Background
Edward Gordon Craig was born in 1872. He was the son of Edward Godwin, an architect who also did stage designs, and Ellen Terry, one of the most revered actresses of the English stage.
(Ugliness, the bearing of false witness against Beauty the...)
Ugliness, the bearing of false witness against Beauty these are the achievements of the Realistic Theatre. I wish my school and Journal to stand as my protest against this anarchistic tendency of the modern Theatre. The modern Realistic Theatre, forgetful of all theL aws of A rt, sets out to reflect the times. It reflects a small particle of. the times, it drags back a curtain and exposes to our view an agitated caricature of Man and his Life, a figure gross in its attitude and hideous to look, upon. This is true neither to life nor to art. It has never been the purpose of art to reflect and make uglier the ugliness of things, but to transform and make the already beautiful more beautiful, and, in following this purpose, art shields us with sweet influences from the dark sorrows of our weakness.. The modern Realistic Theatre helps to stir up in the people that restlessness which is the enemy of all things. The duty of the Theatre (both as A r{ and as an I nstitution) is to awaken more calmness and more wisdom in mankind by the inspiration exhaling from its beauty. Photographic and Phonographic Realism injure the minds of the people. They thrust upon them a grotesque and inaccurate representation of the outward and visible life, with the divine essence the spirit the beauty of life left out. Unimportant is it what subject the artist turns to his pleasure is to illumine all that he touches so that it shall shine brightly. (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst dig
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008I627AE/?tag=2022091-20
(Limited to 385 numbered copies signed by Edward Craig. vi...)
Limited to 385 numbered copies signed by Edward Craig. viii , 48, 3 pages. quarter cloth with patterned paper-covered sides, paper spine label.. tall 8vo..
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0904845370/?tag=2022091-20
(Excerpt from On the Art of the Theatre Then there are ot...)
Excerpt from On the Art of the Theatre Then there are other surprises, those engineers, those directors of journals, those managers of stores, those sea captains, men who startle one by suddenly putting in an appearance and expressing a sincere and hearty desire to join in the festivities. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1330131010/?tag=2022091-20
Actor designer director Theoretician
Edward Gordon Craig was born in 1872. He was the son of Edward Godwin, an architect who also did stage designs, and Ellen Terry, one of the most revered actresses of the English stage.
Craig's own stage career began at the age of 12 when he appeared as a gardener's boy with his mother at Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre. At 17 he was accepted into the Irving company, and for the next ten years Craig's primary interest was in acting. Despite Craig's successes as an actor, he ended that career at the age of 25. Part of the reason for this early retirement was Craig's belief that his idol, Henry Irving, personified the best in acting and that he, Craig, could contribute nothing more to the stage than a copy of Irving's style. From his mentor Craig had learned valuable theater lessons such as strict discipline in rehearsal; thorough rehearsal for a production including the actors, the lighting, and the technical elements; and attention to detail. Although these things seem standard today, they were innovations to early 20th-century theater. Another reason that Craig left acting was his distaste for realism-the imitation of life-which was the predominant style of the period. As early as 1893 Craig had begun to experiment with music and woodcuts retaining only dominant forms and masses. He believed that art was not an imitation of life but rather an expression of the inexpressible. Surprisingly, Craig's first work as a director, No Trifling with Love (1893), at the Uxbridge Town Hall, was executed in the style of historical realism. However, by 1899 he had developed his own form of theater which he displayed in his first major work, a production of Dido and Aeneas. This innovative production took eight months of rehearsal, included a cast of 80, introduced totally new lighting techniques, and completely broke from the realistic tradition. Designed, directed, and choreographed by Craig, the production evoked atmosphere and emotion rather than simply revealing time and place. In Craig's next production, The Masque of Love (1901), he continued to develop his style, using three large cloths as the basis of the entire set and sacks stitched together for the costumes-again simplicity and mass created the entire illusion. Edward Gordon Craig's practical work was not extensive, yet it helped to revolutionize the theater's growth in this century. In 1902 he directed and designed Handel's Acis and Galatea; in 1903 he presented Bethlehem and two productions which his mother acted in and produced, The Vikings and Much Ado about Nothing. For several years Craig collaborated with other theater innovators, including Otto Brahm, Max Reinhardt, and Eleanora Duse. One of his most famous projects was a co-production with Stanislavsky (perhaps the most influential theater director/actor of the 20th century) of Hamlet (1912). This production, known primarily for its revolutionary setting of large moving panels, perhaps reveals the reasons that Craig left the practical theater world. Aside from his difficulties with personality conflicts (Craig was known as an eccentric), his ideas were far ahead of his time. He believed in the director as the ultimate creator, one who must initiate all ideas and bring unity to a production. He created the idea of the actor as "ubermarionette, " whose movement was not psychologically motivated or naturalistic, but rather symbolic. The actor should be like a mask for the audience to interpret. Finally, he introduced a new stagecraft-one based on the magic of imagination rather than on everyday details. If Craig's actual work was limited, and sometimes impractical because of technical limitations, his writing was prolific. In 1898 he launched the theater journal The Page; in 1908 The Mask (until 1929); and from 1918 to 1919 he wrote The Marionette. He also published The Art of the Theatre (1905), On the Art of the Stage, Towards a New Theatre, Scene, The Theatre Advancing, and Books and Theatres, as well as biographies of Henry Irving and his mother. Craig's work in the theater and his writings have influenced many of the 20th century's innovators, including Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, and Brecht. He continued to be a source of inspiration for many years-many of the ideas that he developed in the early part of the 20th century were not realized on the stage until the 19806. Edward Gordon Craig died at the age of 94 in 1966.
(Excerpt from On the Art of the Theatre Then there are ot...)
(Ugliness, the bearing of false witness against Beauty the...)
(Gordon Craig remains one of the prime movers of modern th...)
(Limited to 385 numbered copies signed by Edward Craig. vi...)
Quotations:
"I believe in the time when we shall be able to create works of art in the Theatre without the use of the written play, without the use of actors. "
"That is what the title of artist means: one who perceives more than his fellows, and who records more than he has seen. "
Craig was considered extremely difficult to work with and ultimately refused to direct or design any project over which he did not have complete artistic control.
n 1893 Craig married Helen Mary (May) Gibson, with whom he had five children: Philip Carlisle (born 1894), Rosemary Nell (born 1894), Henry Edward Robin (born 1895), John (born 1896) and Peter (born 1897).