Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2007 - 21

of black and white etchings depicting the columns in various
configurations and under varied lighting conditions.
In the meantime, however, by 1907 or 1908 Craig had
developed a modest off-shoot of the Scene project and had it
patented in 1910. This was the system of folding screens, described above, which were intended not as a self-sufficient new
art but for use in the theatre, and they came to be used for the
settings in the Moscow Hamlet. In fact, these screens had already been available as early as 1908 when Craig gave a set to
his mother, Ellen Terry, for her production of The Merchant of
Venice, but they were never used. Their first actual use on stage
occurred in 1911 for the production of some one-act plays directed by the poet William Butler Yeats in the Abbey Theatre in
Dublin. The only difference from those in the 1912 Moscow
production was in their height, those in Moscow being twentyeight feet tall, ten feet higher than those used in Dublin. Yeats
was extremely pleased by the neutral, abstract screens, finding
them perfect for his poetic plays.
In practice, the screens in the Moscow Hamlet evolved through experiments with metal and
wooden surfaces (both were far too heavy to manipulate) before settling on traditional stage flats
of wooden frames and canvas stretched over them,
except when gilt paper was applied over the canvas to create a symbolic golden environment for the
Court scenes. Otherwise, the canvas screens were
generally described as gray, but assumed different
hues from on the lights cast on them.
The technical staff at the theatre had a chronic problem in
handling the screens, which were difficult to keep upright and
stable. A culminating frustration and near disaster occurred
during the day of the premiere, when the screens collapsed after being set up for the opening scene. Desperate stage hands
managed to salvage the situation in the hours remaining before
the curtain was to go up, but the screens could no longer be
moved in view of the audience and scene changes had to take
place behind a closed curtain, which meant that Craig's ideal of
kinetic scenery in view of the audience was not fulfilled.
The production created a great stir, but critic's responses were divided between those for whom the screens were an
alien distraction, and those for whom they represented an exciting breakthrough to new ways of producing classic, poetic
works. Probably the most insightful critical comment was made
by the critic Valery Bryusov, who was sensitive to the conflicting styles of Stanislavsky and Craig: "A conventionalized staging requires conventionalized acting; the Art Theatre failed to
understand this." (Bablet 1966, 180) Both Stanislavsky and
Craig themselves certainly had mixed feelings about their collaboration, but put the best face on it, for the most part. Host
Stanislavsky, in fact, blamed himself and MCHAT for the production's shortcomings: "There was no noble simplicity, no
grand assurance...no sonorous voices and beautiful speech,
harmonic movement and plastics." (Stanislavsky 1956, 522)
Guest artist Craig could not mask his disappointment and re-

sentment entirely. He considered the use of the screens in
Hamlet a mistake, and late in his life said, a bit ungraciously,
"the whole project [was] like 'taking God Almighty into a music-hall.'" (Senelick 1982, 189) The production stayed in the
repertoire for three seasons, with a total of forty-seven performances.
Fourteen years and a world war after the Moscow premiere, another Hamlet opened in Prague's National Theatre, in
the early years of Czechoslovakia's newly acquired statehood.
This production was directed by Karel Hugo Hilar and designed
by Vlastislav Hofman, who, unlike Stanislavsky and Craig,
shared a common language and cultural background and had
already worked together on numerous productions for years.
Both knew of Craig and his work,3 but I did not find evidence
of Hilar or Hofman making specific reference to the Moscow
Hamlet or its screens, which is not to say that they were ignorant of them.

...critic's responses were divided between those
for whom the screens were an alien distraction,
and those for whom they represented an exciting
breakthrough to new ways of producing classic,
poetic works.

THEATRE

20

DESIGN

&

In any case, in the Prague production, as in the Moscow
one, special panels were once again a significant scenographic
element, although not as crucial as they were for Craig in Moscow. Moreover, the screens in Prague were of a different sort,
and they were more successfully orchestrated with other production elements in conveying Hilar's special vision of a Hamlet for the postwar era.
Hilar entered a new phase of his creativity at the time of
staging Hamlet. Known previously for his dynamic, sometimes
extravagant expressionistic productions, he responded to the
relative normalcy of the postwar era and to his own failing
health (he had had a stroke) with a tamer, perhaps more sober approach to his art. In writing of his production of Hamlet, he referred to the war having made heightened emotions
and grand gestures distasteful, and went on to say, "Negative
reaction toward pathos as a way of stylization leads us to view
Shakespeare's Hamlet as a drama which touches the audience
on a personal and intimate level; allows the overpowering romantic gesture to relax into quiet and discrete exchange of
emotions from which the tragedy of Hamlet newly shines and
touches our hearts.'' (Hilar 2002, 363)
Hilar's view of Hamlet was that of a vulnerable, sensitive,
lyrically inclined youth at a loss in dealing with the sordid realities of his world. He becomes a very human figure, more
readily accessible to the feelings of postwar audiences, and
very different from the last great Czech Hamlet, Eduard Vojan,

TECHNOLOGY
SPRING

2007
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2007
