Frauenkampf : Lustspiel in 3 Akten, ca. 1865-1886 | WorldCat.org (original) (raw)

Summary:The German play, which was first published in 1851, is an adaptation of the French play Bataille de dames, by Scribe and Legouvé. The file contains materials related to rehearsal and performance, including a published copy (Berlin: Eduard Bloch, L. Lassar's Buchhandlung, n.d.; second edition), which has been annotated as a prompt-book, with a sketch of the set noted on the inside back cover and a list of props on the back fly-leaf; and 2 handwritten role books, for the following parts: Gräfin von Autreval; and Henri von Flavigneul. (The play has 4 additional roles: Leonie von Villegontier; Gustav von Grignon; Baron von Montrichard; ein Unteroffizier; and ein Bedienter.) The published copy dates from around the mid 1860s. (On the title page the author is given only as "Olfers"; the online Achivdatenbank des Goethe- und Schiller-Archivs, Weimar, attributes authorship of this work to Marie von Olfers, 1826-1924). On the page with the list of characters 2 sets of cast member names are noted. One set corresponds to the cast that performed the play at Germania Theater, Philadelphia, in Oct. 1878, as documented in a theater newspaper (see folder 703). The names in the other set are familiar from the casts of other German-language plays in Philadelphia, and reflect a cast that probably would have performed in the period 1880-1886. Names of the actresses and actors who played the parts are written on the covers of the role books, reflecting two casts, one of which is the 1878 cast. The other names on the role books could not be deciphered and seem to stem from a performance prior to 1878. All the items are marked by hand as the property of Theodor Bloch, who was active in German-language theater in Philadelphia, first as an actor and later as a prompter, from the early 1870s until the mid 1890s, and who also ran a theater lending library