Elizabeth Craven, private theatricals and Friedrich Schiller's The Robbers

Abstract

Subsequent to the 1737 Licensing Act, the eighteenth century saw an upsurge of private theatricals. Although not restricted to one social class, some of them were lavish and costly performances organized by the elite and, in fact, major social events. Elizabeth Lady Craven, later Margravine of Anspach, organized such private theatricals, both in Germany in the late 1780s and in Britain, especially in her own theatre in Brandenburgh House, in the 1790s, where she combined the roles of translator, writer, theatre manager and actress in one person. Sociable networks were essential for her thespian activities: actors as well as audiences were often friends and family, while hired professionals (stage managers, scene painters) helped to polish the productions. New plays were written, while already existing dramatic texts were adapted, translated or set to music. She reworked (and thereby depoliticized), for example, Friedrich Schiller's notorious drama The Robbers (1781), staged by her in 1798.