German Expressionist Theatre
The Actor and the Stage

This book considers the multifarious styles of acting on the German Expressionist stage from 1916 to 1921.

David F. Kuhns (Author)

9780521583404, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 August 1997

324 pages
23.5 x 16 x 3.1 cm, 0.657 kg

"...prsents theroetical concepts clearly and back them up with detailed examples. It is based on a firm foundation of research, using such primary sources as reviews, memoirs,manifestoes and scripts, analyzed in light of pertinent theorical material." Pamela S. Saur, Germanic Notes and Reviews

German Expressionist Theatre: The Actor and the Stage considers the powerfully stylized, anti-realistic styles of acting on the German Expressionist stage from 1916 to 1921. It relates this striking departure from the dominant European acting tradition of realism to the specific cultural crises that enveloped the German nation during the course of its involvement in World War I. This book describes three distinct Expressionist acting styles, all of which in their own ways attempted to show how symbolic stage performance could be a powerful rhetorical resource for a culture struggling to come to terms with the crises of historical change. The examination of Expressionist script and actor memoirs allows for an unprecedented focus on description and analysis of acting itself.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Abstraction and empathy: the philosophical background in the socio-economic foreground
2. The poetics of Expressionist performance: contemporary models and sources
3. Schrei ecstatic performance
4. An 'Expressionist solution to the problem of theatre': Geist abstraction in performance
5. Late Expressionist performance in Berlin: the Emblematic mode
Concluding observations
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]