Stage Patterns of World Views

by Miloš Lazin

“The world which takes shape and acquires depth on the stage is not
completely cut off from the reality in which we live: it functions, as noted by Michel
Foucault, in heterotopies, that is to say in kinds of places brought into existence in
which all other cultural moments are represented, contested and inverted. Theatrical
representation thus produces, in a limited time and space, an imaginative reordering
of the world at once necessary for its inhabitancy and for the attempt to transform it.”
(D. Plassard in Mise en scène…: 77)
The director thus has a possibility to create an original work but
only in an already emerging Weltanschauung. This could be a new and individual
vision, but only within an existing Weltbild. Directing has been, since its 'ascension'1
in the mid seventies of the nineteenth century, a work of an individual's vision
through a collaborative effort.” (B. Picon-Vallin in L'Ère…: 31)
Although directing expresses a space of cultural identity, it goes
beyond the confines of national cultures. By inscribing itself in the here and now, it is
necessarily inspired by an other, a vision of the future, a utopian reality.
Whence a number of restraints of stage patterns as views of the
world within the space of the European theatrical tradition, which I here analyze as
part of my doctoral studies.2

Mythological Pattern

The ascension of directing coincides with the unification of the

Germany (which then form the largest country in Europe, save Russia), as well as its

1 We owe this lucky term (in French avènement) to Bernard Dort (54).
2 Université de Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, Marie-Christine Autant-Mathieu, mentor.
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industrialization and dechristinization (in particular the protestant regions). 3

Historical and national consciousnesses replace religious ones. However, in the realm
of the spiritual, they give the collective unconscious, tailored by the long reign of The
Church (Protestand and Catholic), no more than a new coat of paint. Thus the new,
'national consciousness' searches, in the words of Wagner himself, “a myth older than
Christianity” (Symons: 299), a myth “true for all time” (idem: 298), a different (and
'genuine!') semblance of eternity. Identity and national cultures, which impose
themselves as the cultural and political bearings in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, need to invent their 'prehistoric' roots.
At Bayreuth, Wagner enthrones the myth of Germanic rebirth,
believing that “that which used to exist as a reality of two peoples (the ancient Greeks
and the Teutonics), in their 'golden ages' prior to history, and which in time turned
into a pure idealism, could return in the future as a true reality, after the end of history
(history thus appearing as a prolongation of a perverted state).” (Jeremić-Molnar: 88)
The historicism of the Meininger (who take to the stage at the same time) is no more
than a new attempt to research and designate permanence: durability of historic time
as myth, a continuance of time conceived as cyclical.
Later, Piscator and Brecht will try to elaborate a whole system of
novel transcendental explications of real experience of being, in order to surpass it.
“The death of religion allows the birth of ideology. Men replace the vanishing image
of the City of God with the new image of the ideal society. […] Social metaphysics
substitute religious ones, visions of earthly ideals those of a celestial beyond.” (Todd:
193)
In our time Zadek, Marthaler, Castorf, Pollesch deconstruct, with an
on-stage cynicism specific to each, the mythology of mass culture (the populist form
which came to replace religious beliefs and ideologies).
Aside from the explanations of the world provided us by German
theater in the last two centuries, most important is the language of directing
established by expressionist directors, but built upon the logic of myth. “It is not
enough to say that the expressionist scene rejects the realist illusion; it strives to

3 “Dechristinazation begins in Germany after the national unity achieved by Prussia in 1870-1871.” (Todd:
249-251)
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dematerialize itself to less limit itself, and it submits all exteriority to the empire of
interiority.” (Ivernel in Corvin: 317) Already with Leopold Jessner, expressionist
directors “raise the spectacle of figuration to abstraction by passing through
outrageously contorted perspectives.” They are aided by “the use of the magic of light
and shadow […]. Henceforth, the aesthetic of the image is gradually replaced by a
dynamic of space and rhythm,” (ibid.)4 all in the attempt to (re)create a new theatric
ritual (present still today in the performances of Pina Bausch, Sasha Waltz, but also
Jan Fabre...).
The expressionist tradition is continued and deepened starting with
Fritz Kortner, through Peter Stein, Klaus Michael Grüber, Alexander Lang, Mathias
Langhoff, to Thomas Ostermeier and Michael Thalheimer. They construct an entire
system of means of expression targeting the spatial and iconographic stimulation of
the stage and movement (often borrowing some aspects of the gestalt theory),
accepted over time as the language of directing.5
A specific style of acting was built upon these modes of theatric
expression. It is well described by Ivernel when he speaks of the acting of the “great”
expressionist actors who “take on the meta-identity of heros engaged in what can be
called the eccentric path. P. Kornfeld gives an outline of the task at hand in a famous
text where he opposes the 'spiritual' man to the 'psychological' man, or else, 'the soul'
to 'character.' The expressionist actor has a strategy of uncovering, as opposed to
Stanislavskian 'reliving'; the uncovering of a higher truth.” (ibid.) The mythological
pattern of directing rejects the realist interpretation by offering the hero a 'mythical'
characterization in order “to enter into a symbolic communication with the world.”
(Ottaviani in Blay: 542) The dramatis personae of this pattern is, to use a
Nietzschean term from Stanko Lasić, of an “abstract identity (pure myth) in eternal
reiteration.” (119)
And the theatric act that it produces aspires to transform itself into a
'mythical moment.'

4 Ibid. The first fruits of this manner of use of space are found already in the duke Georg II von Meiningen,
for example in “his preference for diagonal movement and obliquely constructed, asymmetrical sets.” (Osborne: 39)
5 The disciples of this German school of directing can be found outside of German theater: Patrice Chéreau
and Jean-Pierre Vincent (in their phase up until the seventies), the Slovenian veteran Mile Korun, and the Quebec
directors Robert Lepage and Wajdi Mouawad...
 4

Theological Pattern

Psychological acting comes from another protestant cultural model,

this time from Nordic countries. “At the heart of the protestant message […] we find
a fundamental contradiction between earthly and metaphysical goals. In this world,
the Reformation proposes and achieves the democratization of the religious
consciousness. In the metaphysical realm, it proclaims servitude and inequality of
men. (Todd: 96) […] At the metaphysical heart of the Reformation we find a
consciousness corroded by the presence of evil in the soul of men, a honed version of
Satan within their lives, and a renewed interest in the concept of eternal damnation.
[…] The fall is not seen as part of ancient history, but as a major event, a part of daily
life. Having ascertained human damnation, Luther establishes the conditions of his
salvation, meaning the redemption of his fault and his way towards eternal life. Two
premises are fundamental. The first is that man cannot on his own insure his own
salvation, that is, without the aide (the will, the grace) of God. The second is that not
all men will be saved.” (98) An entire dramatic tradition is carried through this field
of beliefs. Individually ingrained, it could not disappear even from a 'dechristianized'
culture.
“Scandinavian theater almost always turns the spotlight on the
isolated individual or the individual willfully removed from his milieu, either to exalt
the power of genius or to draw sympathy for his ridiculous or tragic destiny. It is the
theater of a calling, which should be considered sacred, and individual engagement of
an absolute value.” (Gravier in Corvin: 743) But without guarantees of salvation!
For the Theological Pattern, historic and political context is
incidental. The action appears to be possible always and anywhere. The staged event
is abolished through itself, for it is nothing more than an occasion for announcing to
the individual his 'destiny;' His own confrontation with the story of his life,
something which has already taken place, and continues to take place, but outside and
in spite of the incident to which we are privy. To the individual made divine yet
deconsecrated, only the 'story of his own life' remains, a false biblical parable, a
 5

forced acknowledgment of the chasm of eternal nothingness. On the other hand, and
at the same time, “this theater secretes a morality, but a morality fiercely individual,
that flaunts its strong man, and reserves its admonishments for the mobbish majority,
shapeless, ignorant, often thoughtless but always cruel.” (ibid.) For due to the ruin of
biblical exile, as he sees his life, the individual is unable to free himself of the evil
within. He then throws it back onto others, onto the masses that surround him, which
he sees as stifling, or indeed completely suffocating, his 'deified individuality.'
Conceived by the oeuvre of Ibsen and Strindberg (who also had a
hand in producing plays!), the 'theological' reading of the world deeply influenced
Scandinavian directing. In particular so the Swedes: Bergman of course, but before
him Per Lindberg (Banham: 589), the strindbergian Olof Molander (idem: 686), Alf
Sjöberg (idem: 895), and today Lars Norén who is moving more and more into
directing, and not just of his own plays.6 Theological reading also influenced global
theater by offering the on stage formula for a key phenomenon of Western civilization
of the century past – the individual.
The acting developed on Scandinavian stages, introverted in
appearance (as an unavoidable contemplation of the ephemeral made palpable and
visible), will be enriched in the theater of certain foreign directors (e.g. Branko
Gavella and Hugo Klajn, giant figures of Yugoslav theater of the first half of the
twentieth century) by adding aspects of the Freudian tradition. It will also
significantly reshape the theater, actors' formation, and (above all!) American cinema
(which will come back to influence theater world-wide).
The spread of the theological stage formula outside the geographic
region of Scandinavia was partly assured by the success of film directors, such as
Dreyer, Sjöström, and of course Bergman (who also worked in theater!).
It should be noted that the importance of Scandinavian theater
comes not simply from several large figures of drama, directing or filmmaking, nor
from the international influence of their works, but rather largely from the theatric
tradition of these countries. In so far as very few nation states existed in Europe at the
beginning of the nineteenth century (a continent dominated by empires or else

6 Norén is currently the director of the Folkteatern in Gotheburg. See Lars Norén (2007) Alternatives
théâtrales, Bruxelles, No. 94-95.
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crumbling into tiny kingdoms), the Scandinavian countries were the ideal place for
experimentation with a national theater program, given that they already had
production structures funded by their royal houses (with the exception of Norway,
which achieves independence in 1814).7

Behavioral Pattern

“The impact of Ibsen on English and American theatres has been

[…] decisive,” notes the The Oxford Companion to the Theatre. (Hartnoll: 459) In
this third branch of protestant culture, the Scandinavian stage image of the world
gains in pragmatism what it loses in mysticism. The world is seen and interpreted
from the point of view of the individual, but without the fatalism that pervades the
theological pattern. As if the gaze stopped at the visible. Introverted acting, a
Bergmanian figure often immobile and silent, is replaced here by action (evil no
longer provokes contemplation but reaction).
Behavior is at the center of interest of British and American
directing.
We can see the behavioral pattern in everything from the plasticity
of stage imaging by Henry Irving or the realism of David Belasco, through the
psychological directing of The Group Theatre (Brockett: 499-502), to the concise
expression of a Peter Brook, the transparence of acting in search of anthropological
archetypes of Deborah Warner (Mitter: 257-262), the capacity for phantasmagoric
analysis of Simon McBurney and his Théâtre de complicité (idem: 247-252), the
malleability and transparence of behavior from Declan Donnellan (Delgado: 145-
164)...
Martha Graham, Alwin Nikolais, Merce Cunningham, along with
the Off-Off-Broadway of the sixties (Living, Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre, Charles
Ludlam and John Vaccaro's The Play-House of the Ridiculous [Bottoms]) confront
the theater world and global public opinion with the body (by dramatizing or
ridiculing it). With his 'performative turn,' Richard Schechner attempts to illuminate

7 For Gravier's writings on the history of scandinavian theater see in: Dumur: 963-993 and Corvin: 743-745.
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the stale base of daily behavior in order to destroy the dichotomy between the
represented and the lived. The theater of Robert Wilson is based on the
deconstruction of behavior (in movement and posture of the body), its dissection
(opposition between movement and immobility), and its spacio-temporal distancing
(by slowing down the movement, which allows the recognition of its 'purity' outside
its everyday context) – all with the goal of better grasping the body and to understand
its functioning. (Maurin)
Within 'realistic' situations, whether stylized or abstracted, by the
simple presence of the actor, an allegory builds, the earthly equivalent to the biblical
fable.
The world is shown sensuously familiar, accessible. The theaters of
Britain and America offered the performative elements to one of twentieth century's
revolutions, mass culture, as well as its most powerful industry – film. Just like the
Reformation allowed “access to civilization” to all believers, wresting it from the
spiritual monopoly of the ecclesiastical elite, and opening the door for the
construction of “social memory,” independent of mythical or religious memory
(Todd: 95), the moving image opened a new era of rules of global behavior, the
content of which could be contributed by various cultures. By offering up the rules of
the game to cinema (those of British cabaret to silent films, through Chaplin for
example, or 'psychological acting' to speaking movies, at first through the wave of
Swedish immigration to Hollywood in the form of actors Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson,
Ingrid Bergman, the directors Sjöström, Mauritz Stiller [Katz: 1332], and later
through Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg's The Actors Studio), theater participated in the
process of its own social marginalization.

IconoLogic Pattern

“The image incarnates the truth, because the truth is incarnated in

the image. This semantic reversal is decisive for the West, since from this it will draw
its entire philosophical and political concept of creating the visual. […] In the name
of Incarnation, Christian thinkers developed, on the one hand, the philosophy of the
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gaze, whereby the icon is the visual manifestation of the invisible; and on the other
hand, a political strategy of persuasion and visual submission.” (M.-J. Mondzain in
Blay: 381)
This explanation of iconographic dogma that has marked the world
of Orthodox Christianity after “the Byzantine appropriation of the icon […] at the
Second Council of Nicaea in 787” (ibid.), could be a useful point of departure to
refute one of the biggest fallacies of the Stanislavskian tradition (one of so many!):
the reducing of Constantin Sergeyevich's style of directing to 'realism,' and from there
to 'psychological theater.'
Even a passing glance at his 'repertoire8' suggests a varying style
and aesthetic: from Shakespeare, Molière, Goldoni, through Ibsen and Andreev (the
staging of The Life of Man, which Stanislavsky defines as “grotesque” (737), at a
“time” when he “was almost exclusively interested in works of an abstract nature”
[371]), to Hamsun (The Drama of Life, in which he claims that “everything is unreal”
[357]), Hauptmann, Maeterlinck (The Blue Bird, which he describes as “a fairy-tale”
[377]), to which we should add some ten operas toward the end of his career.
Further, “in acting too, realism is but a means of expression in a
given epoch, taking into account the current climate in audiences; - it has no creative
or aesthetic essence.” (Glišić: 224)
The visible for Stanislavsky is secondary to 'interior truth.' Its task
on the stage is to unveil “the truth of emotions, […] the truth of inner creative
enthusiasm which surges forward in its effort to find expression.” (Stanislavsky: 354)
The concept of expression in Stanislavsky, perhaps never formulated concisely
because part of his cultural heritage, was iconographic. Constantin Sergeyevich
conceives of the 'stage action,' the base of his system of “creative mood” (276), as the
incarnation of the inexpressible.
His relationship with the icon being replicated in everything visible
on stage and in life, he establishes himself as the iconographer of the stage and
inaugurates the iconoLogic reading of the world. Even Stanislavsky's terminology

8 See “Fiches techniques des spectacles du Théâtre artistique de Moscou 1898-1917,” in Amiard-Chevrel, pp.
323-332.
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(headache-inducing to any translator9) is not rational, but essentially sensual, and in

the end mystical and thus untranslatable.
The numerous disciples of Stanislavsky, especially those who lead
the aesthetic debate with his theater, share his general sentiments towards the world.
In Meyerholdian biomechanics, body movement acquires an iconic
status: its concrete aspect dematerializes, while the source of its aesthetization is
mystical, and comes from within (as opposed to the relation to the body of New York
avant-garde of the sixties, which sees it from the outside, as a means of perceptual
shock to the audience). The aesthetic of the biomechanical body movement has the
same quality as Stanislavskian 'little physical actions,' it is merely a front for the
'movement within' of the 'soul itself.'
The anti-Stanislavskian 'theatralization,'10 Tairov's “structural
realism” (Rudnitski: 194-197), Vakhtangov's “fantastical realism” (idem: 52-55), the
“stylizations of life11” of Zavadsky (Banham:1097-1098), of Tovstonogov (idem:
1000 – 1001) and his disciple Lev Dodin (Lichtenfels in Delgado: 69-85) invite,
through a iconography and a carefully constructed spacio-temporal rhythm, the
discovery of an 'non-existant reality,' an epiphany of the real, of the dreamed (whether
the fabric of it is ideological, phantasmagorical or lyrical). The equanimity, even the
sangfroid of Anatoly Efros (Banham: 303-304), just like Lyubimov's “carefully
orchestrated mise-en-scène” (idem: 600), weave a network of metaphors that
contradict both the visibly represented and the socially accepted real.12
The scenery of this type of theater is not realistic (Stanislavsky
already abandoned it by The Drama of Life, The Life of Man, The Blue Bird...
[Amiard-Chevrel, illustrations: 67-77] ). Instead he designs the structure of the action,

9 See the transcript of the conversation between the translators of “Analysis-Action” by Maria Knebel,
herself a disciple of Stanislavsky, and Anatoly Vasiliev who was himself Knebel's student. (Knebel: 295-313)
10 A term that fanned the flames and also clouded the aesthetic debate between the practitioners of Soviet
theater in the twenties, but allowed “separate theatrical movements […] to influence one another.” (Markov in
Rudnitski: 190)
11 The term is Lunacharsky's. (Rudnitski: 190)
12 This iconoLogic pattern also structures the world of Belgrade directors, the psychological analytic of Boro
Drašković, the meticulousness of action-metaphor of Dejan Mijač (Corvin: 555-556), as well as the flamboyant
expressionism of the Poles Swinarski (Corvin: 804) and Jarocki, the Lithuanians Nekrosius (Mitter: 227 – 231) and
Koršunovas (Vasinauskaité)...
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and evokes its quality (Meyerhold's constructivism, stylized fragments of David

Brodsky, Lev Dodin's set designer...).
The real, according to this view of the world, has escaped (which is
brought up by the majority of Russian playwrights from Chekhov to Yevgeni
Grishkovets and Vassily Sigarev).
Grotowski and Kantor, each in his style and specific formal
approach, try to design the iconography of an 'inner truth' by awaking common
memorial threads.
The iconoLogic pattern presupposes that 'truth' is attainable through
an emotional awakening, where the emotion is viewed as a transcendental force. We
are, as used to say Nicolai Evreinov, in a theater of “states of the soul,” (and adds in a
footnote of the French edition the Russian term “téatr Nastroïénii,” and the German
term “Stimmungstheater” [Évreïnoff, 1947: 315]) and its directing ought to be
principally the orchestration of mood, as an outline of the beyond. The actor acquires,
as the medium for emotion, a near saintly status.

Histrionic Pattern

Starting with Max Reinhardt, in theaters occupying the space

between Prague and Milan, and between Vienna and Bitola, a different kind of
domination of the actor over the directors' theater is established and maintained.
“Reinhardt left us with some stagings, but not a style; he left us
actors, but not a troupe; performances, but no theater.” (H. Ihering in Senker: 123) A
large majority of directors of the cultural space left behind by the Austro-Hungarian
empire share a similar destiny. “Reinhardt's theater is cut off from the events of the
world, it is no more than a small portion of history of global theater, never touching
the real, nor being touched by it. It does not illuminate us, and offers nothing but
oblivion.” (Senker: 131) We are speaking of a “theatre of the spectacle that does not
take on the function of representing or transforming the real.” (idem: 140) A third
source notes that “with [Reinhardt], the reclaiming of theater happens with
machinery, through lighting, through anything serving to tear away the spectacle from
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the real, and allowing it to link up with its dream-like, ludic dimension, becoming a
world which creates its own forms.” (J.-L. Besson in L’Ère: 50)
We could assume a link between Reinhardt’s enchantment through
play, which causes his “incorrigible eclecticism” (Senker: 121), and the Viennese
Volksstücken tradition, well established in the first half of the nineteenth century, most
notably by Ferdinand Raimund and Johan Nestroy, but the origins of which are older
yet. (Hanswurst [Rischbieter: 190-199; Banham: 431])
In the nineteenth century, the style of acting in the newly formed
theaters of the countries of the south Slavs was based on a similar type of
performances of “merry plays with songs and shooting” (the English equivalent of
which would be 'low comedy' [Harrison: 59]), romantically embellished with a
populist view of 'local customs.' (Lazin 2006: 231-232) At the same time, in northern
Italy, the tradition of commedia dell’ arte is extended (it too carrying the marks of
local customs, from the time of Goldoni).
In all these countries where 'national theater' is born under (Austro-
Hungarian) occupation, the director's profession is established late. When established,
it is faced with an already set style of acting, a characterization, a typology of roles
and practices dyed in the wool, a spirit of mockery as an escape from given reality. To
the venerated actor of south-east Europe (especially of Slavic countries) the real
appears eternally hostile, 'transplanted,' just like the foreign system of theater
production in which he is constrained by the 'task of national enlightenment and
popular education.'
The stage thus becomes the place for carnivalesque trickery against
the real that has become distorted by a whole series of politically imposed 'isms'
('nationalism,' then 'liberalism,' then 'communism,' then again 'nationalism,' then
'capitalism'...). The represented real is always either a sham (because imposed by the
state), or at best, (theatrically) invented, and is replaced by the virtuosity of acting.
The director’s response to this 'unchained playfulness' is twofold: an
attempt to tame it through different forms of 'absolutism' (Reinhardt himself, the
Yugoslavs Gavella [Corvin: 361-362.] and Klajn), or else to incorporate the
iconoclastic, playful spirit within the director’s style (again Reinhardt, as a synthesis
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of the two responses, but also Strehler, Ronconi, Romeo Castellucci and Pippo
Delbono, Krejča, Dimiter Gotscheff [Sucher: 237-238], Tamás Ascher, Árpád
Schilling, Romanians David Esrig [idem: 166] and his disciple Silviu Purcarete [A.S.
Dundjerović in Delgado: 87-102], Josef Nadj, the Bosnian Mladen Materić, and his
friend, the filmmaker Emir Kusturica, Croats Božidar Violić and Branko Brezovec,
Slovenians and Yugoslavs Bojan Stupica13 and Dušan Jovanović, Serbs Mata
Milošević [Corvin: 557 and my own teacher Ljubomir Draškić…).
As opposed to the previous ones, the Histrionic Pattern cannot be
transferred out of the territory where it was engendered or from the acting style which
conditions it. (It is hard to find traces of its influence outside its dominant region. An
exception would be the Hollywood opus of Ernst Lubitsch, who began his career in
Berlin as an actor for Reinhardt. [Katz: 852] This 'Lubitsch touch' represents an
almost ideal accomplishment of the pattern in question, perhaps because it was
created outside of its natural context and in a closed-off environment.) Nevertheless,
the individual achievements of directors (as in the case of Reinhardt) remain for the
most part stylistically eclectic and often incomplete.14
Confronted with almost insurmountable difficulties in the practicing
of their art and the coordination of an organization within hostile production
environment, Mitteleuropa's directors had to build an entire craft: a system of
animation starting with the administration of theaters (often composed of ideologues
or official intellectuals), to the members of the acting troupe, all the way to the
technical crew and the set builders.15

Pattern Shaping

Each pattern can be assigned to a geographic area (Germany for the

13 To whom we owe the following definition: “directing is an instrument to play with the emotions of the
viewer, his curious spirit, and the unrest of his philosophy.” (cited in Lazić: 146)
14 Also noted by Josip Lešić in the chapter “Stylistic heterogeneity of Yugoslav directing between the two
World wars” in History of Modern Yugoslav Directing (1860-1941), (114). See also Lazin (2005), chapter “The
Herbarium of Incomplete Destinies.” (Herbarij neostvarenih sudbina [118 – 121])
15 Senker attributes this ability to Reinhardt. (123)
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Mythological Pattern, Scandinavia for the Theological Pattern, Russia for the
Symbolic Pattern, Great Britain and the United States for the Behavioral Pattern, and
the cultural space of Austria-Hungary for the Game Pattern). However, such
assignments are only valid for the origin of each pattern.
For their shaping and their influence, very different factors come
into play.
First of all, the political factor: without the power and cultural
expansion of Bismarckian Germany one could scarcely imagine the popularity and
the influence of the Wagnerian program and Meininger European tours; the pull of
the first communist state and the artistic whirl in twenties Moscow have undoubtedly
reinforced the interest in Stanislavsky's teachings; the Off-Off-Broadway revolt was
sparked by United States power, a force that at the same time gave the movement a
large audience.
The second factor is even more basic: the formation of the systems
of production, financed by various levels of government through their cultural
politics,16 in which, as of the last decade of the nineteenth century, the director is
given the role of the leading artistic executor.17 These systems of production, which
are but two in Europe and United States, 18 were created for a specific audience: the

16 On a large scale, first in Germany and the Soviet Union right after the end of World War I.
17 Otto Brahm was named the director of the Deutsches Theater in 1894. André Antoine the codirector of
Second Théâtre Français (Odéon) two years later, in order to effectively run the theater from 1906. The practice of
placing directors previously established on small, independent stages as the artistic directors of national theater
establishments will thereafter be copied in many countries throughout Europe.
18 One is a system of representative institutions, the other of individual initiative. Their respective coverage
follows a line that starts at the northern British isles, then moves across the northern and eastern part of France to the
north of Italy. East of this 'theater border' the dominant institutions are repertory theaters, with permanent artistic
troupes, crews and administrators (whether on a contract of determined or indeterminate length); on the other side
(including the Americas), the dominant unit of production is a temporary troupe, created around the director for the
occasion of the production by himself, the producer or the institution, and dissolved after the last performance. The
social status of these two different units differs. In the 'German' system, theaters are seen and function as a collective
for public service (on a municipal, regional or national level). In the Franco-British system, the theater is no more
than a place for performance (its staff being limited to the crew and administration); theatric production is not
assigned to an institution but an individual (most often the director). In France for example, the National Drama
Centers (CDN) are production institutions subsidized by public resources which are given to one person, almost
without exception, the director; he then runs the theater in which he is the only artist with a permanent contract, and
he surrounds himself with actors of his choice for each production separately, and for a duration of his choosing. The
units of production in representative institutions are run through a collective spirit, whereas those of the individual
initiative stay in the service of one person, the only one responsible for the communal spirit of the troupe and the
'task' before the audience. East of the described line, private theater has played a negligible role in the last hundred
and forty years; to the west of the line, it dominated until World War II (Paris) or still remains influential today
 14

educated, urban crowds, the 'middle class,' for the majority-elected body in Western
democracies, or else the ruling 'working masses' of 'popular democracies.' The high
regard that the director's profession enjoys comes from the official role in the
formation of social representations of the world, but also the criticism and
questioning thereof. Thus a high number of practitioners of the art of directing
participated in the formation of national cultures.
However, from the very beginning of his ascension (a just
appellation of Delgado and Rebellato in referring to the analysis of Bradby et
Williams [2-23]), the director “is a figure shaped in the forges of European
nationalism and internationalism.” (6) On the one hand a figure of national culture,
but “at the same time a person who travels, and is formed from the get go on a
territory larger than his country of origin, nurtured by the works of his foreign
brothers, themselves in search of who they are.” (B. Picon-Vallin in L’Ère…:31) This
mobility of directors is the third factor contributing to the passing on of patterns of
directing. It would be hard to find an artistic profession whose members crossed
borders in the course of their work during the twentieth century as that of theater
directors.19 While he is the stage creator of social representations (on a local, national
or any other level), the director at the same time calls into question those same
representations, because his point of departure towards the 'reality of the world' is
first of all – “utopian.” (idem: 32) Such international exchange of stage utopias is

(London, New York).

19 Craig at the Moscow Art Theater; Russian theatre post revolution immigration all over the world, from Riga
to Buenos Aires and from Sofia to Hollywood; Reinhardt’s splitting of his artistic time between Vienna, Salzburg and
Berlin; Jouvet in South America, Copeau in the North, his nephew Michel Saint-Denis between Paris, London,
Strasburg, New York as well as Stratford-on-Avon; Chéreau was Strehler’s disciple at the Piccolo Teatro, only to gain
world fame at Bayrouth; Benno Besson, Brecht's Swiss born disciple, works at the Berliner Ensemble, as much as in
France, Finland, Bulgaria, and will finish his career in Geneva; Bergman in Germany; Andrei Serban at the New
York La Mama Troup, as opposed to Bob Wilson who found his home base in German houses, not his native
America; Matthias Langhoff from Berlin to Paris, Rennes, Lausanne; Ciulli at Mülheim; Barba in Danmark,
Grotowski in Italy; Paolo Magelli, born in Italy, but directing in Romania, countries of former Yugoslavia, France
and Germany. And that is without mentioning ‘the foreigners’ who shaped Yugoslav direction: Andreev and Rakitin
in Belgrade, Arnost Grund in Zagreb and Rudolf Inemann and František Lier in Ljubljana...
 15

reinforced by tours20 and, since the end of World War II, by international festivals. 21
“The history of contemporary directing is then a European history.” (idem: 31)

Grammar of Directing

For this reason, one can speak of a Euro-American culture of

directing. The patterns we have analyzed here are its formative elements. This
cultural space of directing allows for a rich and lasting aesthetic dialogue, conducted,
of course, through culturally established stage codes. Which confirms that directing
is principally a cultural expression. Thus the modes of expression of directing are
also first of all, cultural.
Each pattern contributed to the others its own main mode of
expression: the mythological – directing of space; the iconLogic – directing of the
actor; the histrionic – directing of playing; the behavioral – directing of the body; the
theological – directing of the action within.
In this way, these five patterns constitute the grammar of the art of
directing.

Translated from French: Edvard Djordjević

20 The idea itself of directing conquers Europe thanks a great deal to the 'mega-tour' of Herzoglich-
Meiningensche Hoftheater, which, as a touring company between 1874 and 1890, gave 2591 performances of more
than 80 pieces (W. Beck in Brauneck: 637) in all major cities of the German Reich (including Strasbourg in 1884 and
1887, Metz in 1884, at the time German cities), and in the Austro-Hungarian empire (Vienna, Graz, Prague,
Bratislava, Budapest, Trieste), but also Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, Netherlands, Russia (St.Petersburg,
Moscow, Odessa, Kiev, Warsaw), Sweden and Switzerland. (Osborne: 54-86, 175-179)
21 See “Les festivals en question” (1984), in Théâtre en Europe. Paris: Editions BEBA, No. 3, pp. 11-76. See
also European Festival Research Project: www.ifacca.org/publications/2007/08/27/european-festival-research-
project.
 16

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