: Smith, A 2010, 'Nikolai Evreinov and Edith Craig as Mediums of Modernist Sensibility', New theatre quarterly, vol. 26, no. 103, pp. 203-216. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X10000412

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Publisher Rights Statement: © Smith, A. (2010). Nikolai Evreinov and Edith Craig as Mediums of Modernist Sensibility. New theatre quarterly, 26(103), 203-216doi: 10.1017/S0266464X10000412

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Nikolai Evreinov and Edith Craig as Mediums of Modernist Sensibility

Alexandra Smith

New Theatre Quarterly / Volume 26 / Issue 03 / August 2010, pp 203 216 DOI: 10.1017/S0266464X10000412, Published online: 11 August 2010

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0266464X10000412

How to cite this article: Alexandra Smith (2010). Nikolai Evreinov and Edith Craig as Mediums of Modernist Sensibility. New Theatre Quarterly, 26, pp 203216 doi:10.1017/S0266464X10000412

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/NTQ, IP address: 129.215.149.99 on 26 Aug 2013 Alexandra Smith

Nikolai Evreinov and Edith Craig as Mediums of Modernist Sensibility

Nikolai Evreinov (1870–1953) was a Russian playwright, director, and theorist of the theatre who played a leading part in the modernist movement of Russian theatre. Evreinovʼs 1911 monodrama The Theatre of the Soul (V kulisakh dushi ) was staged by the Crooked Mirror theatre in St Petersburg in 1912. It was also performed in London (1915) and Rome (1929), and inspired Man Ray to create his aerograph The Theatre of the Soul (1917). In this article Alexandra Smith links Evreinovʼs play to Russian modernist thought shaped by the atmosphere of crisis associated with the Russo–Japanese War and the first Russian Revolution. It demonstrates that Edith Craigʼs production of Evreinovʼs play suggests that the philosophy of theatricalization of everyday life might enable modern subjects to overcome the fragmentation of modern society. Craigʼs use of the montage-like techniques of Evreinovʼs play prefigures cinematographic experiments of the 1920s and Marinettiʼs notion of synthetic theatre. Alexandra Smith is a Reader in Russian Studies at the University of Edinburgh and is the author of The Song of the Mockingbird: Pushkin in the Works of Marina Tsvetaeva (1994) and Montaging Pushkin: Pushkin and Visions of Modernity in Russian Twentieth-Century Poetry (2006), as well as numerous articles on Russian literature and culture.

PLAYWRIGHT, director, theorist, anthropo- Evreinov’s ability to synthesize Stanislav - logist, historian, musician, teacher, composer, sky’s psychological realism and Meyerhold’s and philosopher, Nikolai Evreinov was one ‘grotesque’ and stylization manifested itself of the most prominent theatrical inno va tors in the production of the mass spectacle The of the modernist period. A self-proclaimed Storming of the Winter Palace (Vziatie Zimnego genius, he was completely dismissed by dvortsa) in 1920. It was a mythologized and Soviet critics as an émigré director and an hyperbolized re-enactment of the highlights avid believer in the philosophy of theatre for of the Bolshevik uprising, subordinated to oneself based on the highly subjective the principles of theatricality. approach to the formative role of art in the Together with the prominent Russian artist life of the individual and society. The redis- Yurii Annenkov, Evreinov managed to pre- covery of Evreinov’s art in Russia today was sent his own artistic version of the storming triggered by the Moscow Art Theatre produc - of the Winter Palace with the help of eight tion of his 1921 play The Chief Thing (Samoe thousand participants, including soldiers glavnoe) in October 1999, coinciding with the who had taken part in the 1917 October rise of post-Soviet subjectivity. Revolution, and an orchestra of five hundred Evreinov’s reputation was much more that played revolutionary songs. A real horn stable abroad throughout the twentieth cen - blast from the battleship Aurora, anchored tury since he was widely recognized as an near the Winter Palace on the Neva river, important theoretician and master of mono- created a special theatrical effect that had a drama. In 1920 Oliver M. Sayler named considerable impact on the audience of a Evreinov, Stanislavsky, and Meyerhold as hundred thousand spectators located in three the three major forces in Russian avant-garde main areas linked to the Winter Palace itself. theatre.1 Although usually highly praised for The performance was directed from a his contribution to the revival of monodrama platform raised in the middle of the square and harlequinade in the twentieth century, next to the column commemorating the Tsar, ntq 26:3 (august 2010) © cambridge university press doi:10.1017/S0266464X10000412 203 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 Alexander I. Evreinov used field phones, new all-national and mythogenic art to appeal light signals, and motorcycle couriers in order to the most universal spirit of the nation and to heighten the dramatic effect. forge a bond between poet and crowd. According to T. S. Dzhurova, Evreinov’s Evreinov’s mass spectacle The Storming of the compositional techniques were similar to Winter Palace might be seen as an embodi - Eisenstein’s use of intellectual montage: the ment of the theatre of the future that would gaze of the spectators at this night-time mass unite the poet and the crowd in a common spectacle was constantly directed towards celebration and service as described in the red and white platforms erected on Winter Ivanov’s essay ‘New Masks’. Square.2 The role of the red platform in the It is clear that Evreinov drew on Ivanov’s spectacle was especially powerful since it belief in the leading role of tragedy in social created a visual representation of the consoli- and spiritual reintegration: his 1920 mass dation of the revolutionary forces capable of spectacles were in the style of Ivanov’s desire the conscious organization of chaotic flow of to link the new tragedy with the elements of time into a meaningful artistic symbol. James the Dionysian sacrifice re-enacted symbolic - Roose-Evans describes it thus: ally. In addition to The Storming of the Winter Palace, Evreinov staged outdoors three alle- At the end he had a Tree of Freedom around which gorical depictions of revolutionary events all the nations were united in brotherly celeb ra - tion while the soldiers of the Red Army exchanged performed in the style of religious mystery their rifles for sickles and hammers. From the plays: Hymn to Liberated Labour! (Gimn osvob - darkened windows of the Winter Palace red stars ozh dennogo truda!) on 1 May 1920, To The World with five points were lit. On top of the build ing a Commune (K mirovoi commune) on 19 July huge red banner was raised. The performance 1920, and ‘Blockade of Russia’ (Blokada Rossii) ended with a mass singing of the Internationale, 20 1920 fireworks, and a parade of the armed forces.3 on July . These fulfilled Ivanov’s goal to drive the individual out of his conventions Evreinov’s allegorical depiction of the revo - in order to restore the experience of commu- lutionary events that incorporated the use of nal ecstasy through the theatricalization of cinematographic devices had a considerable everyday life. impact on Sergei Eisenstein, who repro- Since Evreinov moved to the south of duced Evreinov’s monumental style in his Russia soon after the 1917 revolution and 1927 film October. Eisenstein’s film testifies to returned to Petrograd only in 1920, after the growing importance of the spontaneity- living in Tiflis and Sukhumi, none of his consciousness paradigm described in Katerina spectacles was deemed to be a reconstruction Clark’s study The Soviet Novel: History as of eye-witness accounts of the events: they Ritual, which suggests that Soviet socialist were heavily imbued with mythologized realist novels constructed the hero moving details that enabled participants of the spec- from a state of spontaneity to a higher degree tacles to experience themselves and the world of consciousness. in a new way and foster a re-evaluation of established values. According to Ivanov, the new type of theatre would lead to dithy- The Theatricalization of Everyday Life rambic catharsis, enabling the participants of Clark’s exploration of ‘the great historical the performance to experience death and drama of struggle between the forces of resurrection in the style of Dionysian rites.5 spontaneity and the forces of consciousness’ Evreinov’s mass spectacles exemplify Ivanov’s in terms of new social ritual can be easily eclectic approach to the drama based on mod- extended to the theatrical experi ments of the ern political and theatrical theory. 1920s.4 After all, as early as 1904, Viacheslav The idea of open-air mass spectacles as a Ivanov, one of the most influential Symbolist form of modern artistic subjectivity origin - thinkers of the period, wrote two essays, ‘The ated during the first Russian revolution Poet and the Mob’ (Poet i tolpa) and ‘New (1905–1907) and became popular among Masks’ (Novye maski), in which he called for a Russian Futurists, with whom Evreinov was

204 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 collaborating on many projects. After the Every such theatre must be like a community, fol- 1917 revolution, the military-like and all- lowing a ‘master’, something like what in paint- inclusive mass spectacles were only partially ing is called a ‘school’, in which all the disciples carry out freely and enthusiastically the ideas of related to the creation of proletarian theatre. their leader and are able to work together on the To a large extent, they were linked to the same picture.7 estab lishment of a new ritual celebrating a new social order and revolutionary achieve- Having tried to implement her vision in the ments. real world, Kommissarzhevskaya collabo r - Platon Kerzhentsev’s 1918 book The Crea- ated with Meyerhold on several productions. tive Theatre described the creation of a true Yet after their joint visit to Berlin in 1907, people’s theatre based on Russian folk drama devoted to the study of Reinhardt’s produc - as a highly desirable development. Similar tions, Komissarzhevskaya criticized Meyer - calls for a complete break with professional hold’s desire to turn his actors into puppets, theatre were manifested in Romain Rolland’s and in 1908 she appointed Evreinov as her 1903 book The People’s Theatre (translated into new director. (Due to financial hardship, how- Russian in 1910), inspired by the open-air ever, the theatre was closed in 1909.) Similar collective performances then popular in ideas highlighting the need for collectively America and England. Harold Segel links shared religious-like experiences were advo- this phenomenon of physical cultism with a cated by Aleksandr Scriabin, who called for widespread repudiation of organized religion: the initia tion of the spectators dressed in special robes for a performance. The institution of the house of worship, of the The most influential production of the church and synagogue, came to be viewed as 1910s to exemplify the notion of the theatre repugnant because of its identification with bourgeois society. . . . For those individuals unwilling of ideas was Gordon Craig’s production of to abandon a belief in the need for faith, alterna - Hamlet by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1912. tive spiritualities were sought.6 Its combination of the elements of monodrama with the new monumental language and cubist-like decorations was highly praised Linking Social and Artistic Ideals by leading Symbolist poets and critics, This context enables us to understand how includ ing Valery Briusov and Maximilian Evreinov’s theatrical events stemmed from Voloshin. Russian critics were particularly his preoccupation with the tension between impressed by Craig’s architectural organiz - individuality and social unity. Evreinov’s ation of space and his pure movement of mass spectacles attest that the cultural acti - forms, colour, and light with the help of vities of Russian modernists did not amount moving cubes and imaginative use of light to the complete rejection of the populism of and screens. In Voloshin’s opinion, the elabo- the 1860s. While criticizing the positivism of rate use of cubes invented by Craig, that the early period with its focus on ideology could rise or fall at any speed, was especially and utilitarian taste, they did not altogether suitable for Symbolist drama that features a abandon the notion of social authority, even historical space, as well as for tragedies.8 when they proclaimed the autonomy of art Craig’s production of Hamlet influenced and the moral superiority of the lone artist. many Russian modernist directors who were In Russia the search for new religious seeking to reproduce dynamics and special experiences based on the performance of the relationships on stage with the assistance of collective self at the beginning of the twen- imaginative employment of lighting, music, tieth century led to the emergence of the and dance. They aspired to establish the new notion of the theatre of ideas. It was seen as form of synthetic theatre comprising elements an artistic form that could unite actors and of opera, drama, and dance. Their produc - directors sharing a vision of the art of acting tions emphasized the imagination of the and methods of that particular theatre. Vera master actor capable of improvising upon an Komissarzhevskaya explains: idea in the vein of commedia dell’arte. They

205 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 also sought to reinvent the Russian cultural aesthetic trends expressing modern subjec - tradition of the nineteenth century that tivity and the subliminal self. The Crooked linked the artistic ideal of unity to the social Mirror cabaret was founded in St Petersburg function of art, presenting Russian writers as in 1908 as a theatrical club speci al izing in prophets, martyrs, and spiritual leaders. parody. According to Chudovsky, the paro - Lev Tolstoy’s claim in his seminal treatise dic touch of Crooked Mirror’s pro ductions of 1897–98, What is Art? (Chto takoe iskusstvo?), reflect on modern forms of extreme subjectiv - that the communication of feeling from the ism, which manifests itself as comic.12 artist to the audience should be seen as the By contrast, according to Aleksandr Kugel’, single most important function of art the revival of monodrama undertaken by inspired many Russian modernists who, to Evreinov and Boris Geyer originated from use Kandinsky’s words, became preoccupied the highly pessimistic modern world view with their power to evoke ‘the progressive that led to the disintegration of morality into refinement of the soul’.9 At the same time, the plurality of subjective values. Kugel’ many Russian modernists experienced the defines the crisis of dramatic theatre as a anxiety of individuation that stemmed from crisis of universalist morality, the latter asso - the political and philosophical concerns and ciated with Kant’s notion of a single moral social tensions that led to revolution in 1905. obligation. Kugel’ links the revival of mono- In search for new truths and meanings, the drama to the new interest in the performer’s Russian creative intelligentsia embraced the ability to be a religious-like figure capable of philosophies of will of Schopenhauer and sharing his/her emotional experience with Nietzsche. In a Schopenhauerean manner, the audience. He found the actor’s ability to Fedor Sologub proclaimed: create a vision of dream-like reality compar - able to book illustrations that represent snap- In high art images strive to become symbols, that shots of contemporary life. As Kugel’ points is, they strive to instil in themselves a multi - meaningful content, they strive so that, in the pro- out, ‘the task of art is to cognize life in such a cess of perceiving them, it would be possible to way that it would be possible to capture its uncover ever deeper meanings.10 rhythm’.13 The idea of Kugel’ that every work envir - onment, social group, and manifestation of The Revival of Monodrama ordinary life corresponds to certain rhyth- If nineteenth-century civic critics asserted that mical patterns links up with the underlying truth could be found in an extensive descrip- theme of interaction between painting and tion of everyday life and external reality, poetry found in the experiments of Russian Sologub in his essay ‘Art’ (Iskusstvo) expressed Futurists and French Dadaists. His vision of his belief that only by looking within can one drama as an artistic rendering of psychic life find truth. His vision is fully applicable to – seen as the intuitively comprehensible flow Evreinov, whose cabaret per formances pro - of existence – develops Evreinov’s views in vided escape from pheno menal reality, which his Introduction to Monodrama,14 in which he was seen by him as ‘the excessively materi al - claims that the appropriate relationship bet- istic world’.11 ween audience and performance in the theatre In the light of these trends, Evreinov’s is one of sympathy; therefore complete unity revival of monodrama might be seen as an between character and audience is achiev- artistic response to the turbulent period in able if everything happening on stage can be Russia associated with the 1905 revolution subjectively perceived by one main character. and the war with Japan that shaped extreme Evreinov linked his monodrama to recent individualism in Russia. Valerian Chudov- publications in psychology. As Katherine sky’s 1912 article refers to produc tions of the Lahti notes, his ‘attempts to prove scientific - cabaret Crooked Mirror (Krivoe zerkalo), ally that monodrama is the best, most effec - which actively promoted Evreinov’s plays, tive theatre only feebly hide the fact that his as the most representative of contemporary version of monodrama satisfied his own pro -

206 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 clivity to extreme subjectivism’.15 In Lahti’s ance of gestures among Russian practitioners, opinion, ultimately Evreinov’s monodramas including Evreinov. In his Introduction to make one point: ‘the self is subjective’.16 Monodrama, Evreinov cites Gordon Craig as a Although the interest in monodrama might director whose monodrama appeals to him be interpreted as an exploration of modern because of its desire to overcome the depen - subjectivity and psychoanalysis, the genre of dence of contemporary drama on literature monodrama was not invented by modern - by employing visual effects and non-verbal ists. Its origin is associated with Jean-Jacques communication.17 Rousseau’s 1766 music drama, Pygmalion. While the popularity of the form initiated by A ‘Revolt against Grandiosity’ Pygmalion had decreased by 1815, monodrama was imported to England through the Given that Laurence Senelick defines work of Robert Southey, among others, and modern monodrama as a manifestation of shaped many dramatic works of the major ‘high-spirited revolt against grandiosity’, it English Romantics, including Wordsworth’s is also possible to say that the assault on The Borderers and Byron’s Manfred. words gave rise to a new theatrical langu - Many elements of monodrama can also be age.18 According to Senelick, ‘The play - found in Romantic music: Hector Berlioz’s wrights featured at André Antoine’s Théâtre music of the 1830s, for example, is usually Libre in Paris claimed they were presenting defined as monodrame lyrique. In the late nine- “slices of life”, best exposed in short, striking teenth and early twentieth centuries, mono - format’.19 Similar one-act plays became drama became a fully conceptualized genre popular in Russia in the 1910s, their authors in its own right, representing a new kind of including Leonid Andreev and Geyer as well subjectivity. Its goal was to align the spec - as Evreinov, and their venue the Crooked tator as closely as possible to the protagonist Mirror cabaret. so that the viewer would sympathize with But in spite of many parodic touches, the protagonist’s experience as it was hap - Evreinov’s vision of monodrama focuses on pen ing on stage. its ability to evoke emotions associated with In Evreinov’s theoretical works, mono - various settings with the help of minimalist drama was a form concerned with the exter - stage design and the deployment of a ritual- nal expression of the internal experience of a istic style of performance – points discussed single protagonist. There are three types of by Harrison in her seminal 1912 study monodrama: single-character monodrama; Ancient Art and Ritual. Harrison writes: divided-self monodrama, which depicts the fragmented parts of an individual psyche at The commemorative dance does especially re- war within an individual; and multi-char- present; it reproduces the past hunt or battle; but if we analyze a little more closely we see it is not acter monodrama, in which the surround - for the sake of copying the actual battle itself, but ings and other characters are presented for the emotion felt about the battle. This they desire through the filtered consciousness of the to re-live. . . . The habit of this mimesis of the thing protagonist. desired, is set up, and ritual begins. Ritual, then, Lahti links Evreinov’s revival of mono - does imitate, but for an emotional, not an altogether practical, end.20 drama with the growing interest in ancient rituals both in Russia and Europe, as was Drawing on Tolstoy’s emphasis on the unify - noted in Ivanov’s essays. They were exten - ing function of art and on Ivanov’s notion of sively studied by Jane Ellen Harrison, British collective identity, Harrison offers her own classicist and specialist in Slavonic studies, model of art. Like Ivanov and Evreinov, she who maintained close contacts with leading called for the restoration of the theatrical Russian cultural figures. collective: The interest in monodramatic forms of performance and rituals triggered interest in Art is in its very origin social, and social means non-verbal communication and the import - human and collective. Moral and social are, in

207 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 their final analysis, the same. . . . ‘Art,’ says British theatre of the time served as an im - Tolstoy, ‘has this characteristic, that it unites 21 por tant space where this transformation was people.’ highly visible. Anderson writes:

In her book, Themis: a Study of the Social As a result, the theatre as a whole (the physical Origins of Greek Religion (1912), Harrison space, the stage, the performances, the actresses, situates the origin of religion in collectively the playwrights, the directors, the managers, and the audience) changed and became not only an held emotion and outlines the relevance of agent of modernity, but an institution of modern- ancient rituals to contemporary re-evaluations ity. It was within the theatre through the introduc - of humanist values and ideas of national tion of ‘Suffrage Drama’ and the formation of the identity. She also argues that the excesses of AFL (Actresses’ Franchise League) that the first nationalism emerging in the 1910s stemmed consciously woman-centred, feminist, middle- class, political, and performative space emerged.23 from two major causes: collectivism, which, in her view, had turned into a fashionable Julie Holledge, in her informative study on dogma; and the triumph of emotion over female performers and directors in Edwar - reason, which led those who favoured war. dian Britain, describes the Pioneer Players as She offered Dostoevsky as an antidote to an important women’s society engaged in these excesses – a model, for Britain, of how suffrage drama.24 The society’s founder, Edith a national identity could be defended with- Craig, was a well-established actress, costume out recourse to the kind of nationalism that, designer, and director who contributed sig- she believed, held sway in Britain. nificantly to political campaigns and the development of women’s drama. Craig’s image of the modern woman was also sup - The Influence on British Modernism ported by her role as an innovative director Harrison’s ideas on ritual and drama influ - interested in advanced technology: the spec - enced many British modernists, including tacular visual effects of her productions at D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and James the Little Theatre were highly praised for Joyce; and her vision of the imaginary Rus- skilful and innovative use of lighting. sian model shaped by Dostoevsky’s ideas Craig was largely involved with suffrage appeared to have had a considerable impact drama that aspired to portray emancipated on Edith Craig and Christopher St John women as feminists. Several resolutions of (pseudonym of Christabel Marshall, writer, the AFL meetings promoted at Caxton Hall translator, and long-standing partner of Edith in 1911 (which appeared in the publication Craig) who decided to stage Evreinov’s 1912 Votes for Women) called upon dramatists monodrama The Theatre of the Soul (V kulisakh seeking the true feminist spirit ‘to study dushi) in London in 1915.22 modern women in their workshops, studios, Edith Craig’s production of this play in and factories’.25 The AFL resolutions suggest London helps unravel the complexities of that politics should be seen as ‘a vital neces- modernity’s relationship to femininity and sity for the truthful interpretation of the to address more general questions about the drama of life’.26 relationship between politics and the theatre The artistic aspirations in AFL members’ in the 1910s. The advancement of modernity approval of the use of propaganda in drama and the growing importance of urban public go beyond the desire of British suffragists ‘to space in Great Britain led to an increase in reform their society by domesticating public the participation of middle-class women in life’.27 The merger of propaganda and theatre London public life between 1890 and 1914. in this context is linked to modern female Christine Anderson believes that, during this politics, which stemmed from the desire of period, the identity of middle-class women middle-class women to redefine themselves changed from ‘Angel-in-the-House’ through within the modern city. The role of theatre in ‘New Woman’ to ‘Angel-in-the-City’ and, raising consciousness and forming a gen dered ultimately, to ‘Modern Woman’. Thus the identity during this period was prominent.

208 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 Role of the Pioneer Players newspaper headlines were filled with the atrocities of war’.33 While half of all the plays According to Elizabeth Crawford, Edith performed in the pre-war period were auth - Craig set up the Pioneer Players in 1911 to ored by women, in 1914–21 the proportion of produce plays about suffrage and to reflect plays penned by women fell below one- on theatrical experiments that could appeal third. As Nina Auerbach explains, to the artistic sensibility of modern specta - 28 tors. The Pioneer Players presented them- feminists regretted Edy’s abandonment of women, selves as anti-commercial, and listed among but the Pioneer Players remained vital by broad - their main objectives such goals as ‘to pro- ening their scope, and Edy strengthened herself duce plays dealing with all kinds of move- when she brought male as well as female visions into her little empire.34 ments of interest at the moment’ and ‘to assist social, political, and other societies by Evreinov’s monodrama would have appealed providing them with plays as a means of to Craig’s artistic sensibility. The genre of 29 1911 12 raising funds’. In the – annual report, cabaret artistique, which was popular in Edith Craig writes: ‘All we ask of a play is 30 Europe and Russia, would perhaps have that it shall be interesting.’ been seen by Craig as highly suitable for the 1911 25 In the period of their activity ( – ) the examination of modern subjectivity and Pioneer Players were subjected to com mer - urban alienation. Segel writes in his analysis cial and political pressures and the per - of the Cabaret Voltaire and its links with formers experienced unpredictable conditions European theatrical experiments: of employment that disrupted the traditional role ascribed to women as carers or depen - Apart from the prominence of especially fine dants. As a play-producing subscription talents such as Riviere, Bruant, Wedekind, Rein - society, it relied heavily on its membership. hardt, Hugo Ball, and Boy-Zelenski the cabarets 64 became the focal point of considerable artistic While the annual reports stated that plays innovation and experimentation . . . a reaction were produced for subscription perform - against naturalism and especially symbolism. . . . ances, Christopher St John recalled 150 per - The movement was away from the lofty, grandi - formances altogether.31 ose, grandiloquent, ethereal, and sombre to the The outbreak of the First World War lighter, more playful, more informal, and less so - phisticated.35 broad ened the scope of social engagements undertaken by the Players. Katharine Cockin points out that the society’s decision of The Theatre of the Soul December 1915 to establish an art theatre in Edith Craig’s interest in Evreinov’s plays London was perceived by some critics as bet- would also have been triggered by the grow- raying its commitment to promote suffrage- ing sense of crisis as regards masculinity – related drama: reinforced by experiences of the war. The The change in the Pioneer Players’ agenda can protagonist of Evreinov’s The Theatre of the now be dated precisely, not to the outbreak of war Soul is tormented by his divided self, and, in (although this had important implications . . . ), but this, is similar to D. H. Lawrence’s protago - 1915 to December with the pivotal and contro ver - nist from The Rainbow, whose ontological sial production of Nikolai Evreinov’s expres- sionist play.32 insecurity made him experience the ‘horrible slipping into unreality’ which ‘drove him Cockin observes that in 1915 the society’s mad’ to the extent that ‘his soul screamed membership changed significantly, leading with fear and agony’.36 to an increase in aristocratic membership. In Evreinov’s monodrama, revealing similar Holledge’s opinion, there were pragmatic concerns with the process of slipping into reasons for this change, because Craig and unreality, prefigures the French Surrealists’ her associates ‘were quick to realize that their experiments with automatic writing inspired audience would not be interested in plays by the dynamic psychiatry used for the treat - about the oppression of women while the ment of nervous breakdowns during the First

209 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 World War.37 Cockin lists several experimen - M3 wears a black mask and looks like an tal and defamiliarizing devices in Evreinov’s exhausted traveller. The eternal Self is det - play, including special noise and light effects, ached, while the rational and emotional Selves the use of the telephone to illustrate commu- are antagonistic to each other. ni cation between various fragmented parts The rational Self advises the man to return of the human mind, and the unusual treat- to his family, while the emotional Self urges ment of time – the monodrama supposedly him to give up his boring existence and run last ing just eighteen seconds. Cockin finds the away with the Songstress; the rational Self synthetic quality and intensity of Evreinov’s reminds the man that the Songstress is forty monodrama comparable to the Italian Futurist years old, with ingrown toenails, wig, and performances that embodied Marinetti’s painted face, whereas the Wife is an ideal notion of synthetic theatre, able ‘to compress mother; the emotional Self responds that the into a few minutes, into a few words and Wife is a petite bourgeoise in shabby clothes gestures, innumerable situations, sensibili - with coffee stains. The Wife, meanwhile, sees ties, ideas, sensations, facts, and symbols’.38 her husband as an atheist, philosopher, and Evreinov considered The Theatre of the Soul excessive drinker. The protagonist, unable to to be the most original play in the history of bring together his conflicting Selves, shoots the theatre. Envisaged as a parody of Stanis- himself through the heart. lavsky’s preoccupation with psychological realism, its action takes place inside a man’s The Fragmented Mind of Modern Man body, and his giant internal organs appear on the stage, moving in time to the music, which The experimental and pessimistic nature of represents the protagonist’s various moods. Evreinov’s presentation of the modern Self This action supposedly unfolds in his soul influenced Man Ray’s 1917 aerograph, which over the course of half a second. The man was originally titled The Theatre of the Soul leaves his wife and child for a café singer, and is known today as Suicide.39 Ray incor - who abandons him. The protagonist views porated several abstract elements in his aero- the Wife and the Songstress through his three graph, including the two suspended egg-like selves – rational, emotional, and eternal. Other forms in the foreground which resemble the characters include the Professor; M1, the lungs mentioned in the Professor’s descrip- Rational Entity of the Soul; M2, the Emo - tion, while the triangular configuration of tional Entity of the Soul; M3, the Subliminal lines in the upper centre was probably meant Entity of the Soul; M1’s Concept of the Wife; to illustrate the nervous system. As Francis M2’s Concept of the Wife; M1’s Concept of Naumann suggests: the Songstress; M2’s Concept of the Song - stress; and the Porter. All the characters are it is also possible that Man Ray may have intended the oval shapes to represent the main intro duced by the Professor, who calls the characters in the actual play itself: the Rational play a ‘genuinely scientific work in every and Emotional Entities of the Soul. . . . Since the respect, abreast of the latest developments in Emotional and Rational Entities are actually one and the same, representing opposing states of the psychophysiology’. He states that the pre- 40 sentation of the human being as a combina - self, this act could be interpreted as a suicide. tion of several entities is in line with the The graphic representation of the frag mented psychological theories of Wilhelm Wundt, mind of modern man and the allusion to Sigmund Freud, and Théodule Armand Ribot. suicide in the final part of the play set off the The three Entities are all dressed in black, many negative responses to the 1915 produc - 1 2 but M wears a frock coat, M an artist’s tion of the work in London. In response to 3 blouse and a red tie, and M well-worn trav- the critics who disliked Evreinov’s crude 1 elling clothes. M wears spectacles, speaks psychology, Christopher St John wrote: quietly, has thin lips, and greyish, well brushed hair; M2 appears youthful and Everyone who thinks at all knows that the interior energetic, with untidy hair and full, red lips; of a human soul has very little furniture and that

210 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 what takes place there is astonishingly simple. of scientists like Pavlov and his followers – What a man expresses through the medium of his behaviourists and anti-mentalists – who, in brain and personality is complicated, both in its their revolt against subjectivity, focused their beauty and its ugliness, but the thing from which this elaboration of thought and action is evolved attention on objective psychology. Evreinov’s is as it exists in the soul elemental whether the Professor playfully compares the nervous soul be a philosopher’s or a peasant’s. For this system with a telephone, explaining his chart reason it seems to me that the crudeness of ‘The to the audience as follows: Theatre of the Soul’ is a virtue rather than a 41 defect. This plan, ladies and gentlemen, represents, as no doubt you can see, a large heart, with the begin - Pamela Colman Smith’s stage design and ning of its main red artery. It makes from 55 to 125 decorations for the monodrama correspon - pulsations a minute, and lies between the two ded well to Evreinov’s intention to question lungs which fill and empty themselves from four - the popular belief that scientific positivism teen to eighteen times a minute. Here you see a little system of nerves, threads of nerves, pale in might kill poetic inspiration. The represen - colour, and constantly agitated by vibration which tation of the heart as the source of the emo - we will compare to a telephone. Such is the scene tive aspects of human psychology invokes in which ‘the entity self’ plays its part. But, ladies and gentlemen, science does not confine itself to the monistic doctrines that emerged at the 44 beginning of the twentieth century, includ - explaining things. ing Loeb’s theory of tropisms, American behaviourism, Pavlov’s conditioned reflex Creating a Theatre of Dreams theory, and Bekhterev’s objective psychology. St John’s account of Craig’s production Smith’s set and costume design for Craig’s suggests that Craig understood Evreinov’s production contributed to the idea that this attempt to visualize the fragmen ted modern monodrama was closer to the visual arts self as a visual spectacle performed in Cubo– than the theatre. Undoubtedly, the heart rep - Futurist vein, which pre figures Man Ray’s resented by the glowing red space and the interpretation. Ray would have been familiar use of intense darkness, against which sev- with St John’s description in the Introduction eral faces resembling masks were dis played to the 1915 edition of the play, which states: at different levels, evoked the atmos phere of performances by the Ballets Russes. Prior to In the production of the play Miss Edith Craig her work on Evreinov’s play in 1915, Smith used a queer and fascinating machinery, of the had produced exquisite illustrations for Ellen simplest kind, by which little was seen of the three entities of the soul beyond their faces appearing at Terry’s book The Russian Ballet, which includes different levels out of intense darkness. The heart several androgynous images of Vladislav was represented by a glowing red space which Nijinskii. Smith’s drawings highlight the appeared to pulsate owing to an effect of light. transgressive and dream-like quality of The concepts of the women were seen in the fore - Russian modern dance, stage, and costume ground and were brilliantly lighted. The whole effect was thrilling and beautiful, and helped design, which Terry described as follows: enor mously to create a dramatic atmosphere. 42 I think they rather transport us into a country which The Professor describes the heart as part of has no nationality and no barriers, the king dom of dreams. The Russian ballet has transformed itself the human machine: in a little over a decade because its guiding mind has been more than national. The musicians, art- I think that the human soul manifests itself in that ists, dancers and ballet-masters have depended part of the physical breast which a man instinc - more on invention than on reality. Many stories of tively strikes when he wishes to emphasize his widely different character have been drawn on for good faith, or even when he uses such expressions the new ballets, but all have been treated with an as ‘I am distressed in the soul’, or ‘I rejoice with my imagination which is neither the property of a 43 whole soul’, or ‘My soul burns with indignation’. nation nor the result of patriotism.45

He also explains his drawing of the human Smith’s stage design for the production of heart in a way that suggests it is a light parody the monodrama features the repre sen tation

211 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 of the male protagonist’s inner thoughts. individual with the fluid element. Evreinov’s (According to Evreinov’s instructions the play advocates the necessity of simultaneity inner monologue was supposed to occur within artistic creation and calls for sensi- only for half a second.) Smith’s stage design tivity to the confrontation of self and worlds, brings to the fore the surreal quality of the conveying his belief that this tension can be play, which evokes the ephemeral atmos - replaced. Evreinov’s play highlights the sense phere of Russian Ballet productions. In spite of rapture associated with the confrontation of Cicely Hamilton’s insistence that the between the inner and outer life: the sound women’s theatre had not been influenced by of a cannon functions as an object signifying the Russian Ballet or by Reinhardt,46 its pro - the rapture that indicates the modern sub- ductions of Evreinov’s plays such as The ject’s dislocation. Theatre of the Soul and A Merry Death are concerned with exploring subjectivity in a The Somatic Traumas of Modernity manner similar to that of the Russian Ballet and Reinhardt’s productions. The Theatre of Just as experimental film made visible a the Soul also invokes Voloshin’s definition of body never before visible – at once whole and modern drama as a theatre of dreams, as des - in pieces – The Theatre of the Soul set out to cribed in his 1913 article ‘Theatre as negotiate the literal, post-traumatic, bodily dis - Dreaming’ (Teatr kak snovidenie). Both works figurements suffered in the Russo–Japanese appropriate important tenets of Bergson’s War. According to numerous reports from notion of psychological time. Russian psychiatrists, the population’s expo- Evreinov’s play talks about memory in sure to violence and traumatic events during terms similar to Bergson’s description of that war and in the 1905 revolution resulted duration,since the ending of the play sug- in fear becoming the dominant emotion with gests that the whole action might be inter - which they dealt. As Jacqueline Fried lan - preted as a nightmarish dream seen by a der’s PhD thesis on Russian psychiatry per- passenger on a train. In the final part of the tinently demonstrates, these experiences play, the protagonist is woken by the Porter, expanded Russian specialists’ understand- who enters the stage with a lighted lantern ing of a traumatic event and its effects on and says: ‘This is Everyone’s Town. You have human psychology, even compelling some to to get out here, sir. You change here.’47 come into direct contact with the battle - Evreinov describes the act of suicide as field.50 Many specialists came to the view something surreal that might be forgotten by that those not predisposed to nervous break - the protagonist, who might be acting in real down could become mentally ill as a result of life in an automatic manner like a zombie. overwhelming circumstances. The character M3 repeats the Porter’s words Evreinov’s allusions to Freud and other robotically: ‘Thank you, yes. I have to change famous psychiatrists in the beginning of the here.’48 Evreinov describes him as a person play reflect on the concerns related to public who behaves in a habitual way and performs mental health. The aesthetic and philoso- everyday tasks without paying much atten- phical tenets of Evreinov’s play illustrate tion to reality, as if his real consciousness was well that, despite of the prevalence of the switched off during waking hours. modernist paradigms separating the mind The concluding lines of the play are: ‘He from the body, the corporeal became meto - puts on his hat, takes his bag, and follows the nymic with film’s materiality, which shaped Porter, yawning.’49 The moment of awaken- many literary works of the period featuring ing described in The Theatre of the Soul simul - the subordination of plot to somatic and dis - taneously presents different spatial and junctive rhythms. The image of the pulsating temporal realities: Evreinov’s representation heart in Evreinov’s play, and references to of the act of possible suicide illustrates Berg- modern dance, point to the kinaes thetic son’s assumption that the external world is ground of his modernism, based on the associated with the stable element, and the juxtaposition of mechanical repetition with

212 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 shock experience in the style of montage-like philosophy of the unity of fragments of life narratives. that takes into account the positive data of Evreinov’s exploration of somatic traumas science and asserts the possibility of intuitive of modernity in The Theatre of the Soul devel ops metaphysics. Bergson’s ideas on memory and duration, as According to Maurice Bourgeois’s 1911 expressed in ‘Concerning the Nature of article on the popularity of Bergson’s ideas in Time’. Bergson writes: Britain and in Europe, Bergson’s philosophy epitomizes all leading principles of modern There is no doubt that for us time is at first iden - art and pervades the whole of contemporary tical with the continuity of our inner life. What is thought. Bourgeois even observes some traces this continuity? That of a flow or passage, but self- of musical Bergsonism in the work of Debussy, sufficient flow or passage, the flow or implying a thing that flows, and passing not presupposing famous for its ‘remarkable use of continuous states through which we pass; the thing and the melodies which express the indivisible flux state are only artificially taken snapshots of the of feeling – of “pure duration” ’.55 transition; and this transition, all that is naturally 51 Evreinov’s quasi-religious transposition experienced, is duration itself. of Bergsonism, which prompts within the spectators of his play the feeling of the The Indivisible Flux of Feeling Infinite, also stresses liberty, creation, and the spirituality of the soul. Viewed in this light, Bergson says that we pass the inner time to the title of the play might be seen as an the time of things through perceiving the allegorical depiction of the search for a new world inside and outside simultaneously. In faith or belief directly encountered in intu i - a montage-like manner, Evreinov’s mono- tion. Craig’s use of violent and striking drama illustrates the flow of time perceived imagery in the production of Evreinov’s The as a simultaneous display of snapshots in Theatre of the Soul heightens its revolutionary transition. The use of the telephone in the desire to relinquish intellectual discourse play heightens the sense of artificiality of the in favour of sensual immediacy and direct analytical perception of duration that remains action. incomplete without the role of memory in Craig’s rendition of Evreinov’s protagonist the process of conscious duration. As Berg- suggests British avant-garde artists who pre - son puts it, sented themselves as displaced proponents of modernism and aggressively asserted To each moment of our inner life there thus corres- their aesthetics and ideology in various jour - ponds a moment of our body and of all environ- ing matter that is ‘simultaneous’ with it; this nals, including the New Age and BLAST. matter then seems to participate in our conscious Inevitably, the outbreak of the First World duration.52 War sharpened the perception of modernity as an embodiment of social crisis, and Edith This results, states Bergson, in our extended Craig was one of the first directors to bring to sense of duration to the whole physical the attention of her audience the notion of world that enables us to see the universe as a fragmentation and disillusionment affecting single whole and grasp in an instantaneous both men and women. According to Ander- perception various ‘multiple events lying at son, ‘in London between 1890 and 1914, different points of space’.53 “modernity” was the anxiety produced by According to Christopher St John, Evreinov the perceived collapse of “separate spheres” ‘may be right in his assumption that the ref - for men and women’. Anderson writes: lections of the soul are crude’.54 This assess- ment reveals St John’s understanding of the Modernity was defined between 1890 and 1914 correlation between the use of montage in through the urban space of the city of London, within the setting of a consumer culture, and modern art and the dislocated body experi - through the performances of these shifting values, ence caused by violence and mass destruction. behaviour, and ideologies often portrayed in Evreinov’s play visualizes the Bergsonian literary, art, and dramatic forms.56

213 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 Expressing a Crisis of Identity ontological insecurity might be easily ex - tended to Christopher St John’s creative out - Anderson’s description of the prevalent sense put. Kleinbard writes: of crisis associated with the collapse of separate spheres for men and women enables us In The Rainbow Lawrence focuses upon patterns of to understand the revival of monodrama feeling and thought that have not been adequ- both in Russia and Britain in the 1910s. ately interpreted in psychological theory until The genre of monodrama proved to be recently. Will Brangwen most clearly exemplifies especially suitable for the expression of the Lawrence’s intuitive grasp of a mental condition crisis of identity and old values reinforced by that R. D. Laing explained extensively in his study of mental illness, The Divided Self. Laing labels this experiences during the First World War. pervasive state of anxiety ‘ontological insecurity’.59 Anderson explains: In Hungerheart, St John similarly explores On August 4, 1914, England declared war on Germany, and as a result, the women’s suffrage issues of loss of identity. movement ended temporarily without an app- In his commentary to St John’s novel, David roved Parliamentary bill for women’s suffrage. Trotter points out that the sameness and dif- The advent of the First World War, however, did ference explored within the text circulates not bring an end to modernity or a middle-class, also between the text and its readers.60 Just as female politics. Although all suffrage societies diverted their politics from the vote to the war for St John’s novel highlights irresolvable tension the time being, they did not abandon their com- between sameness and difference, Evreinov’s mitment to women’s suffrage or their identity as The Theatre of the Soul draws its audience’s 57 Modern Women. attention to the inner drama of a modern subject, advocating the view that perception, Undoubtedly, the vision of modernity as an by analogy, is prior to language and in many alienating experience became more pro- ways superior to it, since language itself had nounced during the war, and gender stereo - become the vehicle of Victorian abstract moral types were being reassessed by many writers. values and pseudo-religious and imperialist In 1915, Christopher St John, for example, sentiments. published her autobiographical novel Hunger- With the aid of technology, Craig reinforces heart as well as a translation of Evreinov’s the message of Evreinov’s play, which con - Theatre of the Soul. Both works explore the ceives poetic disposition as a momentary notions of the crisis of modern iden tity, pose that presents the inner psychology of an advocating a Bergsonian concept of intuition artist; and such a creative moment can be against the quantification of time and the compared to a drunkard’s dream-like cogni- encroachment of science in all spheres of life. tion of life. Yet Evreinov’s propensity for Both authors appear to favour Image as direct action, his glorification of the notion of the medium of intuition that enables the discontinuity, and his frank espousal of sen- simultaneous presentation to the mind of sual immediacy subordinated to his radical two distinct and disparate sense impres- urge to promote the eclipse of the realm of sions. Christopher St John might have read absolute values, were not to everyone’s lik - Evreinov’s play through the lens of her own ing. Both Evreinov’s and Craig’s emphasis protagonist, Joanna Montolivet, who thinks on the ecstatic, unmediated impact of the that society imposes on women a role shaped artistic experience and the intensity of emo- by marriage and maternity, depriving them tion based on consciously cultivated artistic of a shared humanity. Christopher St John’s perceptiveness eschew plunging into the book was published by Methuen, which also depths of an artist’s psyche. published D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow in In spite of two successful performances in 1915: the latter was banned mainly because London, a third was cancelled. In her Intro - of its depiction of a lesbian affair.58 duction to her translation of The Theatre of the David Kleinbard’s understanding of D. H. Soul, St John explains that a matinee perfor - Lawrence’s The Rainbow as an expression of mance was planned for 18 November 1915 at

214 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 the Alhambra, when Mr Charlot, the In light of the controversy that was often theatre’s busi ness manager, informed her associated with erotic dancing both in Russia that the play was unsuitable for an Alhambra and in Britain in the 1910s, Evreinov’s depic- audience and would not pass the Censor. She tion of the mischievous cabaret singer and wrote that no official explanation was given dancer who sings about making love to a to her or Edith Craig: they had heard that Mr stranger on the train may have been seen as Charlot found some graphic depictions of subversive. The song inserted into Evreinov’s violence too offensive. St John observes: play celebrates the carefree singer and dancer who searched for the man who threw him- We can hardly swallow the one [reason] conveyed self into her arms in the darkness of the train. to us indirectly, that it was the repulsive incident of a woman’s wig being taken off and her bald It makes fun of the popular belief that modern head displayed, which caused Mr Charlot to dance and madness were interchangeable. with draw the play!61 Evreinov’s play glorifies anarchy and the desire to escape the traumatic somatic experi - As a result of this act of censorship, the pub- ence of modern times through theatre and lic were left to infer that the play was, as St music. John put it, ‘indelicate and obscene’. What might well be seen as censorship of The Theatre of the Soul is possibly one of the first signs of the cultural backlash against The ‘Madness’ of Modern Dance advanced thought and cultural experiment- St John says that no attempt was made to alism in Britain at the beginning of the communicate the real reason for Charlot’s twentieth century. In 1918, during Maude conduct. It may have been due to some refer - Allan’s trial, it became obvious that the war- ences in the play to abortion and violence, time hysteria of ultra right-wing conserva - but also to Evreinov’s reputation as a scan- tives and the stories about moral perverts dalous director. His 1909 production of Oscar and internal enemies were further blows to Wilde’s Salome was banned by Russian cen- the spirit of cosmopolitan and liberal creati - sors after the dress rehearsal: the play was vity that Edith Craig, St John, and their col- defined as being too erotic, and disrespectful leagues were trying to promote. to religious images. Even so, the sympathetic depiction of adultery in Evreinov’s The Theatre of the Soul, as well as references to abortion Notes and References and the glorification of the cabaret singer and 1. Oliver M. Sayler, ‘Yevreynoff and Monodrama’, in dancer, might have been seen as allegorical his The Russian Theatre under the Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1920), p. 67–83. depictions of the crisis of modern society. 2. T. S. Dzhurova, ‘Teatralizatsiia deistvitel’nosti. According to Judith Walkowitz, ‘to a “Vziatie Zimnego dvortsa” Nikolaia Evreinova’, in considerable degree, before and after the Izvestiia Rossiiskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta imeni A.I. Gertsena. Obshchestvennye i gosudar - war, the story of dance in London is the story stvennue nauki (St Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Rossiiskogo of domestication, of the incorporation of gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta imeni A.I. Gertsena, 2007), p. 104–8 (p. 104). trans national cultural forms into a national 3. 62 James Roose–Evans, Experimental Theatre: from culture’. Walkowitz denounces the scan- Stanislavsky to Peter Brook (London; New York: Rout- dalous trial of the American dancer Maude ledge, 1989), p. 27. Allan, whose activities were seen as too dan - 4. Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), p. 16. gerous by advocates of Victorian values. In 5. V. Ivanov, ‘Novye maski’, in his Sobranie sochinenii Walkowitz’s view, the 1918 trial and the dis - v chetyrekh tomakh, Volume 2 (Brussels, 1974), p. 79. enfranchisement of the American ‘flapper’ 6. Harold B. Segel, Body Ascendant: Modernism and the Physical Imperative (Baltimore; London: Johns Hop- suggest that the dance which liberated many kins University Press, 1998), p. 219. women was perceived by the traditionalists 7. Vera Komissarzhevskaya, quoted in James Roose- ‘as a vehicle for shifting cultural and political Evans, p. 13. 8. Maksimilian Voloshin, ‘Gamlet’ na stsene Khudo- identifications of gender and the national zhestvennogo teatra’, in his Liki tvorchestva (Leningrad: body in the early twentieth century’.63 Nauka, 1988), p. 385.

215 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 26 Aug 2013 IP address: 129.215.149.99 9. Vasilii Kandinsky, Kandinsky: Complete Writings on 33. Holledge, p. 137. Art, ed. Kenneth C. Lindsay and Peter Vergo (New York: 34. Nina Auerbach, Ellen Terry: Player in Her Time De Capo Press, 1994), p. 257. (London: Phoenix House, 1987), p. 426. 10. Fedor Teternikov (pseud. Fedor Sologub), ‘Iskus - 35. Harold B. Segel. ‘Fin de Siècle Cabaret’, stvo nashikh dnei’, Russkaia mysl’, No. 12 (December Performing Arts Journal, II, No. 1 (Spring 1977), p. 41–57 1915), p. 35–62, p. 41. (p. 41). 11. Ibid., p. 44. 36. D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow (New York: Viking, 12. V. Chudovskii, ‘Krivoe Zerkalo’ i monodrama’, 1970), p. 184. in Russkaia khudozhestvennaia letopis’, Apollon, No. 5 (March 37. Jennifer Gibson, ‘Surrealism before Freud: 1912), p. 75–6. Dynamic Psychiatry’s “Simple Recording Instrument”’, 13. A. R. Kugel’, Utverzhdenie teatra (Moscow: Art Journal, XLVI, No. 1, Mysticism and Occultism in Zhurnal Teatr I iskusstvo’h, 1923), p. 170. Modern Art (Spring 1987), p. 57. 14. Ibid., p. 171. 38. Cockin, p. 180. 15. Katherine Lahti, ‘Vladimir Mayakovsky: a 39. Francis M. Naumann, Conversion to Modernism: Dithy ramb’, in The Slavic and East European Journal, XL, the Early Work of Man Ray (Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers Univer - No. 2 (Summer 1996), p. 256. sity Press, 2003), p. 184. 16. Ibid., p. 258. 40. Naumann, p. 185. 17. N. Evreinov, Vvedenie v monodramu (St Peters - 41. The Theatre of the Soul: a Monodrama in One Act by burg: Izdatel’stvo N.I. Butkovskoi, 1909), p. 9. N. Evreinoff, trans. Marie Potapenko and Christopher St 18. Laurence Senelick, ‘Boris Geyer and Cabaretic John (London: Hendersons, 1915), p. 8. Playwriting’, in Robert Russell and Andrew Barrat, 42. Ibid., p. 11. Russian Theatre in the Age of Modernism (Houndmills: 43. Ibid., p. 11–12. Macmillan, 1990), p. 34. 44. Ibid., p. 15. 19. Ibid., p. 34–5. 45. Ellen Terry, The Russian Ballet (London: Sidgwick 20. Jane Ellen Harrison, Ancient Art and Ritual and Jackson, 1913), p. 15. (London: Oxford University Press, 1913), p. 23. 46. Quoted in Holledge, p. 94. 21. Ibid., p. 129. 47. The Theatre of the Soul, p. 27. 22. It was translated into English in 1915 as The 48. Ibid. Theatre of the Soul. There were two performances that 49. Ibid. took place in 1915: in March 1915 at the Little Theatre 50. Jacqueline Lee Friedlander, Psychiatrists and Crisis and in May 1915 at the Shaftesbury Theatre (Lady in Russia, 1880–1917, PhD thesis, University of Cali for - Randolph Churchill’s matinee in aid of the Countess of nia, Berkeley, 2007, p. 262–4. Limerick). They are listed in Cockin, p. 201. 51. Henri Bergson, ‘Concerning the Nature of Time’, 23. Christine A. Anderson, (Per)Forming Female in his Key Writing, ed. Keith Ansell Pearson and John Politics: the Making of the ‘Modern Woman’ in London, Mullarkey (New York; London: Continuum, 2002), 1890–1914, PhD thesis, University of Kansas, 2008, p. 7–8. p. 207. 24. Julie Holledge. Innocent Flowers: Women in 52. Ibid. Edwardian Theatre (London: Virago, 1981), p. 137. 53. Ibid. 25. Votes for Women, 31 March 1911, in Anderson, 54. The Theatre of the Soul, p. 8. p. 306. 55. Maurice Bourgeois, ‘A Great Modern French 26. Votes for Women, 27 Jan. 1911, in Anderson, op. cit. Thinker: Henri-Louis Bergson’, Irish Review (Dublin), I, 27. Sandra Holton, Feminism and Democracy: Women’s No. 8 (Oct. 1911), p. 379. Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900–1918 (Cam - 56. Anderson, p. 12. bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 18. 57. Ibid., p. 316. 28. Elizabeth Crawford, The Women’s Suffrage Move- 58. David Trotter, ‘Lesbians before Lesbianism’, in ment in Britain and Ireland: a Regional Survey (London; Billie Melman, ed., Borderlines: Genders and Identities in New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 148. War and Peace, 1870–1930 (New York: Routledge, 1998), 29. ‘Pioneer Players’ Annual Reports. First Report, p. 193–212 (p. 206). 1911–12’, Ellen Terry Memorial Museum, Kent, p. 3. 59. D. J. Kleinbard, ‘D. H. Lawrence and Ontological Quoted in Bonnie Kime Scott, Gender in Modernism Insecurity’, PMLA, LXXXIX, No. 1 (Jan. 1974), p. 154–63 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), p. 681. (p. 154). 30. ‘First Report, 1911–12’, p. 7–8, quoted in Scott, 60. Ibid., p. 208. op. cit. 61. Ibid., p. 11. 31. Eleanor Adlard, ed., Edy Craig: Recollection of Edy 62. Judith R. Walkowitz, ‘The “Vision of Salome”: Craig (London: Muller, 1949), p. 10. Cosmopolitanism and Erotic Dancing in Central London, 32. Katharine Cockin, Women and Theatre in the Age of 1908–1918’, The American Historical Review, CVIII, No. 2 Suffrage: The Pioneer Players, 1911–1925 (Basingstoke: (April 2003), p. 376. Palgrave, 2001), p. 166. 63. Ibid.

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