“Symbols in Silence”: Edward Gordon Craig and the Engraving of Wordless Drama

Abstract

In his bookOn the Art of the Theatre(1911), Edward Gordon Craig recounted seeing a sign on the stage door at the Munich Künstlertheater that momentarily made him think he had discovered “heaven.” “Sprechen Streng Verboten” (speaking strictly forbidden), it read. So eager was he to find comrades who shared his radical vision of a wordless drama that Craig had misread an ordinary request for backstage silence as a ban ononstagespeech. Although he sadly admitted that the German theatre was not as advanced as he had hoped, Craig insisted that the sign contained the “clue” to a modern theatrical renaissance—one he believed himself fully prepared to begin, if only someone else would provide the funds.