spect was theirinabilityto imagine the workingclass outside the dramatic con-
ventions of bourgeois individuality.
Abrief overview of earlysocialist plays confirms this constitutive tension be-
tween provocative topic and traditional form andreveals the shortcomings of a
thus defined theater of ideas that theSprechchormovement tried to overcome
through its emphasis on collective performances.Ina“national economic hu-
moresque”titledEin Schlingel(1867, APrankster), written by ADAV presidentJo-
hannBaptistvonSchweitzer,asocialist worker suddenlyappears on the scene
and startsaheated discussion on surplus value with the local factory owner.
In August Otto-Walster’sfarceEin verunglückter Agitator(1874,AnAccidentalAg-
itator), two students arrive in apicturesque village and,pretendingto be socialist
agitators,raise the problem of landownership. In Heinrich Bulthaupt’ssocial
tragedyDie Arbeiter(1877,The Workers), the confrontation betweenaworking-
class family andafactory owner ends tragicallywith amass riot andaburning
castle. Dramatizationsofstrikes,revolts,and revolutions increased significantly
after the rescindingofthe Anti-Socialist Laws.FriedrichBosse’sagitational play
Im Kampf(1892, In the Struggle) dramatizes the various stages ofastrike in order
to showcase the workers’growingpower.Inthe dramaFamilieWawroch(1899,
TheWawrochFamily),FranzAdamus(pseudonymFerdinand Bronner)has a
Jewishsocialist agitator arrive in asmallAustriantown on thevergeofa
labor strike.Meanwhile, the naturalist approach to working-class milieus contin-
ues in Emil Rosenow’sDaheim(1894,AtHome) and Ernst Preczang’sIm Hinter-
haus(1903,Inthe Rear Building), two tenement-centricstagings of the Marxist
immiseration theory.Inanunpublished manuscript,Preczang describes his ap-
proach in ways that capturethe prevailing view of workers asdramatis personae
and highlight the strong reliancebyall socialist playwrights on emotionasamo-
bilizing force:“My interest lies primarily in the emotional dimension of the
movement and its contribution toanew spiritual culture, [...]freedom, equality,
justice–these are and were for me not onlypolitical but also human and ethical
postulates.”²⁹
After the turn of the century,the gradual openingofsocialismtoward mod-
ernism established the conditionsfor the imagination of collective subjectivities
beyond the constraints of individualism and psychologism.Twoearlyexpres-
sionist dramas, Paul Mehnert’sGolgatha(1908)abouta1905 miners’strike in
theRuhr region andLu Märten’sBergarbeiter(1909,Miners), performedduring
aminers’strike in 1911, modeled the all-important transformation of disempo-
Ernst Preczang,“Rü ckblick,”quoted in GeorgBollenbeck,ZurTheorie und Geschichte der
frühen Arbeiterlebenserinnerungen(Kronberg: Scriptor, 1976), 50.
236 Chapter 12