Actor Autobiographies as Sites to Negotiate Cultural Identities

The projects aim is to analyse autobiographies of actresses and actors as sites to negotiate their individual and group identities as artists. The main thesis is that by constructing these cultural identities, the autobiographies of actors/actresses contribute to the construction of the German-speaking theatre landscape in the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states. Our goal is thus not so much to search the autobiographies for new `facts`, but to take the texts as interpretations of individual past and collective experiences. In the German-speaking regions of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, a temporary engagement in a provincial theatre was considered an unavoidable and even necessary step for actors/actresses to train their skills and to gain a position at respectable theatres in the metropolises. With more and more actors/actresses coming not from theatre families but from working or middle classes, a teleological idea of an ideal acting career developed: The provincial and fringe theatres were interpreted as scenes of learning the art from scratch, while a few metropolitan theatres were seen as peak in an actors/actresss live. In their autobiographies, actors and actresses not only narrated and thereby constructed the stories of their artistic and psychological development, but at the same time construed a theatre landscape in which each geographical spot that hosted a theatre corresponded with a location in the hierarchically structured network of theatres and thereby with a step on the job ladder. The region that hosted by far the most theatres in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy are the Bohemian lands, which, in the world of theatre, became synonymous with `back province` as such. The research project analyses how the texts ascribe different significance to this region and compare this with the image of other regions of the German-speaking theatre landscape. Based on recent theoretical approaches for the analysis of autobiographies as not so much revealing but constructing reality, the project re-evaluates their status as sources. In order to do so, several case studies examine relevant themes and topoi established in the texts as well as their functions. These will cover topoi that are of specific significance for actors and actresses as artists, i.g. the description of their artistic development. Further case studies explore the depiction of theatre practice and the characterisation of the theatre landscape through which their careers led the actors/actresses. By positioning the autobiographies in the centre of the research, the project re-evaluates these texts as performative practices through which the actors/actresses not only constructed their own identities as artists, but at the same time the German-speaking theatre landscape of the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states.

The project analysed autobiographies written by German speaking actresses and actors from th th the 19 and 20 Centuries, who were working in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. These autobiographies are central for constructing their individual as well as group identities. The project`s main theses was, that by constructing these cultural identities, the autobiographies of actors/actresses contributed to the construction of the German-speaking theatre landscape in the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states. Our goal was thus not so much to search the autobiographies for new `facts`, but to analyse the texts as interpretations of individual past and collective experiences. Since actresses and actors define themselves mainly through their work, the depiction of their work life plays a vital role in their texts. We therefore focussed our research on the images that the texts were painting regarding the lives and careers of their authors as well as the theatre of their times. For example, we analysed work-related issues the texts dealt with, like the changing working conditions for actors/actresses with the ascent of the stage director or the different experiences for men and women regarding acting as profession. All the various components put together formed their collective identity as actors/actresses, regardless of the specific town they were working in. In the German-speaking regions of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, a temporary engagement in a provincial theatre was considered an unavoidable and even necessary step for actors/actresses to train their skills and to gain a position at respectable theatres in the metropolises. In their autobiographies, actors and actresses not only narrated and thereby constructed the stories of their artistic and psychological development, but at the same time construed a theatre landscape in which each geographical spot that hosted a theatre corresponded with a location in the hierarchically structured network of theatres and thereby with a step on the job ladder. In this network, the countless German-speaking theatres in the bohemian lands soon became synonymous for "theatre province". The portrayal of this province changed dramatically from the middle of the 19th to the middle of the 20th Century as it became increasingly influenced by political events. The analysis of the autobiographies showed how theatre life and politics became increasingly intertwined while at the same time the theatrical world and bourgeois society grew ever closer.