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Theatre-going in Rotterdam, 1802–1853. A Statistical Analysis of Ticket Sales
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
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Today, Rotterdam is best known as the largest port in the world. Around 1800, although the second city in the Dutch Republic, it was still a minor trade centre. A group of its merchants built a standing theatre in 1773, which was sold in 1851 and largely demolished in 1853. The very rich archives of the stock-holders' company, which exploited this theatre, permit us an insight into the patterns of theatre-going in the first half of the nineteenth century, and the record helps test the common conjecture about the decline of the theatre in those decades.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1998
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ENDNOTES
1. The authors wish especially to thank Harry van Vliet. We also want to thank Bennie Pratasik, Paul van de Laar, Arie van der Schoor, André van der Velden, and Judith Thissen for helpful comments. The research project from which this article is an offshoot was subsidized by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NOW).
2. The Second Society of the Teylers Foundation (Haarlem) in 1835 even launched an essay contest on the topics: what is the cause of the decline of the stage, what is to be feared for the national character, and what are the remedies? This contest led to five lengthy essays, none of which, with one exception, felt that the question led the witnesses.
3. The ostensible decline of the stage was strongly propagandized by Hunningher, Ben, in his Het dramatisch werk van Schimmel [The Dramatic Works of Schimmel] (Amsterdam, 1931)Google Scholar, and Een eeuw Nederlands toneel [A Century of Dutch Theatre] (Amsterdam, 1949). See for recent examples: Post, Paul, “19 December 1870: Oprichtingsvergadering van het Nederlands Tooneelverbond,” Schenkeveldt-van der Dussen, M.A., et al, ed., Nederlandse literatuur: een geschiedenes (Groningen, 1993), 494–99Google Scholar [“The 19th of December 1870: Initial Meeting of the Stage Alliance,” in: Dutch Literature: a History], and Hoff, Marlies, Johanna Cornelia Ziesenis-Wattier (1762–1827): “de grootste actrice van Europa” (Leiden, 1996)Google Scholar, Chapter 2 [Mrs.J-C. Ziesenis-Wattier: “Europe's greatest actress”].
4. General State Archives, Department of Home Affairs, 1795–1813, nr. 327. We also give as examples some instances from the first volume of the Tooneelkijker, which larded its views with social-political opinion: The Magpie and the Virgin was a success with the populace in London and Paris because it attacked “the first classes in society” and, thus, stiffened the populace's distrust in authority. This populace is set off against the “reasonable audience,” which should stop such performances (1: 9–10). Kotzebue's Love Child sets the “populace/gallery” off against the “grand monde/boxes.” The first category applauds the play as “good,” the second, with the Tooneelkijker, abhorred it as being evil (1: 273). Voltaire's Alzire did not draw a lower-rank audience, but the few first-rank spectators, including the critics of the Tooneelkijker, were deeply moved (1: 277). The populace valued the chaotic structure of Kotzebue's Calumniator, but a spectator who appreciated the Tooneelkijker thought of Boileau (1: 294–96). We use “classical” in the sense of English-American usage rather than the Dutch term “classicist” for derviations from the Greek and Roman.
5. To both magazines, stage criticism was a metonym for social and political combat, although with different aims in mind. We cannot, here, go into these aspects. Of course, the ideological views and aims of the critics influenced their opinions about stage decline, but in itself this does not prove them wrong in matters of the number of spectators and the quality of the performance. Such evídence must be independently given.
6. Two clear examples must suffice here: Hogendoom, W., et al, “Een Rotterdams koopman en zijn repertoirelijst (1774–79)” [“A Rotterdam merchant and his list of plays”], Scenarium 8 (1984): 119–44Google Scholar: “the common spectatorship, of lower middle class origin and the populace, preferred farces, plays with spectacle, or comedies, and in that order. The commissioners of the theatre gave priority to tragedy: a morally dignified repertory catering for the civilized elite, for and by whom the Grand Theatre was erected” (128, our translation). Cf. Hazewinkel, F., Toneel in Rotterdam, 1945–86. Rapport van het gemeentelijk beleid [The Stage in Rotterdam, 1945–86. A Report on Municipal Management] (Rotterdam, 1988)Google Scholar: “Till about 1800 classical theatre was dominant, though for the illiterate populace farces, and opera were tolerated” (12, our translation). Hunningher goes furthest in following nineteenth-century views. He perceives the theatre ofthat age predominantly through the eyes of Alberdingk Thijm and Schimmel.
7. They are contained in the Municipal Archives: Grand Theatre Coolsingel (1773–1887), inv. nr. 405, and in the archives of the following theatre companies: Le Gras, c.s. (1875–1900), inv. nr. 174 (New Theatre, Grand Theatre Coolsingel, and Grand Theatre Aert van Nesstraat); Rotterdam Stage Company (1900–1916), inv. nr. 175 (Grand Theatre Aert van Nesstraat); Society for the Exploitation of Dutch Drama and German Opera (1860–67), inv. nr. 176 (Grand Theare Coolsingel—the Opera lasted till 1892, but no archive materials remain after 1879). Moreover, there are the archives for the first five years of the Tivoli Theatre, built on the location of the former Grand Theatre Coolsingel, 1890, inv. nr. 179 (for 1890–95). Theatre archives without serial data on ticket sales exist for the New Theatre (1881–90), inv. nr. 177, and for the continuation of the Rotterdam Stage Company (1916–1939), inv. 178 (1–4). Recently we dug up the mise en scène books from ca. 1850–1925 (about 1250 books and sets of actors' roles—most of them with annotation). Due to the bombers’ attack in May 1940, much archive material from 1916–1940 was bumed. What was left contains no data on audiences. Post-war theatre archives contain data on audiences, but of a different nature than the nineteenth-century collections.
8. Few plays were advertised in the Rotterdamsche Courant [Rotterdam Journal] at that time.
9. Up to about 1800, “half tickets” meant entrances after 18.30 or 19.00 (depending on whether the performance started at 17.00 or 17.30). After about 1800, this system was abolished, but half tickets still appear in the accounts, indicating mean entries for children.
10. The Commissioners made the borderelles to calculate their profits, so they were not interested in specifying the ticket sales, but only the amount of money taken.
11. Four out of five accounts concern the extremely successful Shipwreck of the Medusa.
12. The number of improvements is normally small, but may increase with very popular plays, and during Fair time. Normally an overcrowded rank made one decide to pay extra.
13. This is open to criticism, but there is no way to calculate absenteeism. Even a person reserving a seat or buying a ticket at the box need not have really entered and attended, so in principle all accounts of ticket sales may be suspicious, because we cannot prove that the buyers really sat out the play.
14. Municipal Archives, Grand Theatre, inv. nrs. 5, 20, 86, and 103.
15. The gaps were not only created by the missing years, but many missing months as well. During the summer season, May to September, performances became irregular. The Fair took place in September for the first part of the period, but was moved to August in 1810. Thus, unfortunately, we had to leave out the Fair as well, for the reliability of the analysis depends on the continuity of the monthly figures in the series.
16. Detailed information is available on request. Contact the authors.
17. We note that the gallery scored highest in missing half tickets, but since these spread over all three managements and are most likely an overestimation, we do not think they influenced the clearly significant value of the T-statistics.
18. With respect to this result, compare the grand narrative of the history of the theatre from the Stage Alliance point of view: “Around 1850 decline of the stage was at its height: an almost complete reliance on trash by a race of players, poor in education and civilization. True friends of fine art […] strove after refinement” (Rössing, J.H., “Het Tooneel,” in: Nederland in den aanvang der twintigsten eeuw, Smissert, H., ed. (Leiden, 1910), 425Google Scholar [“The Stage,” in: Holland at the Beginnings ofthe 20th Century]. Rösing was the secretary of the second generation of these “true friends.” In 1862, Adrian van der Hoop Jacz, Commissioner of the Theatre, in a short introduction to a lithograph of the building, praised Peters’ bringing in fine plays in fine translations, acted by the best talents in the country.
19. For the reconquest of the theatre around 1870, see de Leeuwe, H.J.J., “Antoine Jean le Gras, een Nederlands régisseur der 19e eeuw te Rotterdam,” in: Rotterdams Jaarboekje (1975), 209–57Google Scholar [“A.J. le Gras, a 19th century Dutch Director in Rotterdam,” in: Rotterdam Yearbook]. The same effect is described by Paul Post regarding the activity of the Stage Alliance (“Oprichtingsvergadering van het ‘Nederlands Tooneelverbond,’” in NederlandseLiteratuur: een Geschiedenis (1993), 494–99.
20. The total number of performances also decreased, but had begun started in the mid-1830s.
21. This is not unique to Rotterdam. It was nationwide.
22. We rather think the latter than the former. Ward Bingley deeply influenced the acting style of those South Holland players who formed the nucleus of the company until the middle 1840s. Bingley himself had acted some years under Corver's management, but Corver still did not play the newer German drama (Lessing, Iffland, Kotzebue). We cannot rule out the influence of the tradition of acting by Van Dinsen(-Kraaijestijn) and Snoek (neither of whom ever worked with Corver), with Talma looming in the background as a prototype. The South Holland Players were continuously praised, even by their worst enemies, for their “modernity” in performance, especially their ensemble acting, and tempi.
23. The decline in gallery occupation rate started in the middle 1830s. It never recovered, not even when in 1867 the price was lowered from 50 cents to 25 cents.
24. From 1800 onwards, there were some private Theatre Societies (of which little is known), irregularly catering for small groups of citizens. These are also differentated along lines of class. “Scherts en Ernst” [Jocundity and Earnestness] catered around 1804 for some two dozen middle class citizens; “Al Doende Leert Men” [Practising is Learning] for an unspecified number of lower class youths in the early 1820s. Both had comparable repertories.
25. And they were paid back. Rösing highly praises De Vos in his “Het Tooneel,” in: Smissert, Nederland in den aanvang der twintigsten eeuw (1910), 434.
26. The opening performance showed that the managers gave what the critics demanded: Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and a seventeenth-century “national” farce, Bemagie's Studentenleven [Students Life] were followed by a run of a home-grown drama, adapted from the popular Camera obscura by Hildebrand.
27. Municipal Archives, Rotterdam, Archives of the Tivoli Company, inv. nrs. 52–57. The borderelles are not complete (lacking January 27 to November 1, 1893, and all administration records from May 20, 1894). Separate sheets, inv. nrs. 58–61, fill the gaps, as does a letter giving some figures. We were, by the nature of the figures, forced to merge the stalls and dress circle (“baignoires”) into one “first rank.” Since both ranks were of the same price from August 1891 onwards, this hardly affects the analysis.
28. Figures taken from Achten, Wim, “Op zoek naar het theaterpubliek van vroeger,” syllabus basiselementen. Department of Theatre Studies, internal publication, 1989.Google Scholar
29. This has, moreover been controlled, by way of a diagnostic test, for Y1.3. See below, the remarks on the model.
30. For instance, dummy variable number 1 is defined as “troupe managed by Ward Bingley.” Observation 91 contains performances of his company, and thus gets a “1” for this first variable. Observation 211, however, at a time when Bingley had died, gets a “0.”
31. Vondel's Gijsbrecht van Aemstel scores highest, with 72 perfomances. But it was given each New Year's day. Next comes Kotzebue's Menschenhaat en Berouw [The Stranger], with 37 performances in 80 years. Variety shows, mainly jugglers and magicians, come third.
32. See Franses, Philip H., Time Series Models for Business and Economic Forecasting (Cambridge, 1998).Google Scholar