Graz university studio

The Graz university studio was a theater ensemble of students in Graz from 1946 to 1950 .

history

The 'Hochschulstudio' was founded in Graz by students as a student theater after the Second World War . In addition to the real hunger after the war, due to the scarcity of food, the students tried aged between 20 and 30 years also to satisfy their spiritual hunger and to build on the free literature that before National Socialism was there and in antique shops or shreds markets bought has been.

Hellmuth Himmel , later professor of the University of Graz , Rudolf Kellermayr , later director of the Academic Gymnasium in Graz, Willy Haring, later senior government councilor in the cultural office of the Styrian state government and Ulrich Baumgartner , later director of the Wiener Festwochen , founded the 'University Studio'.

In 1946 Georg Büchner's Leonce and Lena began as a program. At the same time, the group started a literary cabaret with the Studentenbrettl in the cafeteria of the student house, where Hellmuth Himmel and Emil Breisach , later Styrian broadcast director and co-founder of the Forum Stadtpark , contributed most of the texts. In the autumn, Harald Kopp, later head of the dishwasher and director of the Grazer Komödie based on William Shakespeare's Maß für Maß, staged the then daring translation by Hans Rothe Zweierlei Maß . The stage sets were created by the painter Franz Rogler . In order to emphasize the academic aspect, the Schlegel-Tieck translation was read between the scenes.

The first crisis soon occurred. Almost all of them were returning from the war before their final exams. The many rehearsals robbed the time for studying. The ensemble shrank. But it turned out that studying actors from the university joined them. Over time this turned the 'college studio' into a real theater. But it also led to conflicts with the stage union, although the business and organizational aspects always remained secondary. As with the old touring theaters, they played on division: all those involved up to the ticket seller and the cashier received ten schillings per evening. If the income was low, everyone got nothing.

Oscar Wilde's rarely played fragment A Florentine Tragedy and Klabund's comedy XYZ were subsequently played . Jean-Paul Sartre's Behind Closed Doors was the first modern work and the first performance of a work by Sartre in Graz. University professor Konstantin Radaković , the warmest sponsor of the 'university studio' among the academic teachers, gave an introductory speech, as he often did later at other performances. The performance of Hans Kaltneker's drama Das Bergwerk was another pioneering work with which the 'Hochschulstudio' also performed in Bruck an der Mur and Kapfenberg . This was followed by Émile Verhaerens Philipp II. With the guest production by Ludwig Andersen, who later became the theater director, then Rabindranath Tagores Chittra under the direction of Karlheinz Böhm and also a children 's performance with Waldemar Bonsel's Christmas play .

The 'Hochschulstudio' also successfully produced world premieres by Austrian authors: by Emil Breisach Der Maler , by Alfred Mikesch Der Konnetabel , by the music researcher and later founder of the Institute for Valuation Research (now: Institute for Music Aesthetics) at the Graz Music Academy (now: University of Music und Darstellende Kunst Graz ) Harald Kaufmann Vittoria Colonna and with particular success in an open-air performance in the garden of the Luschinschlössl am Rosenberg the comedy Des Teufels Zeitvertrieb by Hellmuth Himmel.

In 1948, as part of the Austrian University Weeks, a festive performance in the Meerscheinschlössl was played by Pedro Calderón de la Barcas, The Great World Theater , translated by Joseph von Eichendorff . Then Ulrich Baumgartner, who had carried the main burden as director, director and actor for two difficult but successful years, handed over the management to Heinz Gerstinger, later chief dramaturge in Graz, Augsburg and Vienna.

After guest appearances at the Welttheater in Leoben and Seckau , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Mahomet by Voltaire was performed in Graz . Then avant-garde theater with the surreal play Sankt Nikolaus by EE Cummings , where Rudolf Lenz , who later became a film star, appeared on the stage for the first time. Neue Brettl-Evenings and Christian Dietrich Grabbe's jokes, satire, irony and deeper meaning brought into the present in an adaptation by Gerstinger in modern costumes, unexpectedly increased the popularity of the 'university studio'. With the drama The daily life of Rainer Maria Rilke , the lyric favorite of the post-war youth, Rilke was introduced as a playwright. This performance was broadcast by Grazer Rundfunk. With The Bridge spirit of Julius Maria Becker a forgotten Expressionist was made recently known. With Fyodor Dostoyevsky Hellen nights , dramatized by Jörg Liebenfels , the youngest member of the High School Studios', later a leading member of the Deutsches Theater in Göttingen , succeeded another, successful premiere. A demonic evening with works by Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Maurice Maeterlinck and Franz Kafka was significant in terms of theater history because the fragment Der Gruftwächter , Kafka's only dramatic work, was the first work by Kafka to be performed. The stage design for this evening was designed by the painter Hans Fronius . Years later, a small theater in Paris claimed the world premiere for itself. The college studio was unable to contest this claim because at that point it no longer existed. In the Goethe year 1949 it was planned to perform the Urgötz on the then still half-ruined Schloßberg stage. In correspondence with the city of Graz, the rector of the university, Johann Fischl , obtained permission that students and workers of the university 'were allowed' to restore the Schlossberg stage as an open-air stage without paying. Walter Backes, former parade comedian of the 'Hochschulstudios', now an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, later ambassador in Athens, mediated this conflict so that the performance could take place. Fritz Stöckl, who later became a factory director in Vienna, played Götz, Fritz Kern played Weislingen. The extras were English occupation soldiers. Hellmuth Himmel has taken on the difficult task of stage manager. The performance could be repeated six times in front of 800 spectators. The idea was opposed by the landlord of the Schlossberg restaurant. He played music in his garden during the entire performance. Adelheid von Weislingen had to die to the sound of a tango.

In autumn 1949, the 'university studio' was forbidden to continue using the cafeteria, allegedly for hygienic reasons. They moved to the theater of the Neuber-Gaudernack drama school in Bürgergasse. Its director received the 'university studio' in a friendly manner. But the typical atmosphere of the 'university studio' could no longer be created. When Oskar Wildes Bunbury was performed, the 'university studio' was accused of competing with the Graz City Theater. The last great success was Georg Kaiser's Das Raft der Medusa , which, with the exception of two adults, was played by children throughout, while at the same time in Vienna only young actors ventured into the play. This was followed by the passion play The Mother of Gestas in front of the mausoleum at Easter . The last performances in the theater school followed George Bernard Shaw's Der Schlachtenlenker , the world premiere of the play Die Flucht by Richard Trauner, another Brettl and, in front of the Meerscheinschlössl, the play Kirke von Gerstinger, written in the war time, with the unfortunate title Menschen, Götter, Liebe. Gerstinger wrote: The love of people and gods seemed to have left us, we had little money and no young people, especially no successors for the leadership, because we were now too old to run a student theater.

literature

• Heinz Gerstinger : Personal memories of Hellmuth Himmel and the Graz university studio. In: The other world. Aspects of Austrian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Festschrift for Hellmuth Himmel on his 60th birthday. Edited by Kurt Bartsch, Dietmar Goltschnigg, Gerhard Melzer, Wolfgang Heinz Schober; Francke Verlag, Bern and Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7720-1449-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The piece with the subtitle "A dramatic attempt" is part of Alfred Mikesch's estate, which is in the Brenner archive of the University of Innsbruck.
2. ↑ Kaufmann's piece, which unfortunately has to be considered lost at the moment, was very likely a dramatized version of the novella The Temptation of Pescara by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer .