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 April 2000 Letter |
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| KANDINSKY: Dramatist, Dramaturg and Demiurge of the Theatre |
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| Most people know Vasily Kandinsky as the painter who painted the earliest entirely abstract painting (art historians do argue about whose was really the first, but we won’t). In fact Kandinsky, independently of his revolutionary contributions to painting, also wrote on and for the theatre from 1908 until his death in 1944. In his day, his theories of dramatic art, as well as his own plays, were hailed by great theatrical innovators such as Hugo Ball and Oskar Schlemmer. He also came into contact with important theatrical figures such as Stanislavski, Massine, Diaghilev and Andre Breton. Today, although his writings offer an important link between traditional and experimental values in the theatre, they have been almost entirely neglected. So not much has been written about Kandinsky’s theatre-related work, but what little there is has represented him as a precursor of Happenings and performance art. But when we compare his writings with those of major dramatic thinkers from Plato to today, we can see 1) that Kandinsky's vision of the theatre was essentially classically informed, and 2) that the innovations he suggested had a profoundly spiritual emphasis. These mean that in fact his considerations were altogether different from those of our fragmented contemporary experimental theatre. In any case, when we want to know Kandinsky’s work, we start out by examining his theatre criticism and plays in relation to pivotal figures from classical to contemporary drama. At the foundation of Kandinsky’s theories was the concept of synthesis. He believed that the theatre of the future would fully synthesize the arts of architecture, painting, sculpture, music, dance and poetry. This synthesis could not be realized, however, without some basis for mutual understanding between artists of these disciplines. To this end, Kandinsky mapped out a conceptual and practical vocabulary that would reflect the inter-relatedness of their arts. So to know Kandinsky further, we would explore his principles of theatrical collaboration, and the two extraordinary programs that Kandinsky outlined for the training of the collaborative theatre artist: the first program was designed for professional artists, the second for students just beginning their training. My doctoral thesis on this subject (1987, UCB) talked about these things and also included an Appendix of pictures, with commentary: 1) Kandinsky’s designs for furniture, clothing, dishes and rooms, 2) instances of theatrical images in his paintings, and 3) the texts of his plays along with his stage and costume designs for them. What I couldn’t include there was his striking poetry, most of which is published now in a separate volume entitled SOUNDS. I was very much struck over twenty years ago when I came across a remark made by Chaliapin (d. 1938), the great Russian basso. He said that he had learned more about acting from his friends who were painters than he ever did from stage actors. Around the same time, I also stumbled on an anecdote that seemed to me to be related: when a young Martha Graham saw a non-figurative painting of Kandinsky’s in 1922 she is said to have said, "I will dance like that." Comments such as these seem to me to be fruitful area of inquiry; clearly the fine arts have something to say to the performing arts. Here in the early 21st century I am still hoping to understand fully what Chaliapin and Graham meant by these when they said them early in the 20th century. And Kandinsky’s work has gotten me closer to that than anyone else’s work has. And that piece of information—more than anything else I can think of—serves as an authentic way of introducing myself to you. |
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| © 2000 Lissa Tyler Renaud. All rights reserved. Please share this text—including copyright information—with interested private parties and for educational purposes. Please refer people who would like to be on (or off) the mailing list for this and/or future mailings. But please contact me for permission before you reproduce, translate, transmit, frame or store this in a retrieval system for public use. I can be contacted at acttrainproj@earthlink.net . Thank you for your consideration. LTR/ATP | |||