Craig: In His Own Words in Space and Light

Craig: In His Own Words is an original audio recording, commissioned for the exhibition ‘Space and Light: Edward Gordon Craig’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum and subsequently the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery in Prague.

Craig was a controversial figure at the forefront of modernist stage design. All the words heard on the recording are Craig’s own, researched, edited and directed by Collins. The audio conveys factual information about key moments in Craig’s early working life and the emotional complexity of his personal relationships, presenting these as entangled with his dramatic vision. Collins researched all the extant material on Craig, his writings, the published biographies as well as conducting research in the theatre collection at Blythe House. Access to a series of BBC recordings in the British Library, which Craig made during the 1960s, revealed the arresting quality of his speaking voice and this became a key factor in shaping the final outcome. The audio work blends Craig’s recorded voice with his writing for the first time and is synthesised from a wide variety of sources, read by the actor Anton Lesser. In the latter stages of the process, Collins worked with sound engineer Peter Key to produce an original sound score. This sound score, illustrative of Craig’s early operatic productions, was accompanied by a specially commissioned piano recording that played with single notes drawn from Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, a work proposed in the audio as one of the key drivers of his vision. The audio, although narrative based, is designed to be listened to from any point in the recording.

Concurrent with the exhibition, Collins convened the conference ‘Edward Gordon Craig: His Legacy’, in the V&A Sackler Centre in September 2010 with invited international speakers who examined Craig’s influence on contemporary design, design education, graphics and architecture.