Page - 86 - in Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna

86 siting futurity seating capacity of theatres staging operetta in Vienna was four times greater than that available for spoken theatre” (ibid., 52). Spoken theater, too, struggled to accommodate the “consider- able increase in foreign influence on the repertoire,” which “was being recast as a conflictual relationship” between the Alt-Wien [Old Vienna] of the Vormärz period before the revolutions of 1848 and the beginnings of modernism (Linhardt 2008, 70–72).6 As befitting its name and the didactic impulses of co-founder Anzengruber (Yates 2008, 60–61), the Deutsches Volks theater entered the fray with the mission of providing as wide a spec- trum of the population as possible with as wide a variety of plays as possible. To that end, its repertoire ranged from the classics and the type of comic folk plays Anzensgruber had become known for modern realism, and it was built with a capacity of 1901 — 1401 seats and 500 standing places — the largest in the German-speaking realm at the time.7 Over the course of its history, the Volks theater has pursued a mission of providing affordable entertainment while main- taining a reputation for daring, revolutionary productions.8 In the interwar period it became known for its highly controver- sial modern repertoire of such works as Hermann Bahr’s Die Stimme [The Voice], Hans Müller’s Die Flamme [The Flame], and 6 This conflict helps to explain the slump the Theater in der Josefstadt experienced during this era: “in the period between 1865 and 1899 it went through eleven directors or lessees, and it speaks volumes that on the current [2008] website of the Theater in der Josefstadt under the heading ‘Historisches’ [Historical Information] there is a gap between 1860 and 1899” (Linhardt 2008, 71). 7 Over the years, its size has shrunk. The damage it suffered during World War II brought it down to 1539 and renovations in 1980-1981 to 1148. Its current capacity is 832, making it the second largest theater in Vienna and the third largest in the German-speaking realm. (“Volks theater (Wien)” 2018). 8 To mark its 100th anniversary, Evelyn Schreiner’s 100 Jahre Volks theater. Theater. Zeit. Geschichte [100 Years of the Volks theater: Theater, Time, History] was published in 1989. It has become a standard work and made possible excellent online resources, such as the “Volks theater” entry on the Wien Geschichte Wiki and the German Wikipedia entry. The information in this section has been compiled from these sources.