Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

146 Chapter 6 The Director
with natural philosophy (what we would now call science)
and empirical research. The same dedication to
rationalism that fostered a profusion of libraries and
museums also emphasized accuracy and consistency in
the arts. Theatre audiences demanded historically accurate
revivals of classic plays whose authors were no longer
around to direct them. Producing these works would
require research, organization, and comprehensive coordination.
They would, in other words, demand an independent
director.
With only a few exceptions, directors before the
twentieth century received as little public recognition
for their efforts as do present-day museum directors for
creating historical dioramas. Sometimes the directing
was attributed to a famous acting star, such as the Englishman
Charles Kean or the American Edwin Booth,
when in fact the work was done by a lesser functionary.
In Booth’s case, for example, D. W. Waller was the true
director; however, his name was all but buried in the
program and never appeared in the reviews or publicity.
Nevertheless, these teacher-directors who labored
largely in the shadows began the art of directing as
we know it today. They organized their productions
around specific ideas and dedicated themselves to creating
unified and coherent theatrical works by “directing”
an ensemble of actors, designers, and technicians
toward established ends.
DIRECTORS OF REALISM
The second stage in the development of modern-day
directing began toward the end of the nineteenth century.
A new wave of directors who studied the conventions
of realism strove to make their play productions
more lifelike than those of past eras. George II, Duke
of Saxe-Meiningen (1826–1914), was among the first
of this breed and became known as the first modern
director. The duke, who headed a provincial troupe
of actors in his rural duchy, presented a series of premieres
and classical revivals in the late 1870s and
1880s that dazzled the German public with their carefully
harmonized acting, staging, and scenery. The
duke’s productions focused less on a star performer and
more on a total ensemble of actors who all appeared to
be behaving naturally and individually. The Meiningen
theatre style became acclaimed throughout Europe as
the troupe toured the continent. By the 1890s, the position
of a director was firmly established: a person who
would organize and rehearse an entire company toward
a complexly and comprehensively fashioned theatrical
presentation.
In 1887 André Antoine began a movement of even
greater realism in Paris with his Théâtre Libre, and in
1898 Russian actor-director Konstantin Stanislavsky
initiated his Moscow Art Theatre, which eventually
became the international model of realistic ensemble acting
(See the chapter “The Actor”). Both of these directors,
who like Meiningen were amateurs at the outset of
their careers, went on to develop innovative techniques
in acting and actor-coaching based on the duke’s staging
concepts. Both also theorized and worked pragmatically
on the organization of theatre companies, the development
of a dramatic repertory, and the re-creation of an
overall aesthetic of the theatre. Although both Antoine
and Stanislavsky were known primarily as naturalists—
somewhat to their disadvantage, perhaps, for they had
many other interests as well—they were above all idealists
who sought to make the theatre a powerful social
and artistic instrument for the expression of truth. Their
ideals and their commitment practically forced them to
expand the directorial function into an all-encompassing
and inspirational art.
Other pioneers of the same spirit gained prominence,
such as Harley Granville-Barker in England, David
Belasco in America, and Otto Brahm in Germany. These
directors did more than develop realist and naturalist
drama. They also opened up the theatre to almost infinite
possibilities of broader interpretations. They became
more than teachers: they became artists, analysts, therapists,
and even mystics, and their creative functions in
play production increased astonishingly. As theatrical
styles changed to reflect wider cultural shifts, the role of
the director changed accordingly: the rise of realism in
the theatre of the late nineteenth century soon gave way
to the rise of antirealism in the twentieth, which brought
about an irreversible theatrical renovation that further
accelerated the importance of the modern director.
DIRECTORS OF ANTIREALISM
The new breed of antirealistic directors aimed primarily
toward originality, theatricality, and style. They became
unrestrained by rigid formulas of historical accuracy and
realistic behavior. Their goal was, instead, to create sheer
theatrical brilliance, beauty, and excitement, and to lead
their collaborators in explorations of pure theatre and
theatrical imagination.
Antirealistic directors were often reactionary. Paul
Fort, one of the first of these third-phase directors,
launched his Théâtre d’Art in Paris in 1890 as a direct
assault upon the realist principles espoused by Antoine.
In Russia, Vsevolod Meyerhold, a one-time disciple of