The School of Shipwrecks: Improvisation in Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung and the Lehrjahre

Summary

Goethe's twenty-six year tenure as director of the Weimar Theater gives little indication of an interest in improvisational acting. In 1803 he composed a comprehensive list of rules for the aspiring actor which includes guidelines for pronunciation, rhythmic delivery, posture, hand positions, costumes and almost everything else imaginable. This “narrow corset” with which Goethe girded the actors under his purview is a far cry from the improvisational acting popular in Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century, before the onset of the theatrical reform spearheaded by Johann Christoph Gottsched and others. Given Goethe's programmatic attention to detail as theater director, it comes as some surprise that the first two Wilhelm Meister novels, Wilhelm Meisters Theatralische Sendung (1786) and Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795), reveal a pervasive interest in extemporized acting. In fact, it is fair to say that in the Lehrjahre Wilhelm Meister's early theatrical “career” (i.e., his childhood) is profoundly shaped by an act of involuntary improvisation when, on the spur of the moment, he decides to stage a performance of Ariosto's Jerusalem Delivered. He summons the neighborhood children, assigns the parts and hastily gathers an audience. Despite the good intentions of the young actors, however, the performance is a failed venture: “Verunglückt war die Expedition” (MA 5:29). The children are unfamiliar with the story and have no idea when to speak or even what to say. Wilhelm's performance as Tancred, recited directly from Ariosto's text, provokes laughter from the audience when a lengthy monolog unwittingly slips into the third person.