Reforming and Uniforming the Body
In ‘Marionettes Unmasked’, King Ubu is analysed as a masquerade and architectural construction. Jarry’s oversized body mask is distinguished from the art of the puppet and from Edward Gordon Craig’s Übermarionette. The masquerading actor in movement is situated and theorised, with consideration of Heinrich von Kleist’s commentary, and analyses from Schumacher, States and Taxidou. The chapter also includes thoughts on the performances of Isadora Duncan, Mary Wigman and Sadda Yakko. Head and body masks created by Marcel Janco and Rudolf Laban and presented at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich or at the Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland contribute to the discussion on disguise and camouflage in the era of Dada and Cubism. Masquerading and ‘Pirouettes on Eastern Fronts’ extend modernist responses to the Great War to Germany, Romania and Russia while citing the work of sculptors and other visual artists like Ernst Barlach, Constantin Brancuşi, Emmy Hennings and Käthe Kollwitz. Commedia dell’arte treatments in ‘Pierrot and Harlequin Disguised’ feature Picasso images and others created by Heinrick Campendonk, André Derain, Juan Gris and August Macke. Arnold Schönberg’s texts, images and music further complicate the role of Pierrot from Viennese point of view.