Theater and Nation in Eighteenth-Century Germany. by Michael J

reviews 213

which were the other pillars of theatrical activity in the middle of the sixteenth century, this Renaissance part ends with the commedia dell’arte, the repository of many strands which emerged from erudite comedy and, at the same time, the linchpin connecting it with what was to come: as Kenneth and Laura Richards declare, ‘commedia all’improvviso, or a conception of what it had been, has impressed itself firmly on much later Italian dramatists as different as Luigi Pirandello, Eduardo De Filippo and Dario Fo’ (p. 121). Any reader who approaches Italian theatre for the first time should pause and consider the contributions by Joseph Farrell on the transitional aspect of commedia dell’arte and its establishment in Paris, the theatre of United Italy of which Paolo Puppa provides a succinct but exhaustive panoramic, and Gaetana Marrone’s section on Neapolitan theatre from which emerges the giant figure of Eduardo De Filippo. Farrell then provides the link with the final part, ‘The Modern Age’, with his chapter on ‘Actors, Authors and Directors’, in which he analyses cogently the contribution of the theatre historian Silvio D’Amico and that of the Piccolo Teatro of Milan. Later, in ‘Innovation and Theatre of the Grotesque’, he prepares the ground for Puppa’s section on Pirandello by examining the works of playwrights like Luigi Chiarelli and the Futurists; it is at the turn of the twentieth century that Farrell situates the changing relationship between author/playwright and director, with ascendancy of the latter. This aspect is taken up by Puppa in the last section, ‘The Contemporary Scene’, in which he dwells on the few emerging playwrights and their relationship with cinema and TV,and introduces the more recent phenomenon of the one-man show.

Theatre Research International, 33.2 doi:10.1017/S0307883308003805 Theater and Nation in Eighteenth-Century Germany.ByMichael J. Sosulski. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007.Pp.xi+178 + 8 illus. £50;$99.95 Hb. Reviewed by S. E. Wilmer, Trinity College Dublin

This is a clearly written study of the development of national theatres and national consciousness in eighteenth-century Germany. While the country did not become a nation state until 1871, the establishment of national theatres anticipated this political transition by over a hundred years with the Hamburg National Theatre in 1767, the revamping of the Burgtheater in Vienna as a national theatre in 1776, and the creation of national theatres in Mannheim, Berlin and elsewhere. Sosulski traces the advocacy of a German (as opposed to French, English or Italian) repertory by J. E. Schlegel, Lessing, Schiller and others that culminated in the Sturm und Drang plays of the late eighteenth century. He shows that this occurred in parallel with a new emphasis on actors’ training and discipline (under Konrad Ekhof), a more realistic performance style (notably by August Wilhelm Iffland) alongside the introduction of rigorous physical discipline in the Prussian military, and extensive physical education in schools, promoted by Guts Muths and leading to a widespread gymnastic movement inspired by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. In the final chapter he analyses the production of Schiller’s The Robbers in 1782 in the Mannheim National Theatre as the outcome of some of these developments. His final

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 26 Sep 2021 at 23:23:55, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307883308003805 214 reviews

epilogue adds the startling conclusion that ‘in the whole of the contemporary discourse on the subject, there is surprisingly little direct discussion of nationhood or nationalism in its theory’, and claims that ‘any substantive mention of speciﬁc national character traits, tastes, or symbols that were felt to be typically German’ was entirely absent (p. 159). This seems a rather sweeping generalization, especially as Friedrich Klopstock (whom he does not mention) and Johann Gottfried Herder wrote passionately on the subject. The author also might have more fully addressed the effect on the theatre of the regional and linguistic differences in the German-speaking lands, as well as the question of the geographical dimensions of the German nation in the eighteenth century: did ‘national’ refer to all the German-speaking lands or did it refer to a speciﬁc area or areas? Nevertheless, his book is a very readable account of the German theatre scene in the eighteenth century.

Theatre Research International, 33.2 doi:10.1017/S0307883308003817 Fedor Shaliapin: Mul’timedia Al’bom (Feodor Chaliapin: A Multimedia Album). By Mikhail Solomatin. 2 CD-ROM. Moscow: Shaliapinskii Tsentr, 2007.R.3000. Reviewed by Dassia Posner, Tufts University

Feodor Chaliapin, the most famous Russian operatic bass of the twentieth century, is renowned for his musical brilliance, great acting and influence on theatrical design and performance. An enduring cult remains, especially in Russia: since his remains were transferred from Paris to Moscow in 1984 several Chaliapin museums have opened, commemorative plaques and monuments now dot the Russian map and frequent events are dedicated to the singer’s memory. Solomatin’s digital archive, designed to run on a Windows platform, represents the largest published collection yet of sources about Chaliapin. Organized by genre, the first CD includes the full text of roughly three hundred letters, twenty-six books and articles, primarily by Chaliapin and his contemporaries; and three thousand photographs, sketches, paintings, designs and playbills, as well as a bibliography of works about the singer. Many of the 144 sound recordings are also accompanied by sheet music. The second CD features cinematic appearances as well as amateur footage of the singer with family and friends. The sheer abundance of material is what makes this collection most useful, especially regarding the photograph collection. Images are reproduced at a resolution that allows identification of the individuals depicted, but occasional background details are lost. Yet this archive provides a variety and quantity of resources not easily available elsewhere: one can scroll through dozens of photographs and artistic renditions of Chaliapin as Boris Godunov at various moments in the opera and during different performances, which is extremely valuable when attempting to reconstruct performance style and artistic evolution. Unfortunately, the archive’s organization seems haphazard: clickable images of books do not correspond to their contents, and photographs accompanying digitized editions of books do not appear in the original volumes. Due to the lack of clarification,