Amateur play

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Faust at the psychologist

Amateur play or Laientheater , formerly Liebhabertheater referred theater performances by not particularly trained and unpaid Actor ( amateur or amateur or amateurs ). The focus is not on interest in making a profit but on the pleasure of artistic activity.

term

In relation to medieval theater , the term amateur play is mostly understood as the opposite of forms of theater in which members of the clergy appeared. The layman has no church office in this sense. In contrast to church or court occasions, the bourgeois theater is often called popular theater . The designation of early theater practices as amateur play is problematic, since today's term assumes the existence of professional professional theater.

Some definitions differentiate between amateur theater and amateur theater . The latter takes the professional theater as a model, the actors even receive a small fee , while amateur plays sometimes developed their own forms. One variant is the amateur theater , in which the amateur actors sometimes even pay to be allowed to perform.

The demarcation between theater and festival culture is just as difficult. Whether theatrical appearances at social events are considered to be amateur theater can depend, for example, on the rehearsal effort and the independence of the theatrical action. The private appearance of professional actors is of considerable importance in the media and is also not counted as an amateur play.

Organizers of amateur plays in the traditional sense are often home associations or parishes . The performances rarely take place in theaters, but in community halls, taverns, churches or the school auditorium. In the summer amateur games also take place as open-air events. The number of performances of an amateur play is usually small, often there is only one performance.

The processional plays established by Italian immigrants in Germany since the 1980s , such as the Bensheim Passion Play or corresponding performances in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt , Saarlouis or Ulm, occupy a mediating position between amateur play and church customs .

history

The roots of the amateur play, especially in rural areas, can be found in part in the spiritual games of the Middle Ages, which had broken away from their cultic functions and were mainly used for pastime, artistic activity and civic self-expression. Until the development of professional theater in the true sense of the word in the Renaissance by the actors of the Commedia dell'arte , practically all theatrical performances were carried out by laypeople. In addition, the focus of the spiritual games was less on the pleasure of the performers than on the cultic meaning. To what extent passion plays , nativity plays or similar performances such as B. Johannesspiele belong to the amateur play, can only be decided in individual cases. Few of the late medieval and early modern game traditions have survived to this day, such as the Swiss Fête des Vignerons .

Up until the 18th century, theater for education instead of amusement was mostly amateur theater, as was the forms of theater that were incorporated into court and city festivals. The actor's profession has been increasingly valued since the French classical period . The touring theaters often practiced mixed forms of amateur and professional theater. With the idea of ​​the national theater in the 19th century, which should have a permanent ensemble , the amateur theater lost its dominant position in bourgeois theater circles.

The performances in the salons of the 18th and 19th centuries are to be regarded as amateurs according to the criteria mentioned above, but the term seems problematic, even anachronistic, since at the time it was not spoken of amateurs but of amateurs.

From the beginning of the 20th century, numerous natural and open-air stages were built in Germany, which attracted a large number of amateur plays. Festivals were founded, some of which still exist today. A revaluation of the concept of the people by the Völkische Movement , which was partly politically instrumentalized, also gave the amateur theater greater importance. Artists like Adolphe Appia , Émile Jaques-Dalcroze or the reform pedagogue Martin Luserke with what was then the first and only theater hall of a German school (see also: Schule am Meer on Juist ) especially for amateur play created mixed forms between amateur and professional theater events.

“ Without Martin Luserke, amateur play would never have developed in the way it was possible in 1920–1933. "

- Rudolf Mirbt , Göttingen, September 22, 1949

Today the amateur play is mostly closely connected with club activities and has moved far away from the original form of the amateur play.

BAG play and theater

A special stimulator, sponsor, publisher and collector in 1953 was the founder of the Laienspiel-Bund (today: Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Spiel und Theater ), Rudolf Mirbt , who with many of his pieces published by Bärenreiter-Verlag has on the one hand collected a lot of "folk good" but also on the other processed many substances to raise awareness.

Differentiation from professional theater

Professional groups (e.g. Exl-Gruppe in Tirol, Schlierseer , Peter Steiner ) developed from amateur play, especially in the Bavarian and Austrian farmer's theater . The Lindenhof Theater in Melchingen in Württemberg and Swabia has also developed from an amateur theater group from the independent theater . In individual plays of the theater, amateur actors are still featured on the stage, most recently in the staging of the historic Mössingen general strike in the nationwide acclaimed play A Village in Resistance from 2013. The Lindenhof Theater is the first and so far only regional theater in Germany. During its 30-year existence, it has received numerous theater awards - especially in Baden-Württemberg - for its productions .

Well-known amateur games

See also

Quotes

  • "Drama by non-professional actors, which is cultivated in particular by youth, but also adult associations and the churches. Small and large plays are played; however, amateur play also includes pantomime, gymnastic and dance performances." (from Brockhaus Encyclopedia )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ An overview in Diane Dingeldein: Das Bensheimer Passionspiel. Studies on an Italian-German cultural transfer. (Mainz contributions to cultural anthropology / folklore, vol. 7). Waxmann, Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin 2013, pp. 182–190
  2. ↑ Rudolf Mirbt (ed.): The devil with the three golden hairs . ( Memento from April 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel 1949, p. 12
  3. ↑ Mössing General Strike comes on stage Article of the daily newspaper Die Welt from May 6, 2013 on the stage version of the Mössing General Strike material in the play A Village in Resistance
  4. ^ "A village in resistance" premiered with 100 actors ( memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) by Kai-Uwe Brinkmann; Review of the performance of the play A Village in Resistance at the Ruhr Festival 2013 in the daily newspaper Ruhr Nachrichten on June 9, 2013 (accessed on March 22, 2014)

Web links

Wiktionary: amateur play  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations