Kasperl´s comical successors

For years the catchprase "Austria`s cultural inheritance" penetrates our consciousness, and so hast he call for an engagement with Austrian cultural history becoming louder. However, research concentrating on the indexing of literary-theatrical texts was excluded from the canon formation thus far due to unawareness and they therefore fell into oblivion. The project Kasperl`s comical successors aims to emend this: The rediscovery of Vienna`s (and its suburbs) socio-cultural life at the turn of the 19th century shall be exemplified through theater plays - more specifically the comedies of the Leopoldstädter Theater, the most important theater in Vienna`s social life - through in depth engagement with the authors, the actors, the audience, and of course the texts. These will be critically edited, both as a basis for literary-sociologically studies and for the wider interested readership, more significantly because most of them have never been printed before like the handwritten textbooks bey F. X. K. Gewey or Th. Krones. The project will focus on the development of the comedies after the death of Kasperl-La Roche (1806), who`s acting skills made the Leopoldstädter Theater very attractive to the cultural elite in Austria around the 1800s. After his decease the tradition of the Lustige Figur (comical character) was continued by Anton Hasenhut as "Thaddädl"; soon additional characters joined by his side - "Staberl" (Bäuerle), Lorenz (Gewey) and at last "Kratzerl", the jester who was ingeniously personified by Ferdinand Raimund. The change of the comedy (the development from Typenkomik to Charakterkomik stated in the title) is noteworthy here; for the time being it reached its endpoint with Raimund`s brilliancy (which will ultimately manifest itself in Nestroy`s linguistic humour). Not just one character is the sole jester; the comedy is carried by many and expressed in manifold ways. Simultaneously the comical character was rapidly socialized and normalized and to be appropriated bey the audience as a form of paragon - even if only the bad attributes of the un-loved neighbor. In addition to the previously mentioned authors (Bäuerle, Gewey, Krones) the works by J. A. Gleich, K. F. Hensler, F. J. Korntheuer, F. Kringsteiner, K. Meisl, and as a "guest" E. Schikaneder (who admittedly did not write at the Leopoldstädter Theater but nonetheless is of great interest to this study) will be explored. Furthermore the actors A. Hasenhut, J. Lessel, F. Raimund, A. Schmitt and of course the actresses K. Ennöckl, J. Huber, J. Sartory as well as the first "Diva" Th. Krones require attention, since their skills gave life to the theatre plays and hence allow the implicit social space of the theatre to be traced.

On June 8th, 1806, the actor Johann Josef La Roche died. For more than 40 years, he had embodied the funny figure of Kaspar (Kaspar, Kasperl, Käsperle) at the Viennese Leopoldstädter Theatre, the so called Laugh Theatre of Europe (Otto Rommel); as a result, he had become the incarnation of the funny figure on stage throughout the German-speaking world. Besides La Roche a new generation of comedians, led by Anton BAUMANN (died 1808), Anton HASENHUT (1766-1841), Ignaz SCHUSTER (1779-1835), and others, stepped on stage and secured the existence of the comical theatre after La Roches death. With the beginning of the 19th century, the comic monopoly of Kasperl, his role, and his type started to fan out in the Viennese popular comedy. Diversified and individualised forms of comedy slowly began to replace the old forms of Kasperls humour a result of the socialisation and bourgeoisification of characters and roles. From then onwards, authors and actors not solely made fun of the figure of the servant alone but also of two or more characters peculiarities concerning their class, profession, character, heritage or family. The new names of the comical figures of the Viennese popular comedy were Thaddädl (developed by Hasenhut), Staberl (introduced by Adolf Bäuerle in The citizens of Vienna in 1813 and usually played by Schuster) or Kratzerl (played by Ferdinand RAIMUND, 1790-1836), sometimes Kramperl, Schwips, Schnipp, Tyroler-Wastel, Leopold Würfel, Notenfesser, Schieberl, or Sandelholz. They were played, apart from those mentioned, by Josef Korntheuer, Jakob Lessel, Anton Schmitt or Wenzel Swoboda; the female comical parts were taken on by Josefa SARTORY (1777-1801), Johanna HUBER (born in 1790), Katharina ENNÖCKL (married Bäuerle, 1789-1869) and the legendary Therese KRONES (1801-1830). For decades, in German culture and theatre studies it has been presupposed that the way of presenting comedy must have changed radically during the course of the first third of the 19 th century, generally by forms of diversification and individualisation, socialization and bourgeoisification. However, this assumption was only based on sporadic sources, because most of the plays and their historical context were unknown or not available. The projects aim was to make a wide range of theatrical and historical sources available by providing annotated editions. Our 26 transliterated, annotated, and contextualised plays that also come with biographies of their authors originate from the comical works by Adolf BÄUERLE (1786- 1859), Franz Xaver Karl GEWEY (1764-1819), Joseph Alois GLEICH (1742-1841), Friedrich Joseph KORNTHEUER (1779-1829), Joseph Ferdinand KRINGSTEINER (1775-1810), Therese (1801-1830) and Joseph KRONES (1797-1832), Karl MEISL (1775-1853) as well as Emanuel SCHIKANEDER (1751-1812). Hence, a basis for scientific research with regard to the (Viennese) stage comedy throughout the first third of the 19th century is established. Five theatre-sociological case studies about Karl Friedrich Henslers Thaddädl plays written by the project team Andrea Bandner-Kapfer, Jennyfer Großauer-Zöbinger as well as project leader Beatrix Müller-Kampel and about Ferdinand Kringsteiner written by A. Brandner-Kapfer prove the main thesis; furthermore, they exemplify and illustrate the changed forms of comedy and comical figures that were obviously accompanied by a reduction of comical elements on stage in general.