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Audience Disruption in the Theatre of the Weimar Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

James Jordan
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Abstract

Disruption of plays by their audiences has not been an uncommon occurrence in theatre history, but the received wisdom has it that rioting more or less went out of fashion once the house lights could be lowered for the performance. But the combination in the theatre of the Weimar Republic of the politically radical and artistically experimental drama of inter-war Germany with the high political tensions of the times proved an explosive one. The frequent audience disturbances of the period were, however, less the spontaneous expression of genuine indignation than a carefully planned and orchestrated attempt to suppress radical art and opinion. In this article, James Jordan, a member of the Department of German at the University of Warwick, traces the course of theatrical disruption as a tactic of emergent Nazism – and the reactions to it of the theatres, the playwrights, and a too-often-myopic judiciary.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , August 1985 , pp. 283 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

Notes and References

1. ‘Eine Ansprache des Ministers Wolfgang Heines’, Berliner Tageblatt, 66, 2 May 1920.

2. For further particulars of this and other aspects of Toller's place in the Weimar theatre, see Hem, Nicholas, ‘The Theatre of Ernst Toller’, Theatre Quarterly, II, 5 (1972), p. 72–92.Google Scholar

3. ‘Die Sehnsucht nach dem Theaterskandal’, Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 3 Mar. 1927.

4. Gehrke, M. M., ‘Chemischer Krieg im Theater’, Berliner Tageblatt, 13 12 1928.Google Scholar

5. ‘Eine verdiente Zurechtweisung’, Münchener Neueste Nachrichten, 17 Jan. 1931.

6. ‘Die Bayr: Polizei schützt Bordellstücke’, Völkischer Beobachter, 21–2 Feb 1926.

7. Glaeser, Ernst, ‘Politische Theaterkritik’, Frankfurter Zeitung, 12 03 1926.Google Scholar

8. Völkischer Beobachter, ibid.

9. Esswein, H., ‘Theaterskandale’, Münchener Volksbühne (hrsg. vom Kunstbeirat der Münchener Volksbühne), No. 5, 01 1920, p. 34–6.Google Scholar

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13. ‘Eine Kundgebung der Bühnengenossenschaft’, Münchener Zeitung, 41, 11 Feb 1920.

14. ‘Zum Mahagonny-Skandal in Frankfurt a. M.’, Tägliche Rundschau, 22 Oct. 1930.

15. For further discussion of this ruse, see section on legal aspects, below.

16. Reproduced in Glauert, Barbara, ed., Carl Zuckmayer: das Bühnenwerk im Spiegel der Kritik (Frankfurt am Main, 1977), p. 44.Google Scholar The section on Der fröhliche Weinberg occupies p. 27–98.

17. A Midsummer Night's Dream was also disrupted, this time in Graz in 1927.

18. Notice of Polizeipräsident Pöhner to Munich theatres, dated 6 Feb. 1921, Staatsarchiv für Oberbayern (Bavarian State Archives), Munich.

19. Letter of Munich theatres to Polizeipräsident Pöhner on the banning of Der fröhliche Weinberg, ted 22 Feb. 1926, Staatsarchiv für Oberbayern.

20. ‘Nochmals Der fröhliche Weinberg’, Augsburger Abendzeitung, 13 Mar. 1926.

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28. ‘Der freigesprochene Skandal’, Berliner Tageblatt, 9 May 1920.

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30. Decision of Amtsgericht Dresden, No. 7, St B 154/24, dated 21 June 1924.

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32. Quoted in ‘Das Recht des Publikums auf Selbsthilfe’, Bayerische Staatszeitung, 9 Apr. 1921.

33. Decision of Amtsgericht Kiel, No. 9, C 279/28–22, dated 22 Oct. 1928.

34. Polizeimajor DrBeyer, Jur, ‘Polizei als Hausknecht’, Die Polizeifachkunde, 01 1929, No. 1, p. 6.Google Scholar

35. ‘Gaskrieg im Theater’, Neue Freie Presse (Vienna), 8 Dec. 1928.

36. ‘Ein Theaterskandal um Tollers Masse Mensch’, Augsburger Postzeitung, 30 Nov. 1920.

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38. Bracher, K. D., The German Dictatorship (Suffolk, 1980), p. 195.Google Scholar

39. DrBühmann, Hubertus, quoted in ‘Hinkemann-Skandal’, Vorwärts, 4 03 1971, p. 14.Google Scholar