Chamber play

A chamber play is a play in an intimate setting, usually with a few actors on stage, without extras or great decoration effort. Chamber plays usually have a psychological orientation and focus on the effect of the conversations between the characters. The term is also occasionally used for films (see Kammerspielfilm ).

August Strindberg used the term Kammerspiel (Swedish: kammarspel ). His 1907 written pieces Oväder , Brända tomten , Spöksonaten , pelicans , and Svarta Handsken (1908-1909) he called in allusion to musical titles Kammerspiele Opus I-V .

Similar to the term chamber music , the chamber of the chamber play tends to be understood as an "aristocratic" chamber (cf. Kammerschauspieler ), i.e. less a modest than an exclusive setting. Therefore, with Kammerspiel one usually means neither the entertainment mixture of cabaret nor an avant-garde type of theater-making - but dignified craftsmanship in great concentration, often in connection with the quality standards of stage naturalism .

There are chamber plays as institutions and theater buildings in some cities. This usually means a smaller, alternative venue to a large stage. The stylistic range is quite large. The Kammerspiele of the Deutsches Theater Berlin , the Schauspielhaus Bochum or the Münchner Kammerspiele offer sophisticated directorial theater , the Wiener Kammerspiele a well-tended boulevard theater .

Derived from the chamber play, the genre of the chamber feature film developed during the silent film era .

literature

• Roland Dreßler: Kammerspiel , in: Manfred Brauneck (Ed.): Theaterlexikon , Rowohlt, Hamburg 1992, p. 485.