Austrian Theater

This paper seeks to establish whether the attention that both Hugo Hofmannsthal and Arthur Schnitzler lend to the French Revolution during the last decade of the nineteenth century is linked to the end of the “habsburgical myth”, as Claudio Magris has argued, and wether that interest involves an aesthetic and political stance in favor of tradition or history. The analysis concentrates, on the one hand, on two Hofmannsthal’s sketches dated in 1891 and 1893: the first is linked directly to the French Revolution; the second, in return, is inspired by the Austrian revolutionary episodes of 1848. On the other, it examines the Schnitzler’s grotesque theater piece Der grüne Kakadu (The Green Cockatoo), written in 1898.

Αντικείμενο του άρθρου αποτελεί η μαθητεία και η επαγγελματική δραστηριότητα που ανέπτυξε ο ηθοποιός και σκηνοθέτης Θωμάς Οικονόμου σε Βιέννη και Γερμανία, την περίοδο πριν την άφιξή του στην Αθήνα, το 1900. Αξιοποιώντας αρχεία της Αυστρίας, αναδεικνύουμε στοιχεία που αφορούν στα πρώτα χρόνια του στη Βιέννη, στη μαθητεία του στο Κονσερβατόριο της Βιέννης και τους ρόλους που ερμήνευσε ως σπουδαστής στη Δραματική Σχολή, υπό τη διδασκαλία διάσημων καθηγητών υποκριτικής και ηθοποιών του Μπουργκτεάτερ. Παρακολουθώντας τις περιπλανήσεις του στα επαρχιακά θέατρα της Γερμανίας, αναδεικνύεται η θεατρική δράση του ηθοποιού, η οποία ολοκληρώνεται με την πρόσληψή του στο θέατρο του Μάινινγκεν το 1899. Η πρόσληψη αυτή αποτελούσε σημαντική εξέλιξη στην καριέρα του, καθώς το θέατρο του Μάινινγκεν είχε αποτελέσει τις προηγούμενες δεκαετίες καινοτόμο επαρχιακό γερμανικό θέατρο και ήταν διάσημο, λόγω της δράσης του σκηνοθέτη του, Γεώργιου Β΄ Δούκα του Σαξ-Μάινινγκεν. Στο θέατρο αυτό, ο Οικονόμου συμμετείχε σε αρκετές παραστάσεις, ερμηνεύοντας διάφορους ρόλους.

The author examines the vigorous reception of the German theater in Greece, a phenomenon that took place along with the process of establishing in Athens, in 1901 the Royal Theater. The multiple aesthetic, social and political forms of this phenomenon provided a "locus of contact" with the German culture and accomplished a function, regarded as the instrument for the development of the bourgeois theater in Greece. This happened through the work of theater practitioners and intellectuals, as well as through the transfer of institutions, theatrical plays, and scripts of direction instructions, decorations, and props. The performances staged were the iceberg in the process of this reception, as they provided a strategy toward the revitalization of the Greek theater, realized in a productive way.

Tese defendida em 2021, investigando a produção dramatúrgica da escritora austríaca Elfriede Jelinek. Citadas por Hans-Thies Lehmann entre as referências para a elaboração da sua muito debatida teoria de um “teatro pós-dramático”, as peças dessa autora propiciam de modo particularmente produtivo a discussão sobre o sentido possível de se produzir dramaturgia hoje, isso é, num tempo em que a atividade teatral parece ter se tornado autônoma, prescindindo da existência prévia de um texto a ser montado (como ainda era regra até meados do século XX). Refletindo formalmente sobre problemáticas atuais como a posição das mulheres na sociedade e na criação artística, a crise dos refugiados e a xenofobia crescente na Europa, as transformações contemporâneas do capitalismo e a impotência do próprio trabalho teatral diante desse quadro, Jelinek expande os limites daquilo que se compreende como um texto dramático: mais do que diálogos tradicionais, a autora cria superfícies de linguagem a serem exploradas pelos encenadores e atores, cuja autonomia de criação ela reconhece e, mais ainda, provoca ativamente. Vendo essas novas abordagens formais como necessárias para a representação dos conteúdos tratados, propomo-nos a um estudo na linha dialética de Adorno, Szondi, Christoph Menke e do já mencionado Lehmann, de modo a lançar alguma luz sobre recentes desenvolvimentos históricos do texto teatral.

Elfriede Jelinek: from impotent texto to impossible theatre
(Doctoral thesis)