Towards a History of National Theatres in Europe

Abstract

Any short chapter concerning major developments in two-hundred-and-fifty years of European history must narrow the field of discussion or risk windy generalities that rarely connect with the obdurate facts of the historical record. Accordingly I will tighten my focus in two ways. First, I will primarily examine prototypical National Theatres between 1760 and 2006. While as many as three hundred theatre companies and performance venues probably called themselves ‘National Theatres’ during these years, I will comment primarily on those that fit prototypical patterns of the type as it changed over time. Second, I will restrict my interest to National Theatres that were or aimed to be representative of a nation-state, a people with a language and culture living within a bounded and sovereign political entity. As is already apparent from several chapters in this volume, the hyphenated term is an important qualifier; some states ignored their people to begin theatres as a part of their political (often imperial) agendas and many national cultures have maintained theatres that had little connection to real or hoped-for statehood. In my view, connecting National Theatres to the rise and decline of the nation-state in Europe is crucial for a cogent history.