Mel Gordon

From 1892 until 1954, three cabaret-restaurants in the Montmartre district of Paris captivated tourists with their grotesque portrayals of death in the afterworlds of Hell, Heaven, and Nothingness. Each had specialized cuisines and morbid visual displays with flashes of nudity and shocking optical illusions. These cabarets were considered the most curious and widely featured amusements in the city. Entrepreneurs even hawked graphic postcards of their ironic spectacles and otherworldly interiors.Cabarets of Death documents the dinner shows, the character interactions with guests, and the theatrical goings-on in these unique establishments. Presenting original images and drawings from contemporary journals, postcards, tourist brochures, and menus, Mel Gordon leads a tour of these idiosyncratically macabre institutions, and grants us unique access to a form of popular spectacle now gone.

Mel Gordon, author of "Voluptuous Panic," the celebrated history about the sex culture of Weimar Berlin, returns with a stunningly illustrated look at Paris, The City of Pleasure, prior to and during German occupation during World War II. The book "Horizontal Collaboration "encompasses the Jazz Age, Depression, World War and Occupation, and Liberation. It concludes with the shuttering of the licensed brothels in 1946, which some Parisian intellectuals thought was the final "destruction of French civilization." The term "Horizontal Collaboration" refers to the sexual liaisons between French civilians and German occupiers from 1940 to 1944. These were extremely widespread and included both individual wartime relationships in addition to prostitution. As Allied armies swept across the French countryside, thousands of young women--and some men--were savagely punished by the authorities or by vigilante crowds, becoming a source of deep national shame. Author Gordon redefines the pejorative term to mean something much broader: French men and women "horizontally collaborated" to overcome all social obstacles, divisions, and regulations. These obstacles include married and unmarried couples, straights and homosexuals, foreigners and locals, gun-toting soldiers and their vanquished subjects. The natural yearning for sexual pleasure equally corrupted all cohabitating partners. This book rediscovers a remarkable time when the aesthetic and erotic capitol of Europe experienced remarkable heights and shameful lows. . . . Hundreds of images, most never before seen in a book, encompass this fascinating but little-known history.

Stanislavsky in America explores the extraordinary legacy that Constantin Stanislavski’s system of actor-training has left on acting in the US.Mel Gordon outlines the journey of Stanislavski’s theories through twentieth century American history, from the early US tours of the Moscow Art Theatre to the ongoing impact of 'The System' on modern American acting.This fascinating study by a leading theatre critic and practitioner provides hundreds of original acting exercises, used by the pivotal US figures who developed his teachings, such as Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Bobby Lewis. By going back to these primary sources, Gordon cuts through the myths and misapprehensions which have built up over time.Part memoir and part practical guide, Stanislavsky in America is an essential resource for anyone wanting to understand Stanislavski’s work and his relationship with American theatre.

Stanislavsky in America explores the extraordinary legacy that Constantin Stanislavski’s system of actor-training has left on acting in the US.Mel Gordon outlines the journey of Stanislavski’s theories through twentieth century American history, from the early US tours of the Moscow Art Theatre to the ongoing impact of 'The System' on modern American acting.This fascinating study by a leading theatre critic and practitioner provides hundreds of original acting exercises, used by the pivotal US figures who developed his teachings, such as Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Bobby Lewis. By going back to these primary sources, Gordon cuts through the myths and misapprehensions which have built up over time.Part memoir and part practical guide, Stanislavsky in America is an essential resource for anyone wanting to understand Stanislavski’s work and his relationship with American theatre.

This seductive sourcebook of rare visual delights from pre-Nazi, Cabaret-period "Babylon on the Spree" has the distinction of being praised both by scholars and avatars of contemporary culture, inspiring hip club goers, filmmakers, gay historians, graphic designers, and musicians like the Dresden Dolls and Marilyn Manson.This expanded edition includes "Sex Magic and the Occult," documenting German pagan cults and their often-bizarre erotic rituals, including instructions for entering into the "Sexual Fourth Dimension."Mel Gordon is professor of theater at the University of California, Berkeley, and is also the author of Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant (Feral House).

The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber is the first contemporary biography of the notorious actor/dancer/poet/playwright who scandalized sex-obsessed Weimar Berlin during the 1920s. In an era where everything was permitted, Anita Berber’s celebrations of “Depravity, Horror and Ecstasy” were condemned and censored. She often haunted Weimar Berlin’s hotel lobbies, nightclubs, and casinos, radiantly naked except for an elegant sable wrap, a pet monkey hanging from her neck, and a silver brooch packed with cocaine. Multi-talented Anita saw no boundaries between her personal life and her taboo-shattering performances. As such, she was Europe’s first postmodern woman. After sated Berliners finally tired of Anita Berber’s libidinous antics, she became a “carrion soul that even the hyenas ignored,” dying in 1928 at the age of twenty-nine. • Includes nearly two hundred photographs and illustrations, including some that recreate Berber’s salacious and enduring “Repertoire of the Damned.” • Berber was a lover of Marlene Dietrich and influenced and associated with Leni Riefenstahl, Lawrence Durrell, Klaus Mann, and the founder of modern sexology, Magnus Hirschfeld. • An early movie star, Berber acted in Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler and the silent epic Lucifer.

It is virtually impossible to discuss modern acting or actor training without first mentioning the Russian thoerist and director Konstantin Stanislavsky. Complete in one volume Mel Gordon explores the actor training systems of Stanislavsky and his two most important disciples Evgeni Vakhtangov and Michael Chekhov tracing the major teachings and refinements over the first 50 years of use by actors. Gordon reconstructs the Êactual exercisesÊ taught at the Moscow Art Theatre and various Russian acting studios and he clears away the myths and confusion about the practical use of Stanislavsky's System. This volume contains: The Stanislavsky System ä First Studio Exercises 1912-1916; Vakhtangov as Rebel and Theoretician ä Exercises 1919-1921; Michael Chekhov ä Exercises 1919-1952; and Stanislavsky's Fourth Period ä Theory of Physical Actions 1934-1938.