ond decennium of
the 18th century one of the most melancholy, as it is in its way one of
the most instructive, chapters of theatrical history. Ignored by the
world of letters, the actors in return deliberately sought to emancipate
their art from all dependence upon literary material. Improvisation
reigned supreme, not only in farce, where _Hans Wurst_, with the aid of
Italian examples, never ceased to charm his public, but in the serious
drama likewise (in which, however, he also played his part) in those
_Haupt- und Staatsactionen_ (high-matter-of-state-dramas), the plots of
which were taken from the old stores of the English comedians, from the
religious drama and its sources, and from the profane history of all
times. The hero of this period is "Magister" J. Velthen (or Veltheim),
who at the head of a company of players for a time entered the service
of the Saxon court, and, by reproducing comedies of Moliere and other
writers, sought to restrain the licence which he had himself carried
beyond all earlier precedent, but who had to fall back into the old ways
and the old life. His career exhibits the climax of the efforts of the
art of acting to stand alone; after his death (c. 1693) chaos ensues.
The strolling companies, which now included actresses, continued to
foster the popular love of the stage, and even under its most degraded
form to uphold its national character against the rivalry of the opera,
and that of the Italian _commedia dell' arte_. From the latter was
borrowed Harlequin, with whom _Hans Wurst_ was blended, and who became a
standing figure in every kind of popular play.[281] He established his
sway more especially at Vienna, where from about 1712 the first
permanent German theatre was maintained. But for the actors in general
there was little permanence, and amidst miseries of all sorts, and under
the growing ban of clerical intolerance, the popular stage seemed
destined to hopeless decay. A certain vitality of growth seems, under
clerical guidance, to have characterized the plays of the people in
Bavaria and parts of Austria.

F. K. Neuber, Gottsched, and the Leipzig school.

Ekhof

The first endeavours to reform what had thus apparently passed beyond
all reach of recovery were neither wholly nor generally successful; but
this does not diminish the honour due to two names which should never be
mentioned without respect in connexion with the history of the drama.
Friederike Karoline Neuber's