¹ An important impulse was given by McConachie, Bruce, “Toward a Postpositivist Theatre History,” Theatre Journal 37 (1985), 465–486CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Influenced by the writings of Antonio Gramsci, McConachie argues for an ideological perspective on the processes affecting theatre history. A review of the literature on this debate can be found in Vince, Ronald, “Issues of Theatre Historiography,” Nordic Theatre Studies: Special International Issue, ed. Sauter, W., (Stockholm: Munksgaard, 1990), 21–36Google Scholar.

² A representative selection of these approaches is collected in the volume Interpreting the Theatrical Past: Essays in the Historiography of Performance, ed. McConachie, Bruce and Postlewait, Thomas, (Iowa City: Iowa University Press, 1989)Google Scholar. See also Roach's, Joseph R. introduction to the section on theatre historiography in the collection of essays Critical Theory and Performance, ed. Reinelt, Janelle G. and Roach, Joseph R., (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan press 1992)Google Scholar; Roach identifies in the poststructuralist theoretical debates five central approaches with relevance to theatre historiography: New Historicism's intertextuality theory; Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of culture; the metahistorical criticism of Hayden White; Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory; and the discourse theory of Michel Foucault; see p. 294f.

³ In the field of theatre studies research there have been a few promising developments: see Montrose, Louis A., “The Purpose of Playing: Reflections on a Shakespearean Anthropology,” Helios 7 (1980), 51–74Google Scholar; Montrose belongs to the more prominent exponents of New Historicism, which has been decisively influenced by cultural anthropology; see also the article by Bachmann-Medick, Doris, “Kulturelle Spielraume: Drama und Theater im Licht ethnologischer Ritualforschung,” Soziale und theatralische Konventionen also Problem der Dramenübersetzung, ed. Fischer-Lichte, Erika et al. , (Tubingen: Narr, 1988), 153–177Google Scholar.

⁴ In order to characterize the same state of affairs the ethnologist Clifford Geertz resorts to a zoological metaphor. Geertz observes “a change in the ecology of learning that has driven historians and anthropologists like so many migrant geese, into one another's territories: a collapse of the natural dispersion of feeding grounds that left France to the one and Samoa to the other.” “History and Anthropology”, New Literary History 21:2 (1990), 324Google Scholar.

⁵ The background to the methodological development of historical anthropology has been outlined in a numbers of studies. See for example, Cohn, Bernard, “History and Anthropology,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (1980), 198–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davis, Natalie Zeamon, “The Possibilities of the Past”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12:2 91981), 267–275CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burke, Peter, “Historians, Anthropologists, and Symbols”, Culture Through Time, ed. Ohnuki-Tierny, Emiko, (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1990)Google Scholar.

⁶ Eugenio Barba's Theatre Anthropology will not be dealt with here, although this school also has a historiographical branch. According to the founder Theatre Anthropology is a branch of anthropological research sui generis, which Barba wants to be seen as separate from cultural anthropology: “Theatre Anthropology is not concerned with those levels of organisation which make possible the application of the paradigms of cultural anthropology to theatre and dance.” A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology, ed. Barba, Eugenio and Savarese, Nicola, (London/New York: Routledge 1991), 5Google Scholar. The theatre historical research remains limited to a group of Italian scholars who are associated with the periodical Teatro e Storia, founded in 1986.

⁷ Although now somewhat out of date, the most thorough study of the methodological development of cultural anthropology is Harris's, MarvinThe Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture, (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1968)Google Scholar.

⁸ Frazer's evolutionary precedence theories of magic, religion and scientific thought have had undoubtedly a great influence well beyond the field of cultural anthropology itself. The theories themselves, however, have been refuted almost entirely; see Ackerman, Robert, “Frazer on Myth and Ritual,” Journal of the History of Ideas 36 (1975), 115–134CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Douglas, Mary, “Judgments on James Frazer,” Daedelus 107:4 (1978), 151–164Google Scholar.

⁹ Boas is generally accepted as the founding father of modern American cultural anthropology, having influenced through his position at Columbia University a whole generation of important anthropologists such as Margaret Mead, Geoffrey Bateson, among others. A good introduction to the intellectual background of the Boas school ccan be found in Derek Freeman's study, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Harris, Marvin, Kulturanthropologie: Ein Lehrbuch, (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 1989), 440Google Scholar.

¹¹ Malinowski, Bronislaw, The Sexual Life of the Savages in North-Western Melanesia, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1932), xxxGoogle Scholar.

¹² Marvin Harris 1989, 445.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Anthropological cultural materialism should not be confused with the branch of literary criticism of the same name which is connected mainly with Shakespeare research. Its origins can be found in an amalgam of materialist literary history, New Historicism and deconstructivism. The differences between British cultural materialism and its American pendant New Historicism are outlined by Andreas Höfele in his article, “New Historicism/Cultural Materialism”, 1992, 107–123.

¹⁵ Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, (New York: Basic Books 1973), 143Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 5. The full quotation reads: “Believing with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of a law but an interpretative one in search of meaning.”

¹⁷ See Boon, James, Other Tribes, Other Scribes: Symbolic Anthropology in the Comparative Study of Cultures, Histories, Religions, and Texts, (Cambridge University Press 1982)Google Scholar. Boon's more recent work, Affinities and Extremes: Crisscrossing the Bittersweet Ethnology of East Indies History, Hindu-Balinese Culture, and Indo-European Allure, (Chicago University Press, 1988)Google Scholar, can, as the baroque title suggests, no longer be considered “ethnographic” in the strict sense of the word.

¹⁸ See Singer, Milton, Man's Glassy Essence: Explorations in Semiotic Anthropology. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984)Google Scholar. Singer argues here for an application of Peirce's typology of signs in cultural anthropology.

¹⁹ Victor Turner has elaborated his theory of symbolic action in numerous publications; see particularly, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Geertz, 1973, 10.

²¹ Geertz, , “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight,” Daedelus (Winter 1972), 26Google Scholar.

²² Ibid.

²³ Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 28.

²⁴ It is only possible to point to a few of the more important studies; for example the writings of the ethnologist Salins, Marshall, Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom, (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also the study by Geertz, Clifford, Negara: The Theater State in Bali in the Nineteenth Century, (Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar. A recent contribution is Anne Salmond's exhaustive study of the first encounters between Maoris and Europeans, Two Worlds: First Meetings between Maoris and Europeans 1642–1772, (Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 1991)Google Scholar. The concept of “history” is in each case somewhat different. Marshall Sahlins is the anthropologist most concerned with diachronic developments and historical change. Geertz and Salmond focus primarily on an existing structure located somewhere on the diachronic axis. Of the three, Sahlins appears to be the most aware of the methodological implications of the opposition between “structure” and “event”. At the same time he warns against exaggerating this opposition, which in historiographical practice is less of a problem than in theoretical discourse. For a discussion of the problem of structure and event, see Sahlin's article in the collection Clio in Oceania: Towards a Historical Anthropology, ed. Biersack, Aletta, (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institute, 1991)Google Scholar.

²⁵ Wilfred Nippel cites dozens of studies relating alone to the field of ancient history: “Sozialanthropologie und Alte Geschichte”, Historische Methode, ed. Meier, C., and Rusen, J., (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1988), 300–318Google Scholar.

²⁶ Nippel 1988, 315. Nippel surveys the large body of research into festival culture and civic ritual of early modern Europe and emphasizes the importance of symbolic presentation and representation in connection with political power.

²⁷ See Brown, Jennifer P., “Ethnohistorians: Strange Bedfellows, Kindred Spirits”, Ethnohistory 38:2 (1991), 113–123; here 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ On the concept of reflexivity see the article by Louis Montrose (note 3), who argues that the familiar metatheatrical dimensions of Shakespearean drama should not be seen purely as an intrinsic dramaturgical convention: “The remarkably pervasive and sophisticated reflexivity of Shakespearean drama is not a symptom of aestheticism but the articulation of a dramatistic conception of human life, rooted in the historical circumstances of personal experience.” Montrose, op. cit., 53.

²⁹ Boon, 1982, 112.

³⁰ Halstrup, Kirsten, “Anthropology and the Exaggeration of Culture. A Review Article,” Ethnos 50:3/4 (Stockholm 1985)Google Scholar; cited here in German translation: “Ethnologie und Kultur: Ein Überlick über neuere Forschung,” Vom Umschreiben der Geschichte. Neue historische Perspektiven, ed. Raulff, U., (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1986), 54—67; here 60Google Scholar.

³¹ See Lotman, Yu. M. and Uspensky, B. A., “On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture,” New Literary History 9:2 (Winter 1978), 211–232; here 211fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² On the concept of “cultural performance” see Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance, ed. MacAloon, John J., (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1984)Google Scholar; see particularly the introduction. MacAloon credits Milton Singer with coining the term.

³³ A cultural anthropological perspective on the Commedia dell'arte is evident in the recent research by F. Taviani. He sees the microworld of the troupes as a functional, adaptive system for the production of theatre: “É un sistema capace di adattarsi al mutare delle condizioni; risponde ai problemi dando forma a soluzioni artistiche; mantiene una stabilità dell'insieme mediante continue correzioni di continui squilibri; trasforma regolarmente le differenze fra le diverse sue parti in altretanti effetti sul piano drammaturgico e spettacolare.” “L'ingresso della Commedia dell'Arte nella cultura del Cinquecento”, Il teatro italiano nel Rinascimento, ed. Cruciano, F. and Seragnoli, D., (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987), 341Google Scholar.

³⁴ Although the Italian and English troupes were active at the same time, occasionally stood in direct competition, and reveal many organizational parallels, there has been hitherto no detailed attempt to compare and contrast them as complementary phenomena. The problem lies mainly in the disproportionate amount of research done into the Commedia dell'arte research can look back on a century of more or less continuous activity, whereas research into the English counterparts, most of which was published in German, stopped in the 1930s and has since then received hardly any new impulses.

³⁵ The most recent study of the English players in English is by Limon, Jerzy, Gentlemen of a Company: English Players in Central and Eastern Europe 1590–1660, (Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar. Limon's book is based mainly on the older German research which he has surveyed thoroughly. He adds to this some new research on the troupes active in Poland. His methodological approach is, however, mainly descriptive and, in keeping with the tradition of older studies, is divided into geographical regions of activity.

³⁶ See Morris, Irene, “A Hapsburg Letter”, Modern Language Review 69 (1974), 12–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Morris reprints both a new transcription of the German original and an English translation and provides an extensive commentary. Although the letter was first reproduced in full by Johannes Meissner in his study Die Englischen Comoedianten zur Zeit Shakespeares in Oesterreich, (Vienna: Carl Konegen, 1884)Google Scholar, it is written in South German dialect and is, even for native German speakers, difficult to read. Some passages are obscure and require considerable emendation and commentary.

³⁷ Morris, 1974, 16–19.

³⁸ The reference here is to the fact that the writer was engaged at the time to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo de' Medici II (1590–1621). In another section of the letter, Magdalena playfully threatens to box her brother's ears and calls him a “proper pig” because of the “instruction” he had ordered she receive, preparatory to being married. Meissner (1884) surmises that this instruction was therefore of a somewhat “delicate” nature, 79, note 3.

³⁹ Although performance theory as defined and practiced by Richard Schechner and many others, particularly in the pages of The Drama Review, is widely accepted, there is by no means unanimous acceptance of this expanded disciplinary parameter among theatre historians. Schechner's own efforts to replace the term “theatre” with “performance” as an object of research go back to the mid-960s, when he began to expouse a closer cooperation between theatre, performance studies and anthropology. However, neither he, nor most of the contributors to The Drama Review, attempt to apply their performance anthropology to historical phenomena.

⁴⁰ See Morris, 1979, 12, note 1.

⁴¹ Little is known about Green's early life. He appears to have come to Germany at a relatively young age, probably as a boy actor in the service of Robert Browne's troupe in the 1590s. By 1606 he had advanced to a leading position alongside Browne and Robert Ledbetter in the company of the Hessian Players. See Meissner, 1884, 67f.

⁴² Morris, 1974, 22.

⁴³ See Morris's annotations for the English originals of the other plays mentioned, p. 18. In this case it is the anonymous play Nobody and Somebody, with the true Chronical History of Elydure, who was fortunately three several times crowned king of England (1606). A critical edition has been edited by Hay, David L., (New York & London: Garland, 1980)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ There were also dissenting opinions. The Graz court doctor, Hippolyt Guarinomi, in a book published in 1610, refers in general to the wandering Dutch and English comedians and to their limited ability to make themselves understood verbally: “I have myself seen these comedians coming from the Dutch and English towns, wandering from one place to another, presenting their amusing farces and jugglery, without, however, paying any taxes on the money collected from those who wish to see and hear them—insofar, that is, as they can make themselves understood in German and by using gestures.” Cited in Limon, 1985, 120.

⁴⁵ Das Schauspiel der Wanderbühne, ed. Flemming, Willi, (Deutsche Literatur Sammlung literarischer Kunst-und Kulturdenkmäler in Entwicklungsreihen; Barockdrama, Bd. 3), (Leipzig: Philipp Reclam, 1931), 333Google Scholar. The manuscript was first edited by Bischoff, Ferdinand in Mitteilungen des historischen Vereins fur Steiermark 47 (Graz, 1899)Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ The most striking example Flemming gives is the word “Iusurpasche” for “Usurpation”, which in German is pronounced phonetically [uzurpatszion].

⁴⁷ Hay writes: “It is highly unlikely that the English Comedians, who probably left London and went into Germany because they could not find work on the English stage, would have brought some sort of manuscript or prompt copy with them.” 51.

⁴⁸ A third version, published in 1620 in a German collection of plays by English comedians, reveals that two-thirds of the action is comic.

⁴⁹ See Bolte, Johannes (ed.) “Niemand und Jemand: Ein englisches Drama aus Shakespeare's Zeit, übersetzt von Ludwig Tieck”, Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft 29 (1894), 4—91; here 28.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ For an overview of these plays see Bolte, 1894.

⁵¹ These are described by Bolte, 26.

⁵² The Graz picture has the following coloration. Nobody is wearing blue trousers with large green buttons, green sleeves and stockings, black boots with gold buckles, a blue hat with a black feather. His hair is sepia brown, his beard ocker yellow with light brown streaks. The rosary beads are black, the attached cross is gold; the book is embossed with gold. For a description of the picture see Flemming 1931, 333. This description is based on Flemming and confirmed by comparison with a color reproduction of the frontispiece in the present author's possession.

⁵³ See Greenblatt, Stephen, Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)Google Scholar, especially the introduction. Green's presentation of his manuscript to the Archduke is a good example of one of the “modes of exchange”, by which, according to Greenblatt, social energy is negotiated without the exchange of money. Here Greenblatt's theory is very close to anthropological notions of symbol exchange and reciprocity, even though he does not explicitly acknowledge this.

⁵⁴ The professional English troupes had in fact two main sources of patronage: aristocratic, where they were paid directly for their performances, or civic, where the city-fathers granted the troupes permission to perform within a town. Here the troupes charged an entry fee and were subject to the whims of the box-office. The preferred time was during a city fair such as were held in Frankfurt or Leipzig, when many visitors were in the city and money tended to change hands more freely than usual.

⁵⁵ The theatrical season seems however to have been a very flexible notion, even for staunch Catholics. Green and his troupe are also recorded having performed their religious plays at various other significant times as well as Shrovetide such as Christmas and Easter.

⁵⁶ See J. Meissner, 1884, 40.

⁵⁷ See The Dramatic Touch of Difference: Theatre, Own and Foreign, ed. Fischer-Lichte, E., Riley, Josephine, and Gissenwehrer, Michael, (Tubingen: Narr, 1990)Google Scholar; see in particular Fischer-Lichte's contribution “Staging the Foreign as Cultural Transformation”, 277–287.

⁵⁸ Fischer-Lichte, 1990, 285.

⁵⁹ Jerzy Limon argues that music and dance played a much more important role on the Continent than in England and that the troupes were flexible enough to provide entertainments consisting entirely of music and dance as well as performing dramatic texts; 16f.

⁶⁰ For an introduction to the problems of a postmodernist/poststructuralist anthropology see particularly the collection of essays, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed. Clifford, James and Marcus, George E., (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986)Google Scholar; some of these issues are also discussed in Clifford, James, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Geertz, Clifford, “Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought,” The American Scholar 49:2 (1979/1980), 165–179; here 171.Google Scholar