Munich and Theatrical Modernism: Politics, Playwriting, and Performance, 1890-1914

by Peter Jelavich

Overview

This is the first cultural exploration of playwriting, directing, acting, and theater architecture in fin-de-siècle Munich. Peter Jelavich examines the commercial, political, and cultural tensions that fostered modernism’s artistic revolt against the classical and realistic modes of nineteenth-century drama.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674588356
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	11/06/1985
Series:	Politics, Playwriting, and Performance, 1890-1914
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Peter Jelavich is Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin.

Editorial Reviews

Speaks lucidly, informatively, and interestingly of an important place at an exciting time in theatrical and cultural history.

Modern Language Review - J. L. Hibberd

[This] excellent book deals with many manifestations of theatrical modernism in the pre-war Bavarian capital, including the ‘carnivalesque’ works of Frank Wedekind and Oskar Panizza, the political cabaret of groups like the Elf Scharfrichter, and the efforts to fuse Catholicism and modernism in the erotic drama of Heinrich Lautensack… A thoughtful as well as a richly detailed cultural history.

History - David Blackbourn

An excellent book… Jelavich’s work is filled with shrewd insights… Particularly interesting are his account of Georg Fuchs’s experiments in theatrical form and his concluding observations about the connections between prewar theatrical modernism, which was so often frustrated by the operation of the censorship in Munich, and Dadaism, the Expressionist theater, and the drama of Bertolt Brecht.

Journal of Modern History - Gordon A. Craig

[An] absorbing interdisciplinary study… Jelavich’s account of those two and a half decades is filled with descriptive details and extensively researched findings… The book is fascinating reading and provides an excellent example of interdisciplinary writing.

German Studies Review - Johannes Maczewski

[An] absorbing interdisciplinary study...Jelavich's account of those two and a half decades is filled with descriptive details and extensively researched findings...The book is fascinating reading and provides an excellent example of interdisciplinary writing.
— Johannes Maczewski

German Studies Review

[This] excellent book deals with many manifestations of theatrical modernism in the pre-war Bavarian capital, including the 'carnivalesque' works of Frank Wedekind and Oskar Panizza, the political cabaret of groups like the Elf Scharfrichter, and the efforts to fuse Catholicism and modernism in the erotic drama of Heinrich Lautensack...A thoughtful as well as a richly detailed cultural history.
— David Blackbourn

History

An excellent book...Jelavich's work is filled with shrewd insights... Particularly interesting are his account of Georg Fuchs's experiments in theatrical form and his concluding observations about the connections between prewar theatrical modernism, which was so often frustrated by the operation of the censorship in Munich, and Dadaism, the Expressionist theater, and the drama of Bertolt Brecht.
— Gordon A. Craig

Journal of Modern History

Speaks lucidly, informatively, and interestingly of an important place at an exciting time in theatrical and cultural history.
— J. L. Hibberd

Modern Language Review