Craig was born in 1872 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England. His father was the architect Edward William Godwin, a noted theatre director and designer, and his mother, Ellen Terry, was the principal actress in Sir Henry Irving’s theatre company. Edward and his actress sister Edith took the name Craig from Ailsa Craig off the west coast of Scotland.
Craig On Stage
Craig first appeared on stage at the aged six and played his first speaking role when at thirteen in Chicago when his mother was on tour. In 1889 he joined Irving’s company, playing a number of major roles for this and other companies including Hamlet and Romeo, but gave up acting in 1897. He designed bookplates and created drawings and woodcuts, many of which were printed in the magazine The Page which he edited from 1898 to 1901.
He began directing with a charity performance of De Musset’s No Trifling with Love in 1893, but his most important work as a director and designer started with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in 1900 for Purcell Operatic Society with musical direction by Martin Shaw. The cast of seventy, apart from the two title roles, were all amateur performers, and rehearsals went on for seven months.
Craig as Director and Designer
Craig created a false proscenium for the production, concealing an electric lighting system that was without precedent, and created original effects using coloured light projected through gauze onto cloths. Unfortunately, despite its great success, the production made a loss and Craig and Shaw earned no money.
They worked together again on Purcell’s The Masque of Love at Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill Gate in 1901, which made a profit, and again on Handel’s Acis and Galatea at Great Queen Street Theatre in 1902, leaving Ellen Terry had to satisfy their debts. In December 1902, Craig staged his last production with amateur performers, Laurence Housman’s Bethlehem, in the Great Hall of the Imperial Institute in South Kensington with incidental music by Martin Shaw.
Craig in the Professional Theatre
At the age of thirty, Craig decided to earn a proper living in the theatre instead of depending on his mother’s generosity. His mother left Irving to set up her own company at the Imperial Theatre in Westminster and Craig persuaded her to open with Ibsen’s The Vikings at Helgeland with him as director and designer.
For the first time, Craig had to deal with the world of professional theatre. The business manager questioned every expense and the actors questioned why the play had to be interpreted rather than simply following stage directions. Despite critical praise for the visual spectacle, audiences did not come, so Terry closed the production after three weeks and replaced it with Much Ado About Nothing, again with a design by her son.
Craig was asked by Otto Brahm to design Otway’s Venice Preserved at Lessing Theatre, Berlin in 1905. Brahm wanted realistic scene designs, but Craig wanted to rebuild the stage; in the end only two of Craig’s designs were used after extensive modifications. He decided to promote his ideas by writing and by exhibiting his designs. The Art of the Theatre was published in 1905 and was re-released with further essays in 1911 as On The Art of the Theatre.
In December 1904, Craig saw the great dancer Isadora Duncan perform in Berlin. They began a two-year affair that produced two children but were also united by a belief that movement is the fundamental component of drama. Duncan introduced Craig to Italian actress Eleonora Duse for him to design a production of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm in Florence.
Craig settled in Florence for the next nine years and leased a small open-air theatre called the Arena Goldoni which he used as an office and workshop and was to be the site of his School for the Art of the Theatre until the First World War cut short his plans. His magazine The Mask, for which he wrote most of the articles under different names, launched in 1908 and continued, apart from a break for the war, until 1929.
Craig and Stanislavski
Isadora Duncan told Stanislavski about Craig, and Stanislavski invited him to spend a month with the Moscow Art Theatre. They agreed to collaborate on a production of Hamlet with Stanislavski as director and Craig as set and costume designer.
Stanislavski began rehearsals in 1909, but when Craig came back with his ideas and sketches it was announced that he was to both direct and design. His design used tall screens, moved in full view of the audience to transform the stage without lengthy scene changes in blackout.
Craig began to fall out with actors and management again, and after a year’s break in rehearsals due to Stanislavski’s illness Craig lost interest. Stanislavski took over the direction, but at the first run-through Craig caused such a disturbance that he was told to stay away until the final dress rehearsals.
An hour before the curtain rose on the first night in January 1912, a screen fell over and knocked down all of the others, so the blackouts were restored. The production was still a success, although some critics noticed the discrepancy between Craig’s stylised design and Stanislavski’s actors’ realistic acting. The scenes closest to Craig’s original intentions created a great impression, and his screens, despite their failure, were very influential.
The Über-Marionette
In 1908, Craig's essay in The Mask ‘The actor and the Über-Marionette’ seemed to call for the actor to be replaced by some kind of puppet for the director to manipulate. He wrote in the second edition of On the Art of the Theatre in 1924, ‘The Über-Marionette is the actor plus fire, minus egoism, the fire of the gods and demons, without the smoke and steam of mortality.’
After the First World War, his only production of note was Ibsen’s The Pretenders at the Royal Theatre Copenhagen in 1926. By the start of the Second World War he had settled in France, where he remained until his death at the age of ninety-four in 1966.
David Chadderton - David is head of education for a theatre arts company in Manchester, England, north west editor and reviewer for British Theatre Guide and ...
Join the Conversation