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Introductory Note, re-revisited
What follows are my responses to questions posed to me by Kiril
Bolotnikov,
the most
faithful
tracker of my
involvement
with
Kandinsky's
artistic life
outside of
painting.
Bolotnikov had
heard a brief
lecture I gave
in the
important
"Globus
Arts
Lectures"
series hosted
by Zarina
Zabrisky:it
included my
overview of
Kandinsky's
multi-layered
theatre work,
and the
first-ever
known live
reading of his
body of poetry,
including
several poems
in English for
the first time.
That recorded
event appears
in the Special Index for my "Kandinsky Anew" series, where you can see it—it follows the March 2021 entry—for context before or while reading below.
That event
ended with a
Question &
Answer period,
which
Bolotnikov's
engaged and
cogent
questions here
extend. He
posed five
questions; I
answered Questions 1&2 two months ago (July), Question 3 last month (August), and devote this month's entry (September) to his
Question 4
.
Ground rules:
I had to answer conversationally (not in academic-ese), without using any reference materials!
I imagine many
other readers
will be glad
that Bolotnikov
came forward to
draw out more
on what
they've
wondered about
Kandinsky, a
theatre and
poetry
innovator.
*
Question 4.
Kiril
Bolotnikov: Are
you aware of
people who came
up with theatre
ideas similar
to
Kandinsky's,
perhaps
stemming from
similar sources
of
influence?
Lissa Tyler Renaud:
Well, to
answer that
fully would
mean telling
you the whole
story of the
early
avant-garde in
Europe, and
also globally,
and probably
even about the
crazy things
done to keep
audiences
surprised going
back to the
1600s.
And… to
the 600
BC/BCEs.
Because the
essential
nature of the
theatre has
always been to
respond to
(absorb;
oppose) similar
ideas and
influences. And
Kandinsky's
plays, poetry,
and writings
about and
applicable to
the theatre
were no
exception.
Without just
giving a lot of
names, we can
say that
Kandinsky knew
the classical
Western
theatre, and
the playwrights
of his own time
(Chekhov,
Ibsen,
ad infinitum),
as well as who
was doing what
cutting edge,
stage-related
work (Isadora,
Dalcroze,
Diaghilev, ad infinitum).
He knew that
Stanislavsky,
his fellow
Russian, was
jumpstarting
the theatre
reform movement
that made
possible
everything else
we're
talking about.
He knew
personally some
of the
mover-shakers
in the theatre
world. He was
also unusually
alert to what
was happening
in other parts
of the
world—Africa,
Asia, ad infinitum.
Kandinsky
actively sought
out people with
similar ideas
and who shared
his exceptional
reach in terms
of influences.
For the rest,
I'll answer
you in
"free
associations":
About ideas;
context. At the
end of the
1800s, and at
the beginning
of and into the
1900s, there
were definitely
currents in the
air, flowing
into and out of
Europe, to and
from all over
the
world—currents
that were
capturing—and
challenging!—the
hearts
(passions) and
minds
(thinking) of
creative
people.
Everyone in the
arts seemed to
agree
(recognize?)
that they were
in a new era,
and that the
new times
needed a
different kind
of theatre (I
read an article
today that said
exactly the
same thing
about our
theatre now).
In a sense,
each of those -isms or movements we hear about stood for a different angle on what a new theatre could be like.
Kandinsky
was an active
contributor to
that
new-theatre
effort.
During those
years, in the
face of
multiple
political
revolutions,
wars, famines,
exile and other
fragmenting
disruptions,
there was a
counter-impulse
in the arts to
gather, an idea
that people
working in the
different arts
could work
together—that
there was no
reason the
theatre had to
be separate
from, say,
painting or
music. That in
fact, you could
make something
pretty
outstanding, or
more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts,
if you put all
the arts
together—this
came to be
called a
"total
work of
art."
Kandinsky aspired to a version of this.
Stages and
other spaces
filled up with
people who had
all kinds of
skills not
associated with
the theatre
before:
sculptors,
musicians,
dancers,
poets—from
circus
performers to
philosophers,
on and on.
Refugee artists
and
intellectuals
mixed with
citizens and
refugees of
other
countries, and
they didn't
always speak
the same
languages. So
"language-theatre"
or
"literary
theatre"—in
other words,
theatre that
was based on or
influenced by
literature—in
innovative
circles took a
back seat to
daring
theatrical
experiments
with visuals,
non-verbal
sounds
(including
sound poetry
and nonsense),
even ritual and
the occult, and
much of it
related to what
we would call
today anti-art,
performance
art, object
theatre,
conceptual
theatre—every
kind of
theatrical
hybrid grew out
of contact
between the
peoples of the
diasporas. As a
Russian living
in Germany
before the
catastrophe
that was the
First World
War,
Kandinsky's
points of
reference were
different from
others',
but still, his
painter-dancer-music
theatre was
part of this
milieu.
I'd like to
interject: I
think the point
is not made
nearly enough
that so many in
the arts of the
time were
completely
traumatized.
Many people
whose work we
now celebrate
with books,
lectures,
conferences,
stagings and
museum
shows—in
short, people
the arts
industries
benefit
from—were
mentally
unstable;
uprooted and
grieving for
family members;
living with
chronic
illness,
addiction,
injuries or
missing limbs;
lived in
debilitating
poverty and
fear; died
abandoned or by
suicide.
I've talked
elsewhere about
what Kandinsky
endured; here
it's enough
to say: the
ways he is
packaged and
marketed
don't even
hint at
what it took for Kandinsky to work, to write for and about the new theatre.
Back to your
questions. This
might give you
a sense of how
many others
shared his
ideas and
influences. In
the 1980s, I
thought I'd
write on
painters of the
early
avant-garde who
had written
plays. I
started with
six: Kandinsky
(Russia), Henri
Rousseau
(France),
Picasso
(Spain),
Gertrude Stein
(the U.S.),
Boccioni
(Italy), and
Kokoschka
(Austria). But
in the end,
there were too
many of them;
it was so
common for
painters to be
interested in
the stage at
the time. And
the list kept
morphing! There
were the
countless
painter-poets,
who are also
important to
the topic; then
the other
artists who
worked in two
or more art
forms:
playwright
Strindberg was
a serious
painter, and
playwright Shaw
was a serious
photographer,
on and on. And
what about Paul
Klee (Swiss),
known worldwide
as a painter,
but who started
out as a
theatre critic!
And: more
women? Luckily,
it was the
painter-playwright-poet
Kandinsky who
was first on my
list:
Kandinsky's
multidisciplinary,
multicultural
work is an
excellent lens
for
"viewing"
the ideas and
influences
swirling around
him.
But I have to
point out: yes,
there were all
those painters
writing for the
stage or
putting on
performances in
unconventional
spaces or
whatnot,
expanding our
sense of what
"theatre"
can be. There
were even a few
who wrote plays
that looked or
felt
superficially
like
Kandinsky's.
At the same
time, Kandinsky
was the only
one who stuck
with his
stage-project
hopes for
decades,
through thick
and thin, up
until he died.
He was known in
experimental
theatre
circles. He
developed and
published a
practical
dramatic
theory. The
closest to
these is
probably
Gertrude Stein,
who wrote
plays,
developed her
theories and
lectured on
them,
too—not a
painter but who
lived in the
world of
painting. But
still,
Kandinsky was
the only one
who thought so
inclusively—went
so far as to
create several
actual programs
for training
artists from
different
disciplines to
work together,
initiated
collaborative
performance and
publishing
projects, and
tried to open
communication
with artists
internationally.
As a teacher,
Kandinsky
taught the
importance of a
scaffolding for
a work of
art—any
kind of art,
including the
theatre—lines
of force,
accents,
spatial values,
contrast, the
energy of the
creative
gesture,
freedom and
stricture, and
so much more.
For someone
like me
who—as
actor,
director, and
teacher—had
no affinity for
the American
"psychological"
school of
acting, I inhaled Kandinsky's teachings as they applied to the practical theatre. And about his deep theatre ideas and his persistence in pursuing them, I don't know anyone comparable
. Kandinsky was an utter original.
Food for thought, yes?
To be continued…
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