King Stag

Zusatztext

King Stag is a play originally written in 1762 by Italian playwright and champion of commedia dellarte Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806). It is about love and conspiracy at the court of King Deramo. In search of a bride, Deramo falls victim to the intrigues of his adversary Tartaglia and is temporarily transformed into a stag. In 1918, on the occasion of a major art exhibition staged in Zurich by the modernist association Schweizer Werkbund, Swiss dramatist René Morax (1873-1963) and director Werner Wolff (1886-1972) produced a modern adaption of Gozzis fairy-tale play that turned it into an amusing Dada parody of Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jungs psychoanalysis, which had caused much controversy in Zurich at the time. The production was conceived as puppetry, for which avant-garde artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943) designed the stage sets and an ensemble of 17 radically abstracted marionettes. Her designs broke with every tradition of the genre and were influenced by her work in fine and applied art, as well as her experience with expressive dance. This book offers the first English translation of Morax and Wolffs adaption of King Stag. The text is supplemented with photographs of Taeuber-Arps iconic marionettes. Essays by distinguished scholars explore the genesis of the original 1918 production and place it in historical context, shed new light on the play, and highlight its significance for Switzerlands avant-garde.

Autorenportrait

Sabine Flaschberger ist Kuratorin der Kunstgewerbesammlung am Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, wo auch Petra Schmid als Leiterin des Bereichs Publikationen tätig ist. Das Museum für Gestaltung Zürich ist das führende Schweizer Museum für Design und visuelle Kommunikation. Seine international bedeutende Sammlung vereint über eine halbe Million Objekte der Grafik- und Designgeschichte.

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