!!!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.

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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.

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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 17%%sup th/%  and 
18%%sup th/%  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 19%%sup th/%  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 20%%sup th/%  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.

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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
L. Schmidt: Das deutsche Volkstheater, 1962; D.-R. Moser, 
Volkstheater-Forschung, in: R. W. Brednich (ed.): Grundriss der 
Volkskunde, 1988.


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