Pantomimes in the repertoire of the Crooked Mirror Miniature Theater

Pantomime can rightfully be considered one of the most innovative and sought-after theatrical genres of the Silver Age. Iconic productions of the 1910s, such as Vsevolod Meyerhold’s Columbine’s Scarf (1910, House of Interludes) and Alexander Tairov’s The Veil of Pierrette (first staged in 1913 at the Moscow Free Theater)—both based on Arthur Schnitzler’s play with music by Ernst von Dohnányi—resonated deeply within Russia’s artistic and theatrical circles. Theater scholar Vadim Shcherbakov links the premiere of Columbine’s Scarf to the appearance of Nikolai Evreinov’s pantomime Fiametta’s Four Dead Men (1911) in the repertoire of the Crooked Mirror theater. However, an analysis of the theater’s repertoire and of programmatic articles by its artistic director, Alexander Kugel, from the late 1900s and early 1910s, suggests that the theater approached the genre of pantomime gradually, systematically accumulating both theoretical and practical experience. Actual pantomime in the Crooked Mirror repertoire was preceded by performances utilizing silhouette techniques (Polka in the Style of Béranger, Near the Ballet in the Old Days), the mimodrama Pierrot in Love, and the staging of the Arabian fairy tale On the Six Beauties Who Were Not Like One Another. This article aims to provide a brief characterization of the Crooked Mirror’s “pre-pantomime experiments” leading up to 1911. Keywords: Alexander R. Kugel, Nikolai N. Evreinov, Vsevolod E. Meyerhold, the Theater of miniatures Crooked Mirror, Fiametta’s Four Dead Men, Columbine’s Scarf, pantomime

Key (lock) · Performance art · Repertoire · Style (visual arts) · Tonality · Arts, Culture, and Music Studies · Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research · European Linguistics and Anthropology