Posner explores how three major Russian avant-garde figures, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Tairov and Sergei Eisenstein made use of the early nineteenth-century writings of E. T. A. Hoffman to innovate theatrical practice in the period of the Russian Revolution. While their individual approaches diverged, all three were united by a drive to redefine theatre by rejecting naturalism and styles of acting limited by fixed ideas of realism. Posner argues that it was ‘Hoffmanian form … in conjunction with the creative freedom of the capriccio that proved most revolutionary to theater and film’ (p. 194) in the development of self-referencing, ironic and grotesque theatricalities, providing radical new ways to engage audiences.

Each director used the word ‘prism’ or ‘refraction’ to describe their creative process (p. 26), and Posner asserts that this metaphor encapsulates something fundamentally Russian (p. 12): art considered as a prism refracting rather than mirroring life and as inspired by, rather than an imitation of, others’ work. Posner explores the refractions of each director: Meyerhold's grotesque (chapter 1), Tairov's mime drama (chapter 2) and Eisenstein's theatrical attraction (chapter 3). She describes how Hoffman himself refracted commedia dell'arte, including Carlo Gozzi's fairy tale plays, and how his inspirations included visual artist Jacques Callot and writer Ludwig Tieck, and that all this, in turn, became significant to and was refracted by the Russian directors. Refraction is inseparable from polemic ‘artistic confrontation that clarifies one's creative aims in response to others’ (p. 30), and Posner foregrounds this in her elegantly structured analysis, beginning each chapter with a ‘prologue/polemic’. Meyerhold's critique of the Moscow Art Theatre First Studio's production of The Cricket on the Hearth (1915), Tairov's critique of Meyerhold's production of Verhaeren's The Dawns (1920) and Eisenstein's of Meyerhold's Tarelkin's Death (1922) help to establish the divergences as well as the commonalities of the work of the three. A series of production analyses termed ‘interludes’ (alluding to Meyerhold's use of such metatheatrical devices) include three refractions of the same pantomime, with the commedia scenarios included as appendices for Meyerhold's Columbine's Veil (1910), Tairov's Pierrette's Veil (1910) and Eisenstein's Columbine's Garter (1922).

The material is tightly and creatively organized, offering a convincing overall argument, while each chapter offers important insights about each director, informed by significant original archival research and translations of previously untranslated texts. The project is a welcome contribution to theatre scholarship using materials emerging recently to address gaps and clarify oversimplifications and misconceptions of the directors’ legacies in English-language scholarship, often as a result of the suppression of avant-garde work under Stalin. New light is thrown on Meyerhold's complex understanding of the grotesque and the idea of the spectator as co-creator, and on how the influence of Tairov's Kamerny Theatre on Russian and Western theatre was more profound than is generally recognized (p. 130). Similarly, a lack of attention to Eisenstein's theatre work in English-language scholarship is identified and Posner, drawing on staged work but also establishing the significance of his written plans for projects, depicts how his early theatrical experiments were foundational in his approach to film-making. She discusses the theory of the ‘montage of attractions’, so important in Eisenstein's film work. This is the theory that the montage of images and sequences, including ‘attractions’, which were intended to shock or surprise, would affect the audience emotionally and psychically. Posner shows how the theory developed from the theatre work and defines the attraction in the context of the theatrical grotesque (p. 135). A website hosted by the publisher includes a wealth of illustrations, photographs, designs, film clips and recordings of piano scores, and the vivid writing of the production analyses exemplifies the extent to which such resources have informed the project.

While the book throws new light on the work of the three directors and generally on the theatre of the Russian Revolution, more can be explored in future developments such as the participation of other avant-garde figures in ‘Hoffmania’. Posner makes provocative comments about how Hans-Thies Lehman's history of the post-dramatic could be extended or in some ways refuted by a consideration of the Russian ‘theatricalist’ directors (pp. 61, 204, 286), whose stage devices ‘unleash the inherently theatrical’ (p. xix), and work on this would contribute to contemporary theatre debates. Overall, the book will be of benefit to academics and students interested in Russian avant-garde theatre and its wide sphere of influence and those interested in the study and practice of directing. In summary, Posner's book on the refraction of the ‘fantastical Romantic Hoffman’, informed by a depth of understanding of the context of revolutionary Russia and by meticulous original research, makes a valuable contribution to theatre history and to contemporary theatre study and practice.