ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates and discusses about Edith Craig as director, through the reconstruction and analysis of one of her most relevant achievements: a trilogy by Paul Claudel staged for the Pioneer Players during the war years. Unlike other aspects of the story of Edith Craig's play-producing society, the staging of this trilogy has been little investigated; however it is most useful for arguing her directorial skills and authorship in theatre. The chapter pinpoints the distinctive characteristics of Edith Craig's Claudel productions, which critics have deemed among her best works for the pioneer players. Following the early seasons devoted to the sociological appraisal of female lead roles through their innovative international repertoire the pioneer players switched from militant work to more symbolic plays, inventing, during the war years, a complex representation of female otherness. The Edith Craig thus paved the way, along with other small art theatre venues, for a different modernist directorial method.
