Kasperl´s Patrons

This critically edited collection of plays from the repertoire of the Kasperl (alias Johann Josef La Roche) is to revive and make accessible those rare pieces which came to performance at the Leopoldstädter Schaubühne but regrettably have fallen into destitute. The accompanying study intends to sketch a differentiated picture of the actor La Roche and the authors who created their plays and in particular the character Kasperl with the actor in mind. Using Pierre Bourdieu`s field theory, the authors and the character are to be literature-sociologically located and furthermore the specifics of the theatrical-cultural field in Vienna and the German-speaking Austria of the time are to be reconstructed. It stands to assume that the autonomisation of the artistic field was hardly noticeable in Vienna`s theatres around 1800. Beginning changes nonetheless were felt in the texts, theatre-pragmatically and spatially (the Hoftheater for the well-off and the folk theater for the masses). Changes were also appreciated regarding the authors` functions and their pertinent roles leading to patronized artists on one hand and professionalized authors who were dependent of commercial success on the other. Although the Leopoldstädter Schaubühne (opened by Karl von Marinelli in 1781) may well be called the most significant site of Vienna`s folk plays, the repertoire of its well-known actor and the Kasperl character however hardly received attention by researchers of the literature and theater studies alike. A reason for this indifference over the past two centuries can be seen in a bigotry scientific horizon which dismissed stage productions in which the Kasperl arose as aesthetically inferior; due to a shortfall in "aesthetic requirements", "innovation" and "originality" these simply as light fiction designated pieces where badly neglected. The reception and the (theatre) historic contexts of this theater however illustrate the fact that those writers taken on with aptness and empathy by director Karl von Marinelli, in particular Ferdinand Eberl, Leopold Huber, Karl Friedrich Hensler and Joachim Perinet, created a multiplicity of remarkable and wrongly neglected plays. Comedies, antics, fairytales, (magic) operas and musical plays were specifically versified or rewritten with La Roches play ability in mind. The pieces whose leading actor and main crowd puller was always the Kasperl, have already evaded the investigation from the literature and theater studies for too long. The project "Kasperl`s Patrons" aims to critically edit and commentate selected plays by the house authors of the Leopoldstädter Schaubühne and thereby enabling access to a broad range of researchers to further scientific engagement with the works by the aforementioned writers, the development of the character Kasperl at the Leopoldstädter theatre and generally with the history of Vienna`s theatre of the 18th century. Moreover, a study based on Bourdieu`s literature-sociological field theory will examine the specifics of this theatric field at the "heteronymous pole" of society, the cultural commerce and in its relations and reciprocal effects to the "arts" and as "arts".

This critically edited collection of plays from the repertoire of the Kasperl (alias Johann Josef La Roche) is to revive and make accessible those rare pieces which came to performance at the Leopoldstädter Schaubühne but regrettably have fallen into destitute. The accompanying study intends to sketch a differentiated picture of the actor La Roche and the authors who created their plays and in particular the character Kasperl with the actor in mind. Using Pierre Bourdieu`s field theory, the authors and the character are to be literature-sociologically located and furthermore the specifics of the theatrical-cultural field in Vienna and the German-speaking Austria of the time are to be reconstructed. It stands to assume that the autonomisation of the artistic field was hardly noticeable in Vienna`s theatres around 1800. Beginning changes nonetheless were felt in the texts, theatre-pragmatically and spatially (the Hoftheater for the well-off and the folk theater for the masses). Changes were also appreciated regarding the authors` functions and their pertinent roles leading to patronized artists on one hand and professionalized authors who were dependent of commercial success on the other. Although the Leopoldstädter Schaubühne (opened by Karl von Marinelli in 1781) may well be called the most significant site of Vienna`s folk plays, the repertoire of its well-known actor and the Kasperl character however hardly received attention by researchers of the literature and theater studies alike. A reason for this indifference over the past two centuries can be seen in a bigotry scientific horizon which dismissed stage productions in which the Kasperl arose as aesthetically inferior; due to a shortfall in "aesthetic requirements", "innovation" and "originality" these simply as light fiction designated pieces where badly neglected. The reception and the (theatre) historic contexts of this theater however illustrate the fact that those writers taken on with aptness and empathy by director Karl von Marinelli, in particular Ferdinand Eberl, Leopold Huber, Karl Friedrich Hensler and Joachim Perinet, created a multiplicity of remarkable and wrongly neglected plays. Comedies, antics, fairytales, (magic) operas and musical plays were specifically versified or rewritten with La Roches play ability in mind. The pieces whose leading actor and main crowd puller was always the Kasperl, have already evaded the investigation from the literature and theater studies for too long. The project "Kasperl`s Patrons" aims to critically edit and commentate selected plays by the house authors of the Leopoldstädter Schaubühne and thereby enabling access to a broad range of researchers to further scientific engagement with the works by the aforementioned writers, the development of the character Kasperl at the Leopoldstädter theatre and generally with the history of Vienna`s theatre of the 18th century. Moreover, a study based on Bourdieu`s literature-sociological field theory will examine the specifics of this theatric field at the "heteronymous pole" of society, the cultural commerce and in its relations and reciprocal effects to the "arts" and as "arts".