Basement theater
Basement theaters (also basement stages ) are theater rooms that can accommodate relatively few spectators and are often studio stages.
Emergence
The first basement theaters came into being in Vienna in the 1930s, when young theater professionals and actors who, at a time of high unemployment, with no prospect of employment on a big stage and dissatisfied with the conventional schedule, created alternative job opportunities.
development
The inventor of the basement theater is considered to be the Jew Elias Jubal (Benno Neumann) from Horodenka in Galicia, a former Max Reinhardt seminarist who founded the first basement theater in Vienna in 1928 and founded the theater for 49 am Schottentor in the basement of the Hôtel de France in 1934 . With his theater, Jubal made use of a loophole in the Austrian theater law, which only required a - difficult to obtain - concession for theaters with more than 50 seats. This approach triggered a wave of start-ups of small theaters, which became a basin for young talents and also offered young, unknown authors a platform and an often avant-garde repertoire. These included the Modern Theater on Schwarzenbergplatz and the Theater on the Neubau. The island was opened by the later director of the Vienna Volkstheater Leon Epp on Parkring in the Palais Archduke Eugen .
The Piscator student Ernst Lönner , who emigrated from Berlin, also founded an avant-garde stage with his small theater in Praterstrasse , but it was not in a basement, but at Praterstrasse 60.
German cabaret artists who emigrated to Vienna after Hitler came to power founded small theaters with young Austrian authors such as Peter Hammerschlag , Gerhart Hermann Mostar , Hans Weigel and Rudolf Weiss, most of which were located in the basements of Viennese coffee houses . These basement theaters played mainly political cabaret and were grouped under the name of cabaret theaters . It was there that Jura Soyfer also became one of the most important Austrian dramatists of his time.
The first stage of this kind was the theater Der liebe Augustin in Café Prückel on Lueger-Platz from 1931 under the direction of Stella Kadmon (1902–1989). In November 1933, the literature on the Naschmarkt was created , for which Jura Soyfer wrote his play Der Lechner Edi looks into paradise . In March 1934, the ABC was first opened under the name Brettl am Alsergrund in Café City in Porzellangasse, and a year later it moved to Café Arkaden in Universitätsstraße. Soyfer wrote The End of the World, Astoria, Vineta and Broadway Melody for ABC in 1492.
The Simpl cabaret in Vienna opened in 1912 and became one of the most popular cellar theaters in Vienna. In the 1920s and 1930s it became a cabaret revue theater under Karl Farkas and Fritz Grünbaum , which they played until two days before the Anschluss on March 10, 1938.
post war period
After the Second World War, a number of new establishments followed, some of which were cellar theaters, others were able to establish themselves over the years, including the Ateliertheater am Naschmarkt by Veit Relin , the Theater der Courage by Stella Kadmon , and Experiment am Liechtenwerd by Conny Hannes Meyer or Die Tribüne in Café Landtmann , founded in 1953. For many of the actors, directors and stage designers of the post-war generation, these basement theaters offered the first chance for artistic development. Sometimes established actors also played in the basement theaters. Many dramas by emigrated authors were premiered in Vienna after the war in cellar theaters.
In Poland, Jerzy Grotowski founded Teatr 13 Rzędów in 1959 , the theater of the 13 rows in Opole , which moved to Wrocław in 1965 and developed into a real “theater laboratory” and research institute for acting methods.
Basement theater today
Today the basement theaters are primarily used for the performance of contemporary works that are rarely played in the big theaters.
Contemporary cellar theaters include cellar theater Frankfurt , Innsbruck cellar theater , cellar theater Hamburg , Linz cellar theater , new cellar theater in Wetzlar , cellar theater Katakömbli in Bern, cellar theater Bremgarten , cellar theater Winterthur , and Sulzbach cellar theater .
literature
- Brigitte Dalinger: "Extinguished Stars". History of the Jewish Theater in Vienna. Picus-Verlag, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-85452-420-X .
- Elisabeth Epp : happiness on an island. Leon Epp - Life and Work. Braunmüller publishing house, Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-7003-0083-2 .
- Hilde Haider-Pregler , Beate Reiterer (Ed.): Playful time. Austrian theater of the thirties. Picus-Verlag, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85452-402-1 .
- Ulrike Mayer: Theater for 49 in Vienna 1934–1938. Dissertation, University of Vienna 1994.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Ulrike Oedl: The country of exile Austria between 1933 and 1938. PDF Also in: Austrian literature in exile. Salzburg 2002
- ↑ Ulrike Mayer: Theater for 49 in Vienna 1934–1938. (Dissertation, Vienna 1994)
- ↑ See Elisabeth Epp under literature
- ^ Paulus Manker : The theater man Gustav Manker . Search for clues. Vienna 2010
