After Tsar Alexander III abolished the state’s monopoly on staging theatrical productions in 1882, private Russian theatres and “laboratory” environments quickly embraced the spirit of experimentation that was sweeping across Europe. In the decades preceding the emergence of Russia’s theatrical avant-garde during the 1910s and ’20s, the innovations of Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Fuchs, Adolph Appia, Edward Gordon Craig, and Max Reinhardt influenced Russia’s theoreticians and practitioners of theatre. Into this well-worn narrative of Russian theatre history, Dassia Posner’s trenchant study introduces another, unexpected progenitor of the Russian theatrical avant-garde: German romantic prose writer and playwright E. T. A. Hoffmann. In The Director’s Prism, Posner argues that Hoffmannian plots, themes, and form helped shape the theatrical experiments undertaken by Russian directors Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Tairov, and Sergei Eisenstein. She devotes a chapter to each of the three directors, invoking their pseudonyms borrowed from Hoffmannian characters as chapter titles: Meyerhold-Dapertutto (Hoffmann’s “Tale of the Lost Reflection”); Tairov-Celionati (Hoffmann’s Princess Brambilla); and Peregrinus Tyss Meets Pipifax (Peregrinus Tyss being Eisenstein’s pseudonym taken from Hoffmann’s Master Flea). The chapters are organized according to a consistent formula: a short “Prologue/Polemic,” an “Interlude,” and “Epilogue.” The prologues/polemics present each director’s work within the context of surrounding debates, and the interludes help “the reader locate the book’s central case studies and . . . link the book’s structure with its thematic content” (30).

中文翻译：

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导演的棱镜：ETA Hoffmann和Dassia N. Posner的俄罗斯戏剧先锋派

在1882年沙皇亚历山大三世废除国家对舞台剧制作的垄断之后，俄国的私人剧院和“实验室”环境迅速地融入了遍及整个欧洲的实验精神。在1910年代和20年代俄罗斯戏剧先锋派出现之前的几十年中，理查德·瓦格纳，弗里德里希·尼采，乔治·福克斯，阿道夫·阿皮亚，爱德华·戈登·克雷格和马克斯·莱因哈特的创新影响了俄罗斯的理论家和戏剧从业者。在俄国戏剧史的陈旧叙述中，波斯西亚·波斯纳（Dassia Posner）的敏锐研究引入了俄罗斯戏剧先锋派的另一个出人意料的先驱：德国浪漫散文作家和剧作家埃塔·霍夫曼（ETA Hoffmann）。在《导演棱镜》中，波斯纳认为霍夫曼的情节，主题，形式帮助俄罗斯导演Vsevolod Meyerhold，Alexander Tairov和Sergei Eisenstein进行了戏剧实验。她为三位导演中的每一位专门写了一章，引用了他们从霍夫曼字符中借来的笔名作为章节标题：Meyerhold-Dapertutto（霍夫曼的《迷失的故事》）；Tairov-Celionati（霍夫曼公主布兰比拉）；Peregrinus Tyss与Pipifax相遇（Peregrinus Tyss是爱森斯坦的化名，取自霍夫曼大师跳蚤）。这些章节按照一致的公式进行组织：简短的“序言/论战”，“插曲”和“结语”。序言/辩论在围绕周围辩论的背景下介绍了每位导演的工作，而插曲则有助于“读者找到本书的中心案例研究和 。。