Born 150 Years Ago: Gordon Craig

Born this day 150 years ago, modernist theatrical visionary Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966).

Craig’s surname was his own contrivance. He was the illegitimate son of actress Dame Ellen Terry and Victorian architect/designer Edward Godwin (apparently no relation to William Godwin, Mary Shelley’s father). Craig’s father is just as interesting as his mother (whom we’ve already written about). He was originally an exponent of the Gothic style under the influence of Ruskin. Later he emulated Japanese styles, and was associated with Oscar Wilde, James Whistler, William Morris and others.

Craig’s life’s work as a director/designer and theorist of the theatre sort of merged that of his two parents. He grew up in and around the Lyceum Theatre, watching productions starring Henry Irving and Terry. In time he would act with the company himself, a major part of his life until 1897, when he decided to focus on design. Among Craig’s many books are biographical portraits of both Irving and Terry. It seems psychologically telling to me that in the end Craig’s philosophy of theatre would radically downplay the creative contribution of the actor and radically promote the importance of the director, with a strong emphasis on pictorial art.

Craig was a pivotal figure in the shift from the age of actor/managers, when directors were scarcely a thing at all, to the present age when directors are often stars of productions themselves. He went much farther in his writings. He went ALL THE WAY, positing a vision in which actors were replaced by “Übermarionettes” controlled completely by the director. For him a production was all about sets (often abstract ones, completely new at the time), and lighting (electric lights were also new), and he was also interested in puppetry and masks. Obviously, this emphasis on visual, plastic art takes us light years away from goals like “emotional truth”. The end game, I think, would eliminate human beings entirely from the spectacle. Technically, that’s possible nowadays. You can certainly make entire productions with robots. Machines will move just as their programming instructs them. The reason we haven’t really seen that, though, should be obvious. If we aren’t watching humans, it’s not a “live” event. It’s not a one-time, shared experience between performers and audiences where anything can happen. It’s an artistic vision, yes, but not an event per se. The thing could be happening 24/7 with no one watching. And the primal, metaphysical aspect is removed. The thing we are watching is no longer “us”.

But as we say, that is the endgame. Craig, like the rest of us, had to live and work in the world, and as it happens, he was a great artist. In London he directed groundbreaking productions of Purcell’sDido and Aeneas, Handel’sAcis and Galatea, and Ibsen’sThe Vikings at Helgeland. He then worked in Germany for a time. From 1908 to 1921 he edited and published the world’s first international theatre magazine The Mask. In 1911 he directed the Moscow Art Theatre’s production of Hamlet. In Florence he established a school for theatre design. His influential books included On the Art of the Theatre (1911), Towards a New Theatre (1913), The Theatre Advancing (1919). After the 1920s he had ceased to write or present new work to the public. His last decades were spent in France.

Craig followed his parents in having a bohemian love life. While married to a woman named May Gibson, with whom he had five children, he also had extramarital relationships with violinist Elena Meo (daughter of painter Gaetano Meo), with whom he had three children; dancer Isadora Duncan, with whom he had one child who later drowned; actress Jess Dorynne, who bore him a daughter; poet Dorothy Nevile Lees, who bore him a son; and translator Daphne Woodward, who gave him a daughter. More! More marionettes for life’s grand production!

Craig’s older sister Edith “Edy” Craig (1869-1947) was also a jane-of-all-trades in the theatre: actress, costume designer, director, and producer. An early suffragette, Edy lived in a lesbian ménage à trois  with writer Christabel Marshall (a.k.a. Christopher St. John) and artist Clare ‘Tony’ Atwood for many decades. The siblings were estranged in their later years over differences regarding the public legacy of their mother.

There is an excellent website devoted to the life and work of Gordon Craig here.