Volksschauspiel#

Lay Theatre, types of plays which are performed by lay actors for a lay audience in the vernacular, and which form an integral part of the traditional calendar of religious feasts, either in terms of content or purpose. Performances take place on a regular basis, either on festive occasions during the ecclesiastical year (Advent, Christmas, Easter), or in a persons life (wedding). The plays are performed in certain locations in the city, for example in the street, in private homes, in churches or on fairgrounds etc. There is usually no physical separation between actors and audience, with the exception of folk theatre or peasant theatre, where stage and auditorium are distinct units but which is nevertheless included in the genre of lay theatre. The stories of lay theatre plays intend to remind people of religious and secular events and enable them to visualise them; the events are re-enacted by the actors and the audience. Masks and costumes are frequently used, and the texts are standardised to a high degree and thus easy to reproduce.

There is a great variety of play modes, such as local traditional plays (without standardised text), "door-to-door plays" ("Umzugsspiele"), i.e. cycles (the actors move from one house to the next, presenting revue-like scenes, sometimes with arguments), procession plays (e.g. Corpus Christi plays), "Stubenspiele" plays (St. Nicholas plays, Christmas plays, "Paradise" plays), "great plays" or stage plays, and open-air plays.

The roots of lay theatre are twofold: folk traditions (tournaments, dances, winter rites, such as "Todaustragen", in which a straw puppet, representing winter or death, is carried away from the village and buried in the fields, summer rites) on the one hand, and the liturgy of the Early Middle Ages on the other hand. The cultivation of the latter was originally restricted to the interior of the church and to the clergy and the students of monastery schools. Participation of the lay public came only when the Latin texts were translated into the vernacular, the content was supplemented (e.g. with comic scenes), and the number of performers increased. The town people (guilds, brotherhoods) started taking over the performance of plays such as mysteries, Corpus Christi plays, miracle plays and Shrovetide plays. Reformation put a temporary end to these plays with large numbers of actors. Under Protestantism, new forms developed, such as "Heischebrauch" plays of teachers and their students (walking from house to house, singing, acting, and dancing and asking for presents) and various "Stubenspiele" and "Einkehrspiele" ("indoor plays") performed in people´s houses, such as St. Nicholas plays, "Paradise" plays, and Nativity plays. During the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits promoted school drama, and the Baroque drama was presented in public places, taking the form of mysteries, figural processions, Passion plays, lives of saints plays and exemplum plays. While such religious plays were adopted by rural communities during the 17th and 18th centuries, efforts were made during the Enlightenment to subdue them and replace them by secular comedies (e.g. based on legends, knights´ dramas, Genovefa plays), which were frequently based on popular books. The 19th century saw the rise of "peasant" theatre as a literary genre (its stories are based in the rural and peasant milieu) (L. Anzengruber) and the creation of numerous theatre companies. From the early 20th century, efforts have been made to give new impetus to lay theatre by promoting school plays and to distance it from the image of rustic peasant theatre.

Isolated streams of these manifold play modes and subjects cans still be traced in modern Austrian lay theatre, for example in the large Shrovetide processions and processions of allegorical figures ("Perchten") in Salzburg and Tirol, which include acted scenes, various "Heischebrauch" plays (e.g. "Ankloeckeln") and processional cycles ("Pentecost King" play in Patzmannsdorf, Lower Austria), "Stubenspiele" (St. Nicholas play in Mitterndorf, "Paradise" play in Lassnitz, both Styria), Passion plays in Erl and Thiersee in Tirol, Kirchberg (Lower Austria), and St. Margarethen (Burgenland), Christmas plays (Ischl Nativity play) and Easter plays ("Kreuzziehen", i.e. the Way of the Cross, in Tresdorf im Moelltal, Carinthia), open-air plays (Mondsee "Everyman", Frankenmarkt "Wuerfelspiel"). Along with these, new types of plays have developed, such as the St. Martin´s ride (Bregenz) and lantern processions and the festive "Christkind" (Holy Child) procession in Innsbruck. Lay theatre festivals have been organised in Telfs (Tirol) in the last few years.

Literature#