RE: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Gordon Craig's Hamlet

Martin--

Many thanks for the files. I'd read about Kaoru Osanai, but now I've read him, and he's very eloquent. But very wrong.

Yaroshevsky, Kozulin, and even van der Veer and Valsiner all seem to think that Vygotsky was (or would have been--there is some debate about whether Vygotsky actually saw the production) entirely on Craig's side--he would have seen the play as a monodrama, a mystery play in which only Hamlet is a real person and all the other figures are in his mind, and he would have rejected the social-realist approach of Stanislavsky, in which Hamlet's a story about the fragility of real people.

This is weird, because we know that Vygotsky DID see the Second Moscow Art Theatre production, which was based on the first and which in some ways was even more religious and mystical. Vygotsky is really scathing about it (Psychology of Art 172--173): he says it removes all the complexity and makes Hamlet into an action hero.

Of course, it's possible that the Second Moscow Art Theatre production was altered in favor of the Stanislavskian interpretation. But it sounds a lot more like Craig's interpretation: the religiosity, the treatment of Ophelia as a coarse, middle class, gold-digging woman, possibly a prostitute, and the idea that Claudius is evil incarnate are all non-Shakespearean ideas that Craig introduced.

I think that what disgusts Vygotsky is the idea that Hamlet is a simple play about matter and flesh, about good and evil. Hamlet is really not a simple play and the various parts of it don't make sense when you simplify it. Hamlet acts with incredible cruelty and Claudius with genuine humility and generosity. Laertes is a noble youth and Hamlet an arrant braggart. And the death of Ophelia, a beautiful and innocent person who Hamlet toys with and repulses for the sake of his silly ideas about vengeance is the most poignant and moving tragedy of the tragedy. Shakespeare--and Vygotsky--do not want to give us a comforting revenge thriller. Shakespeare--and Vygotsky--want to hold Hamlet up to us and say, "This is your brain on life".

Take the play scene, just for example. Why the dumb show? Why is Hamlet agitated at the prologue? There's a good explanation. Hamlet wants to kill the king, but he has no proof of the king's guilt. If the king reacts strongly to the play, this will be proof for Hamlet but not for anybody else, because only Hamlet knows the details of the murder (this is EXACTLY Luria's technique in Chapter Three of "The Nature of Human Conflicts").

Hamlet has to make sure that the king's reaction is ONLY to the mention of the murder weapon. But the players over-egg the pudding: first they threaten to give it away with the dumbshow (but fortunately Claudius is distracted by Polonius) and then they are going to give it away with a prologue (but fortunately the prologue is totally incoherent and self-indulgent, a kind of charicature of the Craig version!) So the Mousetrap really does work (unlike Luria's versions!).

But what is Hamlet to do now? If he kills the king, he's a usurper, and if he tries to explain he may not be believed and if he is believed his mother is disgraced forever. The obvious thing to do is to taunt Claudius with his knowledge, and provoke Claudius into striking first and then kill him in self-defense. The problem is that Claudius is too smart for that; he goes after Hamlet with cat's paws: first Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and then Laertes.

So the duel scene. But this too is grossly oversimplified in Craig: the rapiers are simply exchanged in the scrum, which makes no dramatic sense at all; it will only work for generations of play goers who don't take the play seriously as a story. What really has to happen is much more complicated than that, and completely lost if you try to treat it as a monodrama.

Hamlet tries to win over Laertes. (Vygotsky is completely wrong on p. 187 when he claims that Shakespeare does not prepare us for Laertes' belated change of heart; this is a "revenge" play that is all about forgiveness). Then, astonishingly, Hamlet wins two rounds and draws one. Now it is almost impossible for Laertes to win, because he has a handicap of three hits already. Laertes' only hope is to make Hamlet thirsty so he will drink. That doesn't work either--Hamlet knows that if he drinks he will sweat more and this might blind him (ALL this is in Shakespeare's script!). Gertrude, vicariously thirsty from mopping Hamlet's brow, drinks--and now Laertes knows he HAS to kill Hamlet before the queen keels over and the plot is revealed to everybody. So he CHEATS. They lock swords and are separated, and as they are being separated, --"Have at you!"

Now the penny drops. Hamlet realizes that there is an unbated foil in the mix, and he wants it. So he DROPS his own foil and twists the foil of Laertes out of his hand. Then he waits while Laertes scrambles to retrieve the bated foil that Hamlet offers him. The king realizes that Hamlet is now armed and dangerous and tries to stop the fight even as he tried to stop the play. Hamlet insists, and it's all over in a second. As Laertes and Gertrude both die, Hamlet is given exactly what he needs to kill the king--clear public proof that it was the king who struck first.

So, as Vygotsky points out, the king must die twice--not for his murder of Hamlet the elder (if anything, Hamlet the elder is the big loser, because his enemy's surviving son will be the next king). The king must die for his plot against Hamlet's life and for his murder of the queen. That is how the public must see it, and that is exactly what we and they see when Horatio tells the story to Fortinbras.

This is not my explanation; it's the work of Dover Wilson and about a dozen other scholars. But it is the only one that fits the actual play script as we now have it. The problem, of course, is precisely that we do not have Shakespeare's stage designs or even his directing; all of these have to be reconstructed from his script. That was what Stanislavsky wanted to do, and that's exactly what Craig didn't want.

I think that Craig wanted the play to have only ONE real character. But Stanislavsky was far more realistic: he knew that psychologically, OTHER people seem real and it is ourselves that seem unreal. So Stanislavsky--and also Vygotsky--wanted a play in which OTHER characters are stable and coherent, and Hamlet alone changes. Not because a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, but because that's what development feels like.

David Kellogg

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

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보낸사람: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
받는사람 : "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
날짜: 2013년 2월 02일 토요일, 09시 08분 46초 +0900
제목: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Gordon Craig's Hamlet

David,

Here are a couple of eye witness accounts - one of the 1912 Moscow production, the other of a revival in the US in 1929. Having delighted (twice) in Peter Brook's 'Dream' in London in 1970, I know that a bare stage is never bare.

Martin

On Feb 1, 2013, at 4:27 PM, kellogg <kellogg59@hanmail.net<mailto:kellogg59@hanmail.net>> wrote:

Martin:

Take a look at this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/gallery/2011/may/22/set-theatre-design-in-pictures

As you can see, the stage was not exactly bare. Every time you go to a play or an opera and you feel a slight mismatch between the dramatically lit large screens, slanting geometrical shapes, abstract symbolist set design in the background and the gritty, grimy, period constumes and real human interaction in the front stage, you are feeling some historical ripples of the great "clash of titans" that happened when Craig met Stanislavsky.

That's why there are books which try to reproduce the whole production (including translating the at times very bitter arguments word for word). See:

Senelick, L. (1982). Gordon Craig's Moscow Hamlet: A Reconstruction. Wesport, CT: Greenwood.

(You remember how in the very last part of Thinking and Speech Chapter Seven Vygotsky provides Stanislavsky's "subtexts" for his actors as an example of how to differentiate thinking and speech. Well, on p. 165 we actually get some of the "subtext" that Stanislavsky provided for "Get thee to a nunnery"!)

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

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보낸사람: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com<mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>
받는사람 : Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com<mailto:the_yasya@yahoo.com>>
참조 : "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
날짜: 2013년 2월 02일 토요일, 05시 08분 35초 +0900
제목: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Gordon Craig's Hamlet
Thanks Anton-- I fear to think about what would have happened if you gave a
full response!!

Very interesting to see Bratus there, demonstrating the general
applicability of activity beyond the treatment of alcoholism -- spirits to
spirit!
mike

On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=the_yasya@yahoo.com>> wrote:

> Good question, Mike, but in order to answer it, I guess, a serious
> research would need to be done,
> besides, it is hardly a topic for a brief note, but rather a fundamental
> scholarly paper. Thus, I would
> comment on only some issues.
>
> A comment on Yaroshevskii.He might have been quite efficient in
> propagating the "oppressed science" for roughly half century--
> from his earlier 1952 paper on "Cyberntics is the science of
> obscurantists" (Kibernetika - nauka mrakobesov)
> until his later exercises in censoring and distorting Vygotsky in
> 1970s-1980s and, finally and somewhat ironically,
> actually introducing the ludicrous phrase the "oppressed science"
> (repressirovannaia nauka) in 1990s.
> Given the extent of his familiarity with Vygotsky, his actual writings and
> ideas, and the distorted image of Vygotsky
> that has emerged in large part due to his editorial work of the six-volume
> collected works of Vygotskii, --
> I believe, the validity of his scholarly research and writing on Vygotsky
> is considerably undermined.
>
> As to intellectual landscape of contemporary Russia, I would characterize
> is as 'void'. How else could I characterize it
> given that one of the dominant theoretical streams in the country these
> days is "Russian Orthodox", "Christian psychology"
> (e.g., http://dusha-orthodox.ru/) that is harboured even under the
> auspices of
> Department of General Psychology of Moscow State University (Lomonosov)?
> For nice self-explanatory pics from the Faculty of Psy at MSU see
> http://psychosoft.ru/2010-11-22/index.htm or
> http://psychosoft.ru/2011-02-07/ . For instance this picture --
> http://psychosoft.ru/2011-01-26/_DSC4724.jpg -- features
> the Dean of the Faculty of Psychology someone Yurii Zinchenko (standing,
> no relation with either Vladimir or Piotr Zinchenko
> whatsoever), the Head of the Department of General Psychology B. Bratus'
> (sitting civilian, beside, a former student
> of Zeigarnik, believe it or not) and a representative of Russian Orthodox
> Church, in presidium. What a "troika", indeed! :)
> Bratus' speaking in a somewhat different setting, here:
> http://damian.ru/news/2011-01-06/DSC_A053.jpg
> Curious transformation of the formerly allegedly
> Marxist/progressivist/futurist/activist scholarship, right?
>
> As to Vygotksiana in Russia, in my humble opinion, nobody cares about
> actual scholarship of the kind despite the fact that
> Vygotsky remains the most quoted Russian psychologist in contemporary
> Russia and abroad. A couple of guys are doing
> really nice job, for instance, Zavershneva, whose works were featured in
> already two special issues of the
> Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, in 2010 and 2012. Some
> bits and pieces, here and there, but that's basically it.
> On Zavershneva, overview of her research, bibliography of published works
> and the links to some of these works see
> http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/70476.html
>
> There is also RGGU headed by the heirs and descendants of Vygotsky who
> disseminate the propagandist "Vygotsky cult"--
> incredibly shallow and uncritical--that has virtually nothing to do with
> scholarship. For a nice discussion of the phenomenon,
> in Russian, see http://exxistencia.livejournal.com/1101.html and
> http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/88483.html
>
> AY
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=lchcmike@gmail.com>>
> *To:* Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=the_yasya@yahoo.com>>; "eXtended Mind, Culture,
> Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
> *Sent:* Friday, February 1, 2013 11:54:06 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Gordon Craig's Hamlet
>
> Anton--
>
> I was interested in your statement that "Yaroshevskii is totally
> irrelevant as long as Vygotsky and his legacy are concerned."
>
> I aware that there are various groups and individuals who claim to have
> relevant things to say about Vygotsky and his legacy. I was not aware that
> there a way to figure out who the "ones that count" are.
>
> How do you see this intellectual landscape of contemporary Russians who
> take an interest in Vygotsky
> and his legacy? What is at issue and what are the stakes?
>
> mike
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 6:49 AM, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=the_yasya@yahoo.com>>wrote:
>
> Some comments.
>
>
> 1. The fact that Vygotsky moved to Moscow and started his unfinished (i.e.
> dropout) studies in Moscow University
>
> does not prove anything other than he started his studies in that very
> year. Thus, there is at least a theoretical possibility
>
> that he, some 15-16 years old, traveled to Moscow in order to see the
> show. Well, not likely, but not improbable either.
>
>
> 2. Another--purely speculative--option is that someone Vygotsky (Vygodskii
> back then) knew had attended the performance and
> shared his or her first-hand experience. I could think about David
> Vygodskii, his cousin, a prominent translator and literary critic,
> from Gomel' too and several years older, who might be the person. In other
> words, who cares if he actually saw the show or not,
> given the diversity and richness of sources of information about this
> fashionable theatrical production then and there? ;)
>
>
> 3. Vygodskaia & Lifanova's story certainly gives wrong chronology (i.e.,
> definitely not 1916!),
> is messy and does not make much sense, indeed.
>
>
> 4.
>
> 5. As some of you might know, a nice discussion of the topic of the
> interrelations between Vygotsky, Gordon Craig's MKhT production,
>
> and phenomenological aesthetics can be found in a recent paper by Priscila
> Nascimento Marques in the leading Vygotskian journal
>
> PsyAnima [ http://www.psyanima.ru/ ] and is currently freely available on
> the journal's web-site in Portuguese, and, somewhat shorter
> versions, in English and Russian. See here:
> http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2012/3/index.php
>
>
> AY
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=packer@duq.edu>>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2013 3:48:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Gordon Craig's Hamlet
>
> David,
>
> I have this, though it doesn't seem to make sense, from:
>
> Vygodskaia, G. I., & Lifanoya, T. M. (1999). Lev Semonovich Vygotsky.
> Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 37(3), Whole number.
>
> "Lev Semen6vich developed an interest in the theater early, back in his
> high-school years; he would try never to miss a play by a local group or a
> visiting theater group. In Moscow the student art group became his favorite
> theater, and he would visit it often with pleasure. In fact, such plays as
> Malen 'kie tragedii, Brat 'ia Karamazovy, Nikolai Stavrogin were events in
> Moscow's theater life. Hamlet was staged by Gordon Craig, the English
> director, in this theater in 1916, when Lev Semenovich was still a
> university student. The staging was original: there was no set: the play
> was performed on a bare stage. This made it possible to concentrate the
> spectators' attention on the actors and their performance. The role of
> Hamlet was played by v.I. Kachelov. This play was, of course, espe- cially
> interesting to Lev Semenovich." (p. 34)
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> On Jan 31, 2013, at 3:15 PM, Bella Kotik-Friedgut <bella.kotik@gmail.com<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=bella.kotik@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> > Vygotsky came to Moscow in 1913
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 6:09 AM, kellogg <kellogg59@hanmail.net<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=kellogg59@hanmail.net>> wrote:
> >
> >> Does anyone happen to know whether Vygotsky personally saw the Gordon
> >> Craig version of Hamlet in Moscow in 1912? He would have been sixteen, I
> >> guess, and it was about the time he was starting to write about Hamlet.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm reading a book which attempts to reconstruct the Gordon Craig
> version
> >> of Hamlet (directed by Stanislavsky). It has the interesting that the
> >> production was greater than the sum of its antithetical parts. Craig saw
> >> the play in intensely psychological terms (Craig believed that only
> Hamlet
> >> was a real person, and everybody else in the play has the same status as
> >> the ghost). Stanislavsky, on the other hand, saw it in equally intense
> >> sociological terms (Stanislavsky believed that it should be historically
> >> accurate, and that is why he insisted on a medieval rather than a
> >> Renaissance setting).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> And so of course it occurs to me that Chapter Eight of Psychology of Art
> >> is an attempt to square the circle. But on p. 172 he speaks
> disapprovingly
> >> of the 1924 revival of the Gordon Craig version by Michael Chekhov,
> because
> >> it transforms Hamlet into an action hero, puts Claudius in the role of
> >> nemesis, and confers extraordinary depth of character on Hamlet.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Kozulin seems to think that Vygotsky really sided with Craig against
> >> Stanislavsky, that is, he saw the work as a mystery play and not a bit
> of
> >> realism. I am not so sure: The way I read Vygotsky, he really turns
> Craig
> >> upside down: Hamlet is the ONLY person in the play who has no real
> >> character at all.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I also think that reading Hamlet as a myth or a mystery play makes it
> >> quite impossible to achieve what Vygostky is really trying to get out of
> >> the play: a little model of the mind as a sociological backstage and
> >> a psychological proscenium, with the great midstage occupied by various
> >> forms of speech.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> David Kellogg
> >>
> >> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> >>
> >>
> >> <kellogg59@hanmail.net<http://mail2.daum.net/hanmail/mail/MailComposeFrame.daum?TO=kellogg59@hanmail.net>>
> >> __________________________________________
> >> _____
> >> xmca mailing list
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> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Sincerely yours Bella Kotik-Friedgut
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
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