Danzig -- Amusements and Daily Life - Theater
There were various forms of theatrical experience to be found in Danzig: school plays, guild performances, private performances, and productions by wandering theater companies. The Danzig Academy and the Jesuit school outside the city gates performed plays designed to exercise the students in their rhetorical skills. On festive occasions guildmembers performed in public, usually on the Langer Markt in the center of town. Possibly there were private performances in the homes of some wealthier citizens.
Spectacles and theatrical performances in Danzig were most prevalent during the yearly St. Dominic's Fair in August. Until 1730 there was no standing theater, and wandering theater troops had to receive permission from the City Council to perform. Few records of the performances survive, but those for the years following Luise Kulmus's birth document the following appearance of theatrical troops and spectacles:
- 1713] Gabriel Möller's troop probably performed on its way to Königsberg.
- 1714] Johann Caspar and Sopie Julie Hacke's troop performed in the fencing school on the Dominic's meadow.
- Also recorded is a Policinello player, Johann Lorenz Fest.
- 1716] In honor of the visit of Czar Peter the Great and King Friedrich August various guilds performed in the main town square, the Langer Markt -- masked Turkish dances, climbing a soapy pole, spearing water buckets while riding bareback, etc.
- 1718] In August one of the most famous German performers, the strong man, Johann Carl von Eckenberg performed with his troop from Vienna.
- 1719] Probably Eckenberg appeared again.
- 1720] Eckenberg appeared
- 1725] The theater troop of Wilhelm Durham performed with his Arlequin and gymnasts.
In 1730 the City Council of Danzig had the old fencing school on the Dominic's meadow renovated as a theater. On 23 June it leased the structure to the actor Martin Müller for 600 Gulden (reduced in 1732 and 1733 to 550 Gulden). For a few months a year (and during the St. Dominic's Fair) Müller performed plays in German with actors from Danzig. He traveled to other cities as well. For the years between 1730 and 1735 only three theater bills have survived to document the plays performed in the new theater.
Der Ehr und Freundschafft hochschätzende Cavallier.
Das affectirte Frauenzimmer
Der Großmüthige SIRöE