History of the theater

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Ideal type of ancient Greek theater

The history of the theater deals with the history of the scenic performance of dramatic texts in the theater . Greek "θέατρον" ( théatron ) means "show place, theater", from θεᾶσθαι ( theasthai ) "to look at".

The origins of the Indian Sanskrit theater lie in the religious rituals, as judged by the dialogic hymns of the Rigveda , in the 1st millennium BC. In a linguistic form.

The Chinese opera developed even before contact with European culture, but a “primeval American theater” of the first inhabitants of America (Inca, Maya, Aztec, pueblos and the nomads of North America) did not exist in the definition of “theater”.

The history of theater or theater historiography as a bridging discipline between theater studies and historiography deals with the history of theater as an artistic and cultural practice. Elements of art history , the history of architecture and the history of literature are also part of research on the history of theater.

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Epochs

Articles contain information on later developments in theater after the end of the Middle Ages, such as the history of opera or the history of ballet .

Primeval theater

Cave Images of Stone Age people already betrayed early forms of theatrical play. It is believed that ice age hunters z. B. The skins of animals are covered in order to present such vital processes as hunting in advance or afterwards and to process them theatrically. Ceremonial dances and theatrical performances were created in which the world and social events were re-enacted and played around. One could see the theater as the primal art of humanity, which contains all other arts .

In Egyptian art, various representations of dancers , musicians and acrobats testify to the theatrical unfolding of the worldly amusements at the court of the pharaohs . In the fourth millennium BC, the mythologies that arose through the social reorganization and state administration , as well as the ruling priest -kings, shaped the interpretation of creation and being. This intellectual development ensured monumental splendid buildings that served as the backdrop for the theater play. They later developed into a large festival theater and also served to present the state religion .

During the Middle Kingdom (2000–1500 BC), the Egyptian Abydos became the scene of annual religious festivals with theatrical elements about the suffering, death and resurrection of the god Osiris . Thanks to drawings carved on stone, it was possible to gain knowledge of some of the stages in these theatrical processes.

The ancient theater

Theater for the polis

The theater of ancient Greece is considered the cradle of western drama and, with the establishment of the auditorium, marks a decisive turning point and development in the history of theater.

With the new pre-Christian form of society, democracy , the ritual festival became a political festival meeting that is true to cultic origins. This means that the seasons are largely tied to days of gods and festivals . The resulting drama no longer aimed to embody a connection between actors and the world of gods, but to build a bridge to the passive audience in order to give them an identity that obliges them to the state community .

The Dionysus Theater

In the 6th century, Peisistratos , who set up a tyranny in Athens , combined the popular Dionysus rituals into a state festival, the Great Dionysia. Dionysus, god of fertility and wine, also became the patron saint of the theater with the introduction of the tragedy competition ( Agon ) . At this time, the venue was also relocated from the agora , the meeting place of the polis , to the specially built Dionysostheater , which was built on the southern slope of the Acropolis .

The first names of poets and tragedies are handed down from the early 5th century, which at the time still used mythological motifs, but mainly dealt with political issues of the day and brought them closer to the public. The fatefulness of people, a central message of myths , was systematically questioned. The emphasis on free will and creative freedom as well as the idea of ​​the rule of law and the consolidation of the polis became stronger and stronger, especially through descriptions in the works of Aeschylus .

Due to the drop in audience numbers in the 4th century, the city-state (Polis) introduced “show money”, which was intended to compensate visitors for their loss of service. The, above all political, importance of the theater grew more and more. Spectacular Skenographien and theatrical virtuosity wrestled the philosophical and serious tragedy more and more the place, and were of great tragedy writers as well as by Aristotle , we d the first poetics. H. Doctrine of the art of poetry, owe, judged as invalid.

The comedy (originally: an exuberant dance mask number) successfully appropriated the popular custom from the Dionysus cult and eventually rose to become the most sought-after genre of the Hellenistic period. In contrast to the satyr play , which always ended a tragedy, the comedy was more ridiculous , and both mythical heroes and politicians were subjected to ridicule. But criticism of the ruling politics was also left out very unencrypted , especially by Aristophanes , who was also close friends with leading Athenian thinkers. With the end of democracy, however, comedy turned away from politics and focused on everyday types .

Roman antiquity

Roman culture was the result of a gigantic campaign of conquest. In the 3rd century, the Romans moved the center of Hellenistic culture to their city. They adopted the hierarchy of the Olympian gods and were inspired by Greek architecture , art and philosophy . Greek slaves became cultural teachers. After the victory in the First Punic War , the Roman Senate introduced theater performances in the Ludi Romani , the city festivals. Livius Andronicus wrote the first Latin tragedy. From then on, as in Greece , the theater was viewed as a state institution, but less as a forum for political discourse , as in the Attic theater, but more as a lordly representation of power and a diversion from political conflicts . This is how the comedy prevailed, which was often very discriminatory towards its protagonists . With the turn of the imperial era in the 1st century BC Popular forms of play, mainly pantomime , replaced literary comedy. The theme of adultery was also frequently used, and the imported Greek mimus was the first form to dispense with masks and occupy female roles with women, which should lead to many conflicts with the church for the further development of the theater.

Clay theater stamp ( tessera ) with portrait, Palmyra, ca.3rd century AD

Important authors of the ancient world

Quotes

Aristotle : All abstraction is not derived from reason, but from the sum of sensual experiences. Art is imitation.

Epicurus : Lust is the beginning and end of a blissful game.

Plato : The perceptible world is only the distorted shadow image of a world of ideal ideas - that is why perception does not lead to certain knowledge, but only reason.

Theater in the Middle Ages

Mystery play in Chester, England
Restored scene photo from the Oberammergau Passion Play (1900)

Mystery and Passion plays

In the 10th century the Council of Constantinople called for the humanization of the divine. That should be a turning point in theater culture. Textual extensions of the liturgical chants and the playful reconstruction of the events of the death and resurrection of Christ contributed to the emergence of dramatic roles in church theater and later to more complex plays with biblical content, which not only staged the Easter and Christmas festivities, but also included miraculous plays that included the Conjured up the life and deeds of saints and prophets or the battle between heaven and hell. With the separation of the liturgy , the strictly symbolist style of play also changed. Jesus now appeared as a person, the spiritual games shifted from the church to the church forecourt in the 13th century, the population was also involved in the game, and Latin was exchanged for the vernacular .

As a result of this development, mystery and passion plays were created , as one was no longer tied to the location of the church and no longer wanted to tell individual motifs, but rather stories of salvation from the creation of the world to the Last Judgment . At first only clerics were involved in the drama , later male citizens were brought in to do justice to the numerous roles of the festival, which lasted for days, and then later the drama was completely in the hands of the citizens. The Passion Play found widespread use and was no longer just a church event of urban festival culture. In the 14th century, the focus of the content was changed. The focus was no longer on worshiping Jesus , but on humiliation and suffering. The passion became a mirror of the new attitude towards life that was shaped by famine , plague and the crisis of church and political authority , and it was increasingly oriented towards empirical reality.

Rural festival with theater performance, from the environment of Pieter Brueghel the Younger (around 1600, detail)

Mardi Gras

Thus, secular forms of play developed in the late Middle Ages , which were particularly shaped in France. With the French farce and sotie , which is characterized by its critical and mocking view of everyday life and the mockery of church and state authorities and was only played at Shrovetide , the German Shrovetide game also emancipated itself and not only lured with an often uninhibited sexual and fecal comedy at carnival the audience in pubs or on marketplaces . The tradition of the English Morality Plays , which shape the struggle between vice and virtue , lives on to this day in the most played play on the European stage, Jedermann , which has shaped the opening of the Salzburg Festival since 1920 .

Well-known authors of carnival games

  • Hans Sachs : He wrote 4,000 master songs and 87 carnival games.

Renaissance, or Age of Discovery

The Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza , an attempt at a structural revival of the ancient theater tradition

With the end of the Middle Ages, the theater gained new functions in the courtly and ecclesiastical representation . While the citizens had firmly adopted the medieval mystery play , a new elite culture shone in European courts . Holidays were celebrated with opera performances . Courtly theaters, theater in princely residences, built in gardens hedge theater , churches, the performance of religious operas and oratorios permitted, evidence of the use change.

The modern age was shaped by far-reaching geographical , scientific and spiritual discoveries, by the failure of the medieval church and by the reflection of philosophy and art on people and the development of the free personality . In the theater of the humanists one recognizes the first beginnings of the tradition of the "classical drama ", in which an exciting plot is promoted through dialogues. So it also followed that the locations of the action no longer stood side by side, but were enlivened chronologically by means of scene changes .

The "ancient drama" was taught in schools as early as the Middle Ages, but the imagination for the ancient performance practice was not available. It was only the humanists of the modern age who succeeded in reconstructing ancient forms of play. Aristocrats took up the new “classical wave of culture” with enthusiasm, but were less interested in an exact reconstruction of classical dramas, as the humanistic scholars were, but more in sumptuous furnishings and later in the loosening up of the game by adding burlesque dances. While tragedy received little attention in the Renaissance , comedy was downright revered. The first glamorous center for the revival of ancient comedies and a little later the creation of the Commedia erudita , a folk-language scholarly comedy , came into being at the court of Ferrara . Ludovico Ariosto , director of the court theater in Ferrara, celebrated his greatest successes at court with stage works such as La Cassaria and I Suppositi . But the most famous Renaissance comedies were written by Niccolò Machiavelli , who threw aside the ancient models and built a sharp portrait of the customs and vices of his time into the works. Scholars deal with the tragedy mainly theoretically and derived poetic norms from Aristotle's Poetics . One of its most important laws was the observance of the three units of place, action and time in drama.

In addition to the amateur acting by learned played Commedia erudita exist professional Commedia dell'arte , the impromptu comedy , and the pastoral . The shepherd's game combined comedy and tragedy , distanced itself from political and social crises of the present and formed a utopian world of splendor. The shepherd's play had a great influence on the development of the opera . In the 16th century humanists discovered the didactic value of the theater. For moral instruction and as a propaganda instrument of the Reformation ( Martin Luther also recommended school theater), Latin theater was included in the curriculum .

In England, the Renaissance theater developed independently and is called English Renaissance theater , also known as Elizabethan theater in German , including the Jacobean theater and Caroline theater that followed. Together they are also called Early modern theater , including William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe .

Important representatives of the Renaissance

Commedia Erudita

Shepherd's Game (Pastorale)

The baroque age

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→ Main article: Baroque theater
The Farnese Theater in Parma . Here courtly spectacles were staged rarely, but at great expense

At no time was the theater more loved than during the European Baroque . In the 17th century, playing on stage was an image and symbol of a glamorous world. The decline of feudalism and the victory of absolutism overturned old values ​​and heightened awareness of appearances and realities. The comparison between the world and the stage , on which everyone plays their intended role , dominates the works of William Shakespeare and Pedro Calderón de la Barca . Man as a true image of society and his kind, God as director and spectator - this image was emulated throughout the entire Baroque culture and unfolded in splendid theatricality . At the absolutist court even everyday life was theatrically arranged, and with each production the aim was to surpass the previous one. The desire for drama and theatrical festivities became stronger and stronger, which brought the profession of the dramatist into a heyday. In the big cities there was an urban, commercial theater business (in addition to the businesses of the traveling minstrels who also demand money), and there were celebrations of particularly popular actors such as today's stars . The ever increasing rush and expansion of the game soon called for the change from courtly theater to folk theater - the first peep- show stages were created, later auditoriums were set up with tiers and boxes that were supposed to represent a hierarchy of society. In the 17th century Hamburg got the Theater am Gänsemarkt , Leipzig got a house that was used during trade fairs . The pieces that were performed savored tragedy and comedy and thrived on skillful staging of violence, dance and musical interludes. Spectators from all walks of life attended the performances. The continental commercial theater business developed in a less fixable manner for the bourgeois audience , which lacked fixed performance locations and locally based troops. Municipal ballrooms could take on theater functions like marketplaces. The text bases of the troops were usually only fixed in manuscripts . The companies traveled through Europe with repertoires of up to 80 pieces and often selected what hadn't been played here for a long time for the production . Hardly more than the handful of major and state actions recorded in Vienna in the 1720s have survived in print from this theater business. The high schools built towards the end of the era integrated theater performances into school operations - the venue for most of the plays that are now traded as baroque dramas.

The baroque theater was a catchment basin for various theatrical genres from previous epochs and a collection basin for various cultural art movements that were repeatedly taken up by traveling theater groups and incorporated into their productions. The " Commedia dell'arte ", which appeared as early as the Renaissance , was considered the ultimate form of theater, with it the drama emancipated itself from literature . The art of improvisation and a fireworks display of facial , musical and choreographic ideas were their characteristics and not only inspired the bourgeoisie with their commercial orientation. On the other hand, the courtly theater, which privileged operas and comedies across Europe until the middle of the 18th century, was higher up . This must by no means be misunderstood: the operas had been the high theater since 1600 - the pieces were usually printed in order to be read during the performances, in order to remember the piece after the performance, in order to be read and appreciated as poetry. The most famous opera poets also published their works in collective editions - the texts without the music , which were subject to the more short-term fashions and were composed on site for the occasion . The opera of Italy from Europe conquered, experienced a triumph of the aristocratic courts.

The Elizabethan Theater

Replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater
View of the stage of the Globe Theater
The interior

In 1576 James Burbage built the first London theater, adopting the round shape of the animal arenas of the time . With this building, James Burbage gave the impetus for a true theater boom , all classes of society were seized by an obsession with theater. This boom is primarily due to the monarch Elisabeth I , who with her art and business acumen formed an economic and cultural center after the civil war in the 16th century. The theater of Shakespeare's time gained influence in England and later on the repertoire of the continental theater companies. The English drama troops comprised around 15 members who worked on a cooperative basis. The performers lived on their share of the proceeds from the performances. Only men played in a group, including women, mostly boys because of their higher pitched voice (" Boys Actors "). They played during the day to avoid the lighting problem. There was hardly any stage decoration, and the curtain was also unknown. Props were carried onto the stage during the game. Costumes were suggested. Major troops were those

that functioned like small business enterprises. As partners, the actors brought in working capital and shared in the joint profits . From the middle of the 16th century to 1642 around 5000 pieces were performed in England, of which 620 are in print today.

Well-known playwrights are here:

Theaters in London built between 1567 and 1629:

The houses marked were built in a similar way: on the ground, the pit , there was standing room for the poorer population. Around this ran a multi-storey, covered gallery with seats for the rich, who now like to turn away from the courtly theater and visit the public buildings. In the middle of the pit there was a raised play platform , which was also clearly visible from the galleries. On the big stage there was another small stage and the cloakroom for the actors. On the cloakroom was a balcony that was covered by a thatched roof. On this thatched roof was the tower for the trumpeter who announced the beginning of the performance. In the tower was the flying machine for special performances by the actors. The flag with the emblem of the corresponding theater waved on its roof ; in the Swan Theater, for example, it was a swan , in the rose it was a rose . While the simple theaters were exposed to the weather, the Blackfriars, Salisbury Court Theater and the Cockpit Theater were already completely covered.

Iberian theater culture (Spanish Baroque)

In contrast to the rest of European theater culture, the Spanish Baroque theater was deeply rooted in Catholicism . The traditional allegorical Corpus Christi play enjoyed great popularity well into the 18th century, and Spain's theater has always been in the service and protection of the Catholic Church. At the beginning of the 16th century, the first Italian acting tour troops came to Spain, played their pieces in the courtyards of the religious brotherhoods and later in the specially built " Teatro de Corral ", which was modeled on the courtyard stages and not very dissimilar to the English stages. As early as the middle of the 16th century, domestic drama troupes were performing on the theaters set up all over the country, thus shaping the Iberian theater culture, which met with enthusiastic approval. When Spain's world power seemed to crumble in the 17th century, the citizens maintained their belief in power and a splendid life through the theater. During this time, more than 300,000 stage works were written and a large number of different genres were formed under the umbrella term Comedia:

The cloak and sword piece turned out to be the most successful and Europe-wide most famous genre; it continues to have an effect on the coat-and-epee film . The subject of the plot was the life of court society, and the cloak as a symbol of disguise became the most important prop of the indispensable love intrigue. Lope de Vega , one of the most famous playwrights of the time, was familiar with Aristotelian poetics , but was more keen on the favor of the public and tried to combine both tragic and comic elements. The Spanish baroque drama was more of a theater of parallels, geared less towards realistic characters or modern problems, but rather towards recreating the heavenly and secular system of order.

Well-known playwrights are here:

The democratization of the theater was an important step for those interested in the ancient theater, because back then no one was allowed into the theater who did not have permission. Usually this was just the king and his court, down to the simple servants. The seating and standing places had a hierarchy and were at ground level, not rising as they usually are today.

The French baroque theater

The demand came from France that the drama, which in the 16th century had moved further and further away from ancient models, should be based on them again. The very successful Renaissance theater by Alexandre Hardy went under, as did the similar (but later revived) works by William Shakespeare .

The two opposing lines of European baroque theater , the monumental court theater and the classicist drama, received equal attention in France. At the court of Louis XIV , the theater experienced a superficial, pompous development with, among other things, the ballet de cour , a special theatrical form in which not only men and women of the court performed, but also the king himself. In literary terms, however, the French classical music marked the climax of this Epoch, and under the watchful eye of Cardinal Richelieu and his " Académie française " founded in 1635 , the norms of regular drama were enforced. The poet Pierre Corneille with his work Le Cid was also under their censorship . Criticized by the Académie, cheered by the audience and stylized as a national hero, Corneille, who was admitted to the Académie himself in 1647, decided to write purely stylish dramas after the Cid. In doing so, he created the prototype of a tragic hero free of individual traits, who was supposed to extol the ideals of the French baroque, propriety and respectability. Jean Racine, on the other hand, gave his protagonists an individual character and found the classicist drama structures to be extremely helpful in highlighting psychological intensity. After his main work Phèdre in 1677 was covered over by the more agreeable, now forgotten work of his rival Jacques Pradon , he left the court theater and withdrew into the religious theme with Esther (1689) and Athalie (1691). Racine's greatest rival was the comedy poet Molière , previously his mentor, whose troupe he left after his theatrical debut and moved to the rival Hôtel de Bourgogne . But Molière was in the favor of the king and wrote innumerable farces , customs and type comedies, making use of the “Comedia dell'arte” repertoire. In collaboration with the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, he developed the genre of the "Comédie-ballet", in which dance scenes were not just decorative accessories but part of the plot . His literary climax were the character comedies , in which he personified and exaggerated a single character trait of the protagonist, thus exposing him to ridicule. He thought the stage was a theatrical pillory in which violations of common sense and morals by comedy should be exposed and mocked. Hated by his peers, Molière is still one of the most famous and most played French playwrights.

Theater in Romanticism

In the Romantic era, theater took a back seat in favor of poetry and the novel , and also in favor of the opera as a total work of art, but the feelings that were important in Romanticism were also emphasized on the stage.

19th century Germany

In the second half of the century, the theater scene in Germany became increasingly liberalized. In the trade regulations for the North German Confederation of 1869, theater was listed as a trade and obtaining a theater license was a purely formality. Most of the repertoire restrictions were also removed. The result of this new theater freedom was a veritable theater boom that lasted into the 1930s , despite temporary setbacks, for example due to the stock market crash of 1873 .

Most of these newly created stages were pure entertainment businesses. The theatrical entertainment art prospered from the middle of the 19th century and developed more and more new genres, such as the operetta or the cabaret. The willingness to experiment among theatrical entertainment establishments also led to hybrid forms such as variety theater, which mixes elements of drama with artistic circus attractions. The success of these stages speaks against the widespread image that 19th century theaters corresponded to Schiller's ideal of the theater as an educational institution. This applies not only to the purely profit-oriented, privately run business theaters, but is also increasingly being discussed for the bourgeois theaters (from which today's city ​​and state theater system arose) that are subsidized by citizens' initiatives and municipal subsidies .

20th century and contemporary history

New forms of theater developed as early as the late 19th century ( Alfred Jarry ), but also in the period after the social upheavals in the post-war period (1945–1970s); locally in Europe interrupted by National Socialism . Symbolist theater, post-war theater, modern theater and finally post-dramatic theater explored new avenues.

proof

  1. ↑ Trade regulations for the North German Confederation of 1869, §32 wikisource
  2. ↑ cf. Friedrich Schiller: What can a good standing stage actually do? In: Benno von Wiese (Ed.): Schiller's works. Vol. 20, Weimar 1962, pp. 87-100.
  3. ↑ Christoph Kohler: Why the theater? On the history of the theater subsidies in Zurich (1890-1928). Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2008; Nic Leonhardt: Pictorial dramaturgy. Visual Culture and Theater in the 19th Century (1869-1899). Bielefeld 2007; Frank Möller: Between art and commerce. Citizen theater in the 19th century. In: Dieter Hein, Andreas Schulz (Hrsg.): Citizen culture in the 19th century. Education, art and living environment. Munich 1996, pp. 19-33.
  4. ↑ cf. Jürgen Grimm: The avant-garde theater of France 1895-1930. Munich 1982, ISBN 3-406-08438-9 .

Web links

Commons : History of the theater  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Local Theater History  - Sources and Full Texts

literature

  • Jens Ilg, Thomas Bitterlich (ed.): Theater historiography: interviews with theater historians . Tectum, Marburg 2006, ISBN 3-8288-9178-0 .
  • Manfred Brauneck : The world as a stage. History of European Theater . Metzler, Stuttgart
  • Joachim Fiebach: The dead as the power of the living. On the theory and history of theater in Africa. Heinrichshofen, Wilhelmshaven 1986, ISBN 3-7959-0503-6 .
  • Erika Fischer-Lichte: Brief history of the German theater . A. Francke Verlag, Tübingen / Basel 1993, ISBN 3-7720-1691-X .
  • Erika Fischer-Lichte (Ed.): TheaterAvantgarde. Perception - body - language . Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-8252-1807-4 .
  • Georg Hensel : Schedule. The actor's guide from antiquity to the present , Econ-List Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-612-26645-4 .
  • Andreas Kotte: Theater history. An introduction. Böhlau, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-382523-871-1 .
  • Peter Simhandl: Theater history in one volume. Henschel, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89487-593-0 .
  • Pierre Sauzeau: La tradition créatrice du théâtre antique . - I. En Grèce ancienne . Textes réunis par Pierre Sauzeau avec la collaboration de Jean-Claude Turpin Cahiers du GITA nº 11. Publications de l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier 1999, ISBN 2-84269-299-3 .
  • Pierre Sauzeau: La tradition créatrice du théâtre antique . - II. De Rome à nos jours . Textes réunis par Pierre Sauzeau avec la collaboration de Jean-Claude Turpin Cahiers du GITA nº 12. Publications de l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier 1999, ISBN 2-84269-328-0 .