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The Dangers of the New Sensibilities in Eighteenth Century German Acting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Gloria Flaherty
Gloria Flaherty
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, USA.
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Extract

Playacting in public has been considered suspect since the day Solon stepped backstage to ask whether Thespis felt ashamed to tell so many lies to such a great number of people. From the very beginning, there were recognizable dangers not only for the audience but also for the actors themselves. And every possible attempt was made to point out those dangers and to obviate them. In the Republic, Plato warned against imitating anything except pure virtue. Especially dangerous, in his opinion, was the imitation of a woman, ‘old or young, railing against her husband, or boasting of a happiness which she imagines can rival the gods', or overwhelmed with grief and misfortune; much less a woman in love, or sick, or in labour.’ Plato, and a long line of writers who followed, condemned such imitation, contending that the imitator could all too easily become what he imitated. In the Ion, Plato discussed the divine frenzy that overcame the actor and made him momentarily insane or unable to distinguish truth from illusion.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , Summer 1983 , pp. 95 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1983

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References

Notes

1. The Republic of Plato, tr. Cornford, Francis MacDonald (Oxford, 1941, rpt. 1955), Book 3, 395a–e, p. 81.Google Scholar

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3. Plutarch's Lives, tr. Perrin, Bernadotte, The Loeb Classical Library, 11 vols. (London and New York, 1914–1926), Vol. 7, pp. 94 and 95.Google Scholar See also ‘Fragmente aus dem Alterthum,’ Baierische Beyträge zur schönen und nülzlichen Litteratur, I, 2 (1779), p. 678.Google Scholar Of related interest is Wright, F. Warren, Cicero and the Theatre, Smith College Classical Studies, No. 11 (Northampton, Mass., 1931), p. 11.Google Scholar

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5. Compare Augustine, Saint's Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, tr. Bettenson, Henry, intro. Knowles, David (London and Baltimore, 1972), Book I, Chapter 32, pp. 43–44Google Scholar, on the establishment of stage spectacles: ‘The gods ordered theatrical shows to be put on in their honour to allay a plague which attacked the body, while the pontiff stopped the erection of a theatre to prevent a plague which would infect the soul. If you have enough light in your minds to prefer the soul to the body, choose which you should worship!’ See also Weismann, Werner, Kirche und Schauspiele: Die Schauspiele im Urteil der lateinischen Kirchenväter unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustin, Cassiciacum, Vol. 27 (Würzburg, 1972), pp. 92–98.Google Scholar

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10. Abhandlung über die Schauspielkunst, ed. and tr. Rudin, Alexander (Bern, 1975), p. 201.Google Scholar The original Latin on page 53 reads as follows: ‘Prudens tamen Actor ita se gerat oportet, ut decentiae in omnibus memor sit, maxime in personis illustribus, sine qua morotrophium erit Scena, non orchestra prudentiae.’

11. Wasserman, Earl R., ‘The Sympathetic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century Theories of Acting,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 46 (07 1947), pp. 264–272Google Scholar; see esp. pp. 270 and 272. See also, Graf, Otto G., ‘Lessing and the Art of Acting,’ Papers of the Michigan Academy, Vol. 40 (1955), p. 296.Google Scholar

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15. ‘Ueber das Sterben auf der Schaubühne; Fragment,’ Litteratur- und Theater-Zeitung, ed. von Bertram, Christian August, Vol. 2 (Berlin, 1779)Google Scholar, rpt. Das deutsche Theater des 18. Jahrhunderts, ed. Reinhart Meyer (Munich, 1981), pp. 468–471.

16. Pietsch-Ebert, Lilly, Die Gestalt des Schauspielers auf der deutschen Bühne des 17. and 18. Jahrhunderts, Theatergeschichtliche Forschungen, Vol. 46 (Berlin, 1942), esp. pp. 1–10.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., pp. 65–76. The published version, which appeared the following year, was warmly reviewed in Ephemeriden der Literatur und des Theaters, Vol. 3, No. 4 (28 01 1786), pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

18. In comparison, for example, Downer, Alan S. reported in ‘Nature to Advantage Dressed: Eighteenth-Century Acting,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. 58 (1943), p. 1027CrossRefGoogle Scholar, that twenty acting manuals were published in England between 1741 and 1790.

19. Like nowadays, most passed on before or during the magic mid-forties: Beck, Heinrich, 43Google Scholar, Beil, Johann David, 40Google Scholar, Fleck, Johann Friedrich Ferdinand, 44Google Scholar, Iffland, August Wilhelm, 44Google Scholar, Löwen, Johann Friedrich, 42Google Scholar, Wolff, Pius Alexander, 46.Google Scholar In musical theatre, the situation was, however, quite different. The castrati, for example, tended to remain alive and active well into their seventies and eighties, Haböck, Franz, Die Kastraten und ihre Gesangkunst: Eine Gesangsphysiologische, Kultur- und Musik-historische Studie (Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart, 1927), p. 12.Google Scholar

20. Neue Litteratur und Völkerkunde, ed. von Archenholtz, Johann Wilhelm, Vol. 2, No. 10 (Dessau and Leipzig, 1788), p. 358.Google Scholar

21. Pp. 361–362. See also, Pietsch-Ebert, , pp. 101–118.Google Scholar

22. P. 364.

23. See my Opera in the Development of German Critical Thought (Princeton, N.J., 1978), pp. 281–300.Google Scholar

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26. Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste, 2 pts. (Leipzig, 1773–1775), II, 1028.Google Scholar

27. ‘Ankündigung einer Mimik,’ Litteratur- und Theater-Zeitung (20 04 1782), p. 253.Google Scholar

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29. Schifferdecker, Hans Joachim, Das mimische Element in Goethes Dramen, Literarhistorische Forschungen, Vol. 55 (Berlin, 1928), p. 149Google Scholar, discusses the matter and quotes from the preface of Reichard, H. A. O.'s Theaterkalender of 1777Google Scholar: ‘Ich muss gestehen, ich halte das Studium der Physiognomik und was dahin einschlägt, mil der Kunst des Schauspielers und mit ihm selber auf das engste verbunden, und es war mir daher sehr angenehm zu hören, dass Lavaters wichtiges Werk, eines der ersten Bücher in der neuen Büchersammlung des Wiener- National-Theaters seyn werde.’ Lavater himself, interestingly enough, claimed in Physiognomische Fragmente, 4. Versuch (1778), p. 483Google Scholar, that what was needed to make the fragments complete was ‘Eine Pantomimik, oder Gebärdenlehre.’

30. ‘Ankündigung,’ Litteratur- und Theater-Zeitung (15 06 1782), p. 374.Google Scholar

31. Pietsch-Ebert, , pp. 102, 114–117Google Scholar; Knoll, Hans, Theorie der Schauspielkunst: Darstellung und Entwicklung ihres Gedankens in Deutschland von Lessing zu Goethe (Diss. Greifswald, 1916), pp. 72–90.Google Scholar

32. ‘Ueber Temperament,’ Neue deutsche Dramaturgie (1798), p. 231.Google Scholar

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34. May, Franz Anton, ‘Ueber die Heilart der Schauspieler Krankheiten,’ Pfalzbaierische Beiträge zur Gelehrsamkeit, II (1782), p. 443Google Scholar; Schiller, Friedrich, ‘Ueber das gegenwärtige teutsche Theater’ (1782), Schillers Werke: Nationalausgabe, Vol. 20 (Weimar, 1962), pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

35. Baierische Beyträge zur schönen und nützlichen Litteratur, I, 1 (1779), p. 370.Google Scholar

36. ‘Versuch über den Zusammenhang der thierischen Natur des Menschen mit seiner geistigen’ (1780), Schillers Werke: Nationalausgabe, Vol. 20 (Weimar, 1962), par. 15, p. 61.Google Scholar See the ‘Essay on the Connection between the Animal and the Spiritual Nature of Man’ 1780, in Dewhurst, Kenneth and Reeves, Nigel, eds. and tr., Friedrich Schiller: Medicine, Psychology and Literature (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1978), pp. 273–274.Google Scholar

37. ‘Hingeworfene Gedanken,’ Litteratur- und Theater-Zeitung (17 04 1779), p. 246.Google Scholar

38. Iffland, August Wilhelm, Ueber meine theatralische Laufbahn (1798), ed. Holstein, H., Deutsche Litteraturdenkmale des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Vol. 24 (Heilbronn, 1886), p. 56Google Scholar; Martersteig, , Protokolle, p. 440.Google Scholar

39. Braun, Julius W., Lessing im Urtheile seiner Zeitgenossen: Zeitungskritiken, Berichte und Notizen, Lessing und seine Werke betreffend, aus den Jahren 1747–1781, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1884–1897), II, pp. 63–65Google Scholar, where a reviewer of the play mentions, ‘den Ansatz zum Wahnwitz, den Orsina hat.’

40. Laufbahn, ed. Holstein, p. 76.Google Scholar

41. ‘Briefe über die Schauspielkunst,’ Pfalzbaierische Beiträge, I (1782), p. 59.Google Scholar

42. May's article appeared in Pfalzbaierische Beiträge, II (1782), pp. 430–453.Google Scholar It was later reprinted in his Vermischte Schriften (Mannheim, 1786), pp. 310–338Google Scholar, as ‘Von den Krankheiten der Schauspieler, und der Schwierigkeit, dieselbe zu behandeln.’

43. Pfalzbaierische Beiträge, II (1782), p. 452.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., p. 434.

45. Solitude, 2 vols. (London, 1804), II, p. 142.Google Scholar

46. Dr. Burney's Musical Tours in Europe, ed. Scholes, Percy A., 2 vols. (London, New York, Toronto, 1959), II, p. 77.Google Scholar

47. Ibid., II, p. 110.

48. Œuvres esthétiques, ed. Vernière, Paul (Paris, 1959), p. 311.Google ScholarThe Paradox of Acting, tr. Pollock, Walter Herries, A Dramabook (New York, n.d.), p. 18.Google Scholar

49. Genast, Eduard, Aus Weimars klassischer und nachklassischer Zeit: Erinnerungen eines alten Schauspielers, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1904), p. 219; see also, pp. 220–221.Google Scholar

50. Pfalzbaierische Beiträge, II (1782), p. 441.Google Scholar

51. ‘Bildung zur Menschendarstellung’, Almanach (1811), p. 15.Google Scholar

52. Robertson, John George, Lessing's Dramatic Theory (Cambridge, 1939), p. 29.Google Scholar

53. Genast, , pp. 121–122.Google Scholar

54. As cited by Pichler, Anton, Chronik des Grossherzoglichen Hof- und National-Theaters in Mannheim (Mannheim, 1879), pp. 67–68Google Scholar, who gives only the following information in a footnote: ‘nach Aussage eines Augenzeugen der ersten Vorstellung.’ The entire passage was translated into English in Kjerbüll-Petersen, Psychology of Acting, tr. Barrows, p. 32.Google Scholar

55. Carlson, Marvin, tr., ‘Goethe's Rules for Actors (1803),’ Goethe and the Weimar Theatre (Ithaca and London, 1978), pp. 308–318Google Scholar; for discussion, see, pp. 205–206. Also of interest is Schmidt, Peter, ‘Die Bühnenanweisung im Deutschen Drama des 18. Jahrhunderts: Zur Wechsel-Wirkung von Drama und Theater’ (diss. Princeton University, 1971), pp. 355–357.Google Scholar