Changing Concepts of a National Theatre in Europe
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Zoltán Imre Staging the Nation: Changing Concepts of a National Theatre in Europe In this article, Zoltán Imre investigates the major changes in the concept of a national theatre, from the early debates in Hamburg in 1767 to the 2006 opening of the National Theatre of Scotland. While in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the notion of a national theatre was regarded in most of Western Europe as a means of promoting national – or even imperial – integration, in Eastern Europe, the debates about and later the realization of national theatres often took place within the context of and against oppressive imperiums. But in both parts of Europe the realization of a national theatre was utilized to represent a unified nation in a virtual way, its role being to maintain a single and fixed national identity and a homogeneous and dominant national culture. In present-day Scotland, however, the notion of a national theatre has changed again, to service a diverse and multicultural nation. Zoltán Imre received his PhD from Queen Mary College, University of London, and is now a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature and Culture at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, co-editor of the Hungarian theatre magazine Theatron, and dramaturg at Mozgó Ház Társulás (Moving House Theatre Company) and Természetes Vészek Kollektíva (Collective of Natural Disasters). His publications include Transfer and Translation: Intercultural Dialogues (co-editor, 2002),Theatre and Theatricality (2003), Transillumination: Hungarian Theatre in a European Context (editor, 2004), and On the Border of Theatre and Sociology (co-editor, 2005). As we approach the opening night of the National national theatre from the early debates on Theatre of Scotland, a long-awaited moment for the subject in the eighteenth century through the theatre community and audiences of Scotland the establishment of the Hungarian National is about to arrive. [The NTS] has been a much discussed and debated concept within Scotland, Theatre in 1837 until the opening of the NTS led by some committed and visionary individuals in 2006. who have been campaigning for years.1 THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR of the National Different Concepts – the Same Institution? Theatre of Scotland, Vicky Featherstone, Investigating the formation of national launched the NTS with these words in an theatres and their relation to cultural legiti - article entitled ‘Dream Theatre Becomes mation in her book The National Stage, Loren Reality’ on 19 February 2006. The only major Kruger correctly points out that cultural institution formed since the devo - lution of Scotland, the establishment of NTS the notion of staging the nation, of representing as was supported by the Scottish Parliament well as reflecting the people in the theatre, of constituting or even standing in for an absent or and the Scottish Executive, connected to vari - imperfect national identity, emerges in the Euro - ous symbolic and real territories, institu tional pean Enlightenment and takes concrete shape relations, and power structures – (national) with the Revolutionary fêtes.2 theatre and (national) politics, as well as (national) identity. In connection with the After that general statement, however, Kruger analysis of these territories, I shall inves - focuses only on a phenomenon she calls tigate the major changes in the concept of a ‘theatrical nationhood’ which ‘manifested ntq 24:1 (february 2008) © cambridge university press doi: 10.1017/s0266464x08000079 75 itself fully in the course of the nineteenth cen - the ambition to create or found a German national tury with the rise of the mass party poli tics, theatre, could not have been achieved at that time, “universal” (male) suffrage, and the de mand in the sense that such a company could not have been representative of a defined nation within a of the people for legitimate representation as recognized country, as Germany was not united 3 protagonists on the political stage’. As a until 1872.12 result, she focused her research in time from the 1870suntil the 1980s, in space from France Nevertheless, the Hamburg National Theatre to England and the USA, and in subject was one of the first attempts to create a pub - ‘com paring English, French, and American lic theatre from ‘below’ by the (Hamburg) advocates of national popular theatre at citi zens, and where the (German-speaking) moments of crisis or critical success’.4 people could be symbolically represented on In France and the USA, she dealt with the (and off) stage and regarded as a nation. realizations of a national theatre for those groups without proper representation in the legitimate theatres, such as the French Théâtre The Hof- und Nationaltheater in Vienna National Populaire for the ‘urban working Following the practice established partly by class’,5 and the Federal Theatre Project (1935– the French Sun King in the 1680s with the 39)for ‘the [working-class]people across the Comédie-Française,13 and partly by Frederick United States’.6 By contrast, in England she the Great of Prussia in the 1740s in Berlin,14 it dealt with a case when the repre sen tation was the centralized power which established of the entire nation (or even imperium) was a national theatre from ‘above’ when Joseph II narrowed to the English movement for ‘a renamed the Viennese Burgtheater as the Hof- [British] “National House” for the [mainly und Nationaltheater in 1776.15 Nominally English-educated] middle class’.7 Hence, she directed by the Monarch himself, the execu - investigated the late realizations of national tive directorate of the theatre was led by a theatres in functioning and independent committee (Versammlung) of the leading Western states when their imperial context actors, and the members of its company were was lost (France and England), and when it called ‘court players’ (Hofschauspieler). The was in development (USA).8 main aim of the theatre was to propagate In other countries of Europe, however, German-speaking theatre and the German national theatres were established much lan guage by performing German dramas and earlier and with different purposes.9 Among foreign dramas in German translations.16 the first was the Hamburg theatre of 1766, As part of his language reform, an attempt when twelve Hamburg citizens decided to in the 1780s to establish German instead of establish a consortium to support the local Latin as the official language of adminis - theatre financially. They invited as drama - tration within the entire empire,17 Joseph II turge the play wright Gotthold Ephraim utilized the symbolic functions of the theatre. Lessing, who proposed that ‘an established His aim was not only to establish territorial theatre with a properly conceived literary integrity within his imperium, but also to programme might itself help to create a unite the multicultural territories and multi- nation’.10 As a result, the Hamburg theatre lingual ethnic groups in a centralized, mod - was utilized as a source of German cultural ern ized, and fully bureaucratized civil state. identity, and as an institution propagating As a result, the monarch’s plan to establish a civic morals and values to express a desire national theatre in the capital can be reg - for the unity of the separate small German arded partly as a noble gesture, in opening (-speaking) states, as finally achieved by his private court theatre to his subjects to Prussia during the later nineteenth century.11 enhance his own power, and partly as a sym - Due to disorganization, internal disagree- bolic representation of a unified imperium ment, and poor public support, however, it under the rule of the Austrian monarchy.18 ended in financial disaster within a year. As The notion of a national theatre was not T. James Reed pointed out, its basic problem, only used by certain social groups to repre - 76 sent themselves on stage, but also regarded and practices.25 As a result, a nation can thus as a means for the integration of an entire be best viewed as an imagined virtual com - nation, as in France, Denmark, Sweden, and munity. For the creation, maintenance, and Germany; or even an empire, as in Russia, self-definition of such a community, it needs Austria, and Great Britain, either from to manifest links between the physically ‘below’ or ‘above’. The debates on and later separated individuals by representing their the realizations of national theatres, how - common elements and their difference from ever, took also place within the context of and other peoples and communities. against oppressive imperiums such as those Kruger’s concept of ‘theatrical nation hood’ in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Nor - is thus absolutely relevant here, as the means way, Serbia, Ireland, and in some respects of representation (i.e., of staging) are essen - Scotland.19 In these countries, the estab - tially theatrical. Hence, the repre sentation of lishment of a national theatre was regarded a nation as an imagined virtual community is as an (idealistic) expression of political, cul - theatrical both onstage – in the (national) tural, and economic unity and indepen - theatre (especially) – and offstage, in the vari - dence. The national theatre was to represent ous performative manoeuvres of everyday the often unified image of the nation, and to life (parliamentary debate, strikes, recep tions, maintain an (often single and fixed) national dinners, opening ceremonies, and so on). identity and an (often homogeneous and Apart from the inherent representational domi nant) national culture.20 character