Theatre Theorist Rough Draft

Edward Gordon Craig was born in 1872 in Britain. His mother, Ellen Terry, was a famous actor,
and Craig himself became an actor in Henry Irving’s theatre company. Eventually, Craig came to
believe that Irving was the perfect actor, and that the best he could do as an actor would be to
become a copy of Irving. This, along with his dislike of the style of theatre at the time, led him to
quit acting at age 25 and focus on designing productions instead. He then began developing his
theory, and incorporating it into his set, lighting, and costume designs. The productions he
designed for were commercial failures, so he left England for Germany, where he would focus
on further defining his theory.

Craig’s theory focused on moving away from the more realistic theatrical style of the time by
making everything on stage symbolic. Craig aimed to invoke the ‘spirit’ of the characters in the
play, which he argued could not be done by attempting to imitate real human behavior. In his
book “The Actor and the Über-Marionette”, he gives an example of how a painter would invoke
the ‘spirit’ of a donkey: “[T]he artist by drawing certain signs and shapes creates the impression
of a donkey: and the greater artist…creates the impression of the whole genus of donkey, the
spirit of the thing”. To apply this to acting, Craig wanted to distill each character down to their
most significant traits and then make these traits larger than life, almost like a caricature.

Symbolism, in Craig’s view, should extend to all the actor’s movement on stage as well as the
technical aspects of the performance. Tailoring every movement and gesture on stage to be
symbolic requires a long rehearsal process - rehearsals for some productions that used Craig’s
theory lasted for up to eight months. Craig saw the director as “the true artist of the theatre” and
wanted the director to be in complete control of every single aspect of the production, including
each detail of the actors’ blocking. This obviously limits the freedom of the actor, but Craig
seemingly disliked actors and saw them as a tool necessary for a performance with very little
artistic capabilities by themselves.

Craig thought of human facial expressions as being “for the most part worthless” because, in his
mind, actors never sustained facial expressions or poses long enough to convey ‘dramatic
tension’. He saw the concept of the mask as a solution to the problem of facial expressions, so
he wanted to extend the idea of the mask to the actor’s entire body. He called this concept the
“Uber-Marionette”. To Craig, the “Uber-Marionette” was the perfect actor, capable of complete
control over their body so that all their movements and facial expressions were consistently
sustained and stylized. Instead of a motivation informing the actor’s movement, the actor should
move and gesture in a way that was completely symbolic (and could resemble dance).

Technical aspects of the performance were also included in Craig’s theory. Craig was known for
his abstract set design, which often consisted mostly of neutrally-colored flats, and his emphasis
on movement. One of his main ideas was that all the pieces of the set (including pieces on the
floor and ceiling) should be able to move, and that the movement of the set itself would
contribute to the atmosphere and meaning of the performance. He also used distinctly colored
lighting rather than generic ‘daytime’ or ‘nighttime’ lighting to further contribute to the
atmosphere.

Robert Wilson and Adolphe Appia were both well-known theorists that were influenced by
Craig’s theory. Appia, a Swiss set and lighting designer, focused on using technical elements to
unify the play and evoke an emotional response. Wilson, a director whose own theory also
emphasized a very controlled performance as well as the importance of onstage images created
by light, used many of Craig’s ideas in his company’s performances. He uses very minimal,
symbolic sets, and he uses very dramatic stage makeup in many of his productions to heighten
the actor’s facial expressions. He has directed both plays like Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” and
operas, including “Einstein on the Beach”, his most famous work, using this theory.