In the contemporary theatre there are directors who overtly strive to create ‘Total Theatre’. These are, generally, also directors who create the work they stage – frequently supplanting the playwright – choreograph the movements, design the setting and plot the lighting, and sometimes perform on stage as well, qualifying them as ‘auteurs’, a French term developed in New Wave film theory to describe a director who so dominates the film-making process that he or she can be seen as the ‘author’ because the final product is a personal expression. We have chosen to apply this term to theatre directors who, similarly, embrace the whole creative process. Strikingly, many of these directors are also visual artists; their performances are primarily physical rather than text-based; and they promote a style of ‘Total Theatre’ that seeks not only artistic unity as in Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk, but also to break through the naturalistic ‘fourth wall’ and unite performers and audience. In addition, where the structure is primarily pictorial rather than linear, the effect is perceptibly episodic, and the same is true of cinematic structuring. So there is a direct line running from, say, Kandinsky’s 1912 play The Yellow Sound – where in ‘Picture 3’ ‘Everything is motionless’ until (in a technique paralleling Craig) light brings movement – to Lepage’s 1999 Damnation of Faust with its multiple cinema frames on stage, or Robert Wilson’s Dream Play (1998) with its cinematic blackouts or dissolves between vignettes. This episodic quality links these visual directors to the epic theatre pioneered by Brecht; and while the most conspicuous auteurs are from the contemporary theatre – Robert Wilson, Richard Foreman or Robert Lepage being obvious examples – the justification for this degree of directorial control has a history going back to the beginning of the twentieth century, where it was first formulated by Gordon Craig.

The directors who feature in this chapter have the goal of ensemble theatre, as first envisaged by Stanislavsky, even if all follow their own path to advance the possibilities of directing. This influence has been world-wide. Some, like Harley Granville Barker in Britain in the 1910s, furthered Stanislavsky’s principles, not least the principle of ensemble acting, without fully realizing them. Joan Littlewood too promoted ensemble practices in the Theatre Workshop (thus renamed in 1945), drawing on the examples of both Stanislavsky and Brecht that led to productions such as her seminal Oh What a Lovely War in 1963; and Peter Hall was inspired by the idea of a creative ensemble when he founded the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961. Then, too, there are directors who, like Elia Kazan in the United States, have come out of Method Acting, Lee Strasberg’s particular take on Stanislavsky’s ‘system’.

However, ensemble theatre has a particularly firm tradition in Eastern Europe that has continued unbroken to the present in, for instance, the meticulously crafted productions of Krystian Lupa in Poland, where Stanislavsky’s legacy as regards ensemble work came via Juliusz Osterwa. Osterwa had come into contact with the Moscow Art Theatre when, in the mid 1910s, he directed in Moscow. The younger generation of Polish directors exemplified by Krzysztof Warlikowski and Grzegorz Jarzyna, both of whom were assistant directors to Lupa before taking off on independent careers, rely on finely tuned ensemble playing for the impact of their productions.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, theatrical conditions fostered the emergence of the modern director. Already foreshadowed by the Intendant system, established in Germany almost exactly a hundred years earlier, the earliest came out of that system: Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen (1826–1914). He was followed by a group of near contemporaries: André Antoine (1858–1943), working with Zola (1840–1902), Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863–1938), Adolphe Appia (1862–1928) and Gordon Craig (1872–1966). The first who qualify as modern directors, they created and represent the major lines of stylistic development at the beginning of the twentieth century. Each contributes different elements; but as we shall see, all share certain standards in dealing with dramatic material as well as common approaches to staging, and each combines theatre practice and theory: either developing theory from the work, or basing work on theory. Two – Antoine and Stanislavsky – continued to act major parts in the plays they directed, while Craig gave up an acting career specifically to reform the stage. One other influence needs to be noted: as a composer, Richard Wagner (1813–1883) conducted his own operas, and, in adding the function of commissioning settings and costumes as well as orchestrating the singers’ moves, offered a model of the theatrical auteur that was to be picked up by Appia and Craig, working on principles of design.

The Meiningen Players and the conditions for naturalism

As the owner of his own court theatre, and taking over the position of Intendant himself, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen had complete freedom to experiment. In contrast to the English-speaking theatre’s focus on stars, in the form of the actor-manager, the Intendant system encouraged ensemble acting. And unity of expression on the stage, as well as ensemble work, was epitomized by his Meiningen Players.