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Theatre on Tour: Amsterdam’s Schouwburg as a European Hub

2021; Wiley; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/rest.12743

1477-4658

Frans Blom,

Philippine History and Culture

By the end of the sixteenth century, English theatre companies were the first professionals to play to audiences in Germany. On tours, impressive both for their range and duration, they brought a popular repertory from London to places in the Low Countries, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and the eastern Baltic region. Skilled in the arts of acting, dancing, singing and performing in the home theatres of London, the English shows on tour would easily outshine local performance initiatives. Several scholars have stressed the pivotal role of strolling companies from England in the constitution of professional public theatre in Germany and other places on the continent.11 Jerzy Limon, Gentlemen of a Company: English Players in Central and Eastern Europe 1590-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Anston Bosman ‘Renaissance Intertheater and the Staging of Nobody’, ELH 71.3 (2004), 559–85, and his ‘Mobility’ in Henry S. Turner (ed.), Early Modern Theatricality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 493–515; Ralf Haekel, Die Englischen Komödianten in Deutschland: Eine Einführung in die Ursprünge des deutschen Berufsschauspiels (Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2004). Also Volker Meid, Die deutsche Literatur im Zeitalter des Barock: Vom Späthumanismus zur Frühaufklärung 1570–1740 (München: C.H. Beck, 2009), esp. 335–6, and William Grange, Historical Dictionary of German Theater (New York, Toronto [etc]: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015). A document in the city of Lüneburg’s administrative archive, dated 8 September 1666, is a typical strolling company’s request for performance permission. The actors that made the request to play in the north German town some thirty miles south-east of Hamburg, however, were not an English crew. They were one of the first German companies directed by a local Prinzipal and consisting of native German-speaking actors. The group’s director was an actor from Saxony named Michael Daniel Treu (1634–1708).22 In contemporary documents, the name of Treu also occurs as Dreu or Drey. Treu’s career as a Wanderbühneschauspieler is described by Ruth Gstach in ‘Die Liebes Verzweiffelung’ des Laurentius von Schnüffis: Eine bisher unbekannte Tragikomödie der frühen Wanderbühne, mit einem Verzeichnis der erhaltenen Spieltexte (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2017), 643–6. For his Copenhagen period, working for Wolf, she considers him the most important actor in the company: ‘war der wichtigste Schauspieler in der Truppe des Andreas Joachim Wulff’ (643). Although only very little is known about the man and his company, there is no doubt about Treu’s familiarity with European popular theatre.33 For Wanderbühne repertoires in Germany, see Gstach’s introduction and inventories of ‘Wanderbühnendrama des 17. Jahrhunderts’ in ‘Die Liebes Verzweiffelung’. For Dutch plays in Germany, see Herbert Junkers, Niederländische Schauspieler und niederländisches Schauspiel im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert in Deutschland (’s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1936) and E. F. Kossmann, Holland und Deutschland: Wandlungen und Vorurteile (’s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1901). For Spanish drama in German repertories see H. Tiemann, Lope de Vega in Deutschland: Kritisches Gesamtverzeichnis der auf deutschen Bibliotheken vorhandenen älteren Lope-Drucke und -Handschriften: Nebst Versuch einer Bibliographie der deutschen Lope-Literatur 1629–1935 (Hamburg: Lütcke and Wulff, 1939) and Henry W. Sullivan, Calderón in the German Lands and the Low Countries: His Reception and Influence, 1654–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). For theatre in the Baltic regions see Johannes Bolte and Georg Schröder, Das Danziger Theater im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Hamburg: L. Voss, 1895); Gunilla Dahlberg, Komediantteatern i 1600–talets Stockholm (Stockholm: Komittén för stockholmsforskning, 1992) and Johannes Bolte, Von Wanderkomödianten und Handwerkerspielen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1934). The twenty-five titles show that the repertoire of the German company was assembled from several theatrical traditions. Without doubt Don Gaston von Mongado (no. 3) is a German version of Il Don Gastone di Moncada by the Italian playwright Giacinto Andrea Cicognini.77 German performances listed in Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 606–8; Tatiana Korneeva, ‘The Political Theater and Theatrical Politics of Andrea Giacinto Cicognini: Il Don Gastone di Moncada (1641)’, in Jan Bloemendal and Nigel Smith (eds.), Politics and Aesthetics in European Baroque and Classicist Tragedy, Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe, 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 260–94. No other play on the Lüneburg menu seems to derive from the transalpine theatre tradition, even though some, like Alexander de Medicis, feature an Italian setting. In contrast, many of Treu’s plays draw from English strolling companies. The entry Von dem Könnich Liar auß Engelandt (Of King Lear from England, no. 2) reveals a German version of Shakespeare’s King Lear, and the historical drama of Albertus Wallenstein (1634–39; printed 1639) by the Englishman Henry Glapthorne is listed in a German version as Von General Wahlstein (no. 20).88 German performances listed in Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 525–6 and 627–9. Of more recent times, Der Geist von krumwell (Cromwell’s Ghost, no. 22) and the Einzuch des jetzigen könniges in Engelandt (Entrance of the Current King of England, no. 21) also seem to derive from English repertoires. Some other items in Treu’s list can be identified as originally English materials that were translated and restyled for shows in Amsterdam’s municipal theatre. Don Hijeronimo, Marsalck in Spannien (Don Jerome, Marshal in Spain, no. 13) undoubtedly derives from the Schouwburg. The original revenge tragedy was written by the English playwright Thomas Kyd under the title of The Spanish Tragedie, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio, and Bel-imperia: with the pittifull death of olde Hieronimo (1592). Ranking among the most popular of all plays on the English Renaissance stage, The Spanish Tragedy also circulated on the continent both in strolling companies’ repertoires and even in printed editions.99 Lukas Erne, Beyond ‘The Spanish Tragedy’: A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001). Restyling an earlier Dutch translation made in an Anglo-Dutch company in 1620, the play premiered in Amsterdam’s Schouwburg as early as its opening season in 1638.1010 In the northern Netherlands, The Spanish Tragedy was first translated by the Dutch actor Adriaen van den Bergh, who worked in a mixed Anglo-Dutch strolling company. His Dutch version was entitled Ieronimo and printed, without any references to the English source or playwright, as a playlet by ‘A. vanden Bergh’ in Utrecht in 1620. In print, the Dutch version was also adopted in Amsterdam, where it became a repertory piece in the city’s Chamber of Rhetoric already in the 1620s. It remained a steady repertory piece in the decades afterwards, as the ONSTAGE database for theatre in Amsterdam shows, with an average of four performances per year in the 1640s, three in the 1650s and two in the 1660s.1111 The Amsterdam Schouwburg performances, dates and frequencies, as well as revenues, are digitally available in ONSTAGE, Online Data System of Theatre in Amsterdam from the Golden Age to the Present (chief editor Frans R. E. Blom); see ONSTAGE (http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/onstage/), s.v. Don Jeronimo. The Schouwburg version of The Spanish Tragedie was called Don Jeronimo, marschalk van Spanje and the way the title reads in the list for Lüneburg, including the subtitle ‘Marsalck in Spannien’, is a first piece of evidence that Treu adopted the play from Amsterdam.1212 First edition: [An.] Don Jeronimo, marschalck van Spanjens trevr-spel (Amstelredam: for J. Hartgersz., 1638). In 1626, English comedians performed a version of the play in Germany under the title of Tragoedia von Hieronymo Marschall in Spanien, see Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 637–8, dated Dresden Junius 28. More is found in a textual comparison. A strolling company’s manuscript entitled ‘Comoedia von Jeronimo Marschalck in Hispanien’, attributed by its modern editor Willi Flemming to the company of Prinzipal Michael Daniel Treu, changed the Dutch metre and rhymed verses into a prose text, while some parts have been left out to better fit the circumstances and capabilities of theatre on tour.1313 Jeronimo Marschalck in Hispanien, ed. W. Flemming. See also Rudolf Schönwerth, Die niederländischen und deutschen Bearbeitungen von Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy (Berlin: Felber, 1903). Textual overlaps, however, and, at points, even some Dutch colouring to the German wording leave no doubt that the source for Treu’s strolling company’s version was a print copy of the Schouwburg’s play text book.1414 Jeronimo Marschalck in Hispanien, 204-5: ‘Eine Reihe einfach unverständlicher Sätze [in the German version] werden erst klar, wenn man den holländischen Wortlaut heranzieht. […] Eine Bearbeitung durch einen Deutschen, der des Holländischen nicht recht mächtig war.’ German performances listed in Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffellung’, 505–6. The play listed as Piron auß Frankreich (Biron from France, no. 19) also derives from an English original, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron by George Chapman in 1608. It was adopted as a repertory play by Hendrik Roelandt in the Amsterdam Chamber of Rhetoric (Nederduytsche Academie) in the 1620s and 1630s. The Schouwburg introduced Biron in 1639 with nine performances, followed by a steady performance frequency of two shows per year. ONSTAGE, s.v. Biron. First edition: Biron treur-spel (Amsterdam: Cornelis Willemsz. Blau-Laken, 1629). . Vom Tito Antronico (no. 9) was known in Germany through performances by English strolling companies, and most scholars tend to relate Titus Andronicus entries in German repertories directly to Shakespeare’s play.1515 For example, Lukas Erne and Kareen Seidler in the preface to Early Modern German Shakespeare: Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet: Der Bestrafte Brudermord and Romio und Julieta in Translation (London/New York: Bloomsbury, The Arden Shakespeare, 2020), xiv–xvi. Amsterdam’s theatre, though, could have been the source: the Schouwburg version (1641), in which Jan Vos restyled an earlier Dutch adaptation made in an Anglo-Dutch company, ranked among the most popular repertory plays.1616 ONSTAGE, s.v. Aran en Titus. First edition: Jan Vos, Aran en Titus, of Wraak en weerwraak: treurspel (Amstelredam: printed by Dominicus van der Stichel for Aeltje Verwou wed. Balthazar van Dorsten, 1641). Although Vos’ play title Aran en Titus, referring to both antagonists, does not match Titus Antronicus in the list, the Dutch play too was generally referred to as Titus or Titus Andronicus in the first three decades of its Schouwburg life (Fig. 1).1717 See ONSTAGE, s.v. Aran en Titus, with references to Amsterdam’s theatre books. Only after 1678, was the name of the play structurally changed to ‘Aran en Titus’ by the administration. See also Helmer Helmers, ‘The Politics of Mobility: Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Jan Vos’s Aran en Titus and the Poetics of Empire’ in Bloemendal and Smith (eds.), Politics and Aesthetics, 344–72. The fact that Treu’s Titus Antronicus comprised, as the list explicitly states, eye-catching mise-en-scène (‘schöne außbildung’) might also hint at its Amsterdam provenance. The Schouwburg’s version would, indeed, present Shakespeare’s plot with spectacular additions, riveting the audience’s attention from the start with a pictorial tableau of Thamera, Queen of the Goths, arriving in Rome as a prisoner of war. Another distinct feature of the Amsterdam Titus was the gruesome confrontation between the Roman general and his opponent Aran in the final scene. A big fire on stage would slowly consume Aran as a part of Titus’ revenge; crying and begging for mercy Aran was roasted while Titus remained deaf to his pleas. Even though the revenge exacted in Shakespeare’s final act is horrible too, the sadism of Aran’s execution was a Dutch device fashioned to conclude the play with a notable spectacle; the scene was the play’s frontispiece in printed editions. For Lüneburg, it is hard to decide whether Treu’s recommendation of ‘schöne außbildung’ refers to these visual enhancements. Later performances in Germany, however, excited attendees by depicting ‘the Moorish Aran, who was grilled alive, with hands and feet in heavy chains hanging over a fire’.1818 ‘Aran der Mohr, so lebendig geschmauchet worden, an händen und füssen mit grossen ketten über ein Fewr hangent’, a visitor’s report at the Velten performance in Bevern, 1680, quoted from Junkers, Niederländische Schauspieler, 169. Such accounts reveal that the German performances followed the Dutch Schouwburg version of Titus Andronicus. Visual effects and enhancements like tableaux vivants or ‘vertoningen’ were frequent devices in Dutch drama performance.1919 George W. Brandt and Wiebe Hogendoorn, German and Dutch Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 338. Anna de Haas, ‘18 juni 1660: Prinses Mary en haar zoon Willem wonen in de Amsterdamse Schouwburg een voorstelling bij van het spel Beleg en ontset der Stadt Leyden: Vertoningen in toneelstukken in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw’, in Rob L. Erenstein (ed.), Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden: tien eeuwen drama en theater in Nederland en Vlaanderen (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996), 250–8. They were also added to plays imported from foreign traditions, which, indeed, can be noted from Alexander de Medicis, the other play in Treu’s list recommended for its mise-en-scène (no. 4, with ‘schönen praesentationen’). The Spanish comedia about the Medici dynasty was adapted to the stage tradition in the Amsterdam Schouwburg, with a tableau vivant in the final act representing the treacherous murder of the Duke of Florence by his own kin, as shown in the frontispiece (Fig. 2). The analysis of Treu’s list for Lüneburg has made it clear, thus far, that the German strolling company performed plays deriving not only from the English theatre tradition, but also from Amsterdam’s Schouwburg. Transnational sourcing is an essential feature of early modern German theatre, as it is for the re-pertory of Amsterdam’s city theatre. Since the Schouwburg collected plays from several European theatre traditions, much of the international complexity in German playlists such as the one by Treu can be explained from contacts with the Amsterdam theatre when considering the Schouwburg as a European theatre hub. From its opening in 1638, the Amsterdam Schouwburg established itself as a production powerhouse for dramas. The challenge of enhancing the repertory in the new public theatre offered opportunities to local talents: Joost van den Vondel’s career as a playwright skyrocketed when he produced Gijsbreght van Aemstel for the opening performance, followed by his popular Joseph trilogy.2020 ONSTAGE, s.v. Drie delen van Joseph. First edition: Joost van den Vondel, Joseph begrepen in drie treurspelen. Joseph in Dothan, Joseph in Aegypten, Joseph in ‘t hof (Amsterdam: Abraham de Wees, 1640). The first entry in Treu’s playlist, [H]istorie von der Stadt Jerusalem, does not relate to Vondel’s drama Hierusalem verwoest (1620); that was never staged in the Schouwburg. See also Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 506–7. The canonical super-status of Vondel has affected almost any study on early modern Dutch literature or theatre, including those on Dutch literature extra muros: see, for example, Karel Porteman and Mieke Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2008; www.dbnl.org/tekst/port004vade02_01/index.php), which exclusively features Joost van den Vondel in the concluding chapter ‘De muzen … onbegrensd’ on the transnational extent of Dutch literature (872–86). See also Guillaume van Gemert, ‘Between Disregard and Political Mobilization – Vondel as a Playwright in Contemporary European Context: England, France and the German Lands’ in Jan Bloemendal and Frans-Willem Korsten (eds.), Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679): Dutch Playwright in the Golden Age (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 171–98. The immense popularity of the series about the life of the biblical hero is reflected in Treu’s entry Stories of Joseph (no. 5), with a reference to the playwright as ‘a distinguished poet’ (‘vornehmen Poet’).2121 German performances listed in Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 510. A second Amsterdam-born play in Treu’s list is the ‘Parisian Wedding’, no. 12. Written by the Amsterdam poet Reyer Anslo, the Dutch play is entitled Parysche bruiloft, treurspel (Parisian Wedding, a Tragedy), Amsterdam, for A. Karels van Germez, 1649. The third production originating in Amsterdam in the list is ‘Von dem Tyrannischen Könnich Noron’ (The Tyrannical King Noron, no. 25), named after the protagonist King Noron in De veinzende Torqvatvs, treurspel (The Feigning Torquatus, Amsteldam, printed by Jacob Lescaille for Abraham de Wees, 1645) by Gerard Brandt. On this play, see Russ Leo, ‘Hamlet’s Early International Lives: Geeraardt Brandt's De Veinzende Torquatus and the Performance of Political Realism’, Comparative Literature, 68 (2016), 155–80. In addition to local creations, new repertory for the Schouwburg was also imported from theatre traditions outside the Netherlands. The international orientation as discussed here within the broader context of Dutch literature in a European connection, is a relatively underexplored aspect of the city theatre, but has come into focus in recent studies that explore the import routes from London, Spain, France and Brussels to Amsterdam and the way the foreign plays were adapted to the Dutch theatre practise and to the taste of the local audience.2222 There is a national focus in works of reference such as Porteman and Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland voor de muzen; Erenstein (ed.), Een theatergeschiedenis der Nederlanden, and in Elise Oey-de Vita and Marja Geesink, Academie en Schouwburg: Amsterdams toneelrepertoire 1617–1665, in collaboration with Ben Albach and R. Beuse (Amsterdam: Huis aan de drie grachten, 1983). The role of the Schouwburg as a European theatre hub is central in Frans Blom, Podium van Europa: Creativiteit en ondernemen in de Amsterdamse Schouwburg van de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam: Querido, 2021). As traced above, strolling companies from England furnished Amsterdam with popular revenge tragedies such as Don Jeronimo and Aran en Titus. Another source was theatre life in France. The Cid, for example, Pierre Corneille’s 1637 breakthrough piece in Paris, made its first move outside France to Holland.2323 First francophone edition in the Netherlands: Le Cid, tragi-comédie nouvelle, par le sieur Corneille (Leiden: Guillaume Chrestien, 1638). For the European circulation of the Cid, see the introduction to Le Cid, tragi-comédie, ed. Milorad Margitic (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1989), Arnold Arens, Zur Tradition und Gestaltung des Cid-Stoffes (Frankfurt am Main: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1975) and Christoph Rodiek, Sujet-Kontext-Gattung: Die internationale Cid-Rezeption (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990). Impressed by its superb literary qualities, the Amsterdam-born love poet and prolific translator of Latin, French and English literature Johan van Heemskerck, made a translation in Dutch rhymed alexandrines.2424 James A. Parente, Jr., ‘Romancing the Nation: History and the Origins of the Novel in the German Empire and the Netherlands’, Journal of Dutch Literature, 9 (2018), 4–21. It was a style experiment, though, intended neither for publication nor performance.2525 ‘Dese Cid […] had geen Duyts leeren spreecken om op een toneel de meester te komen maecken’, quoted from the authorised first edition: [Johan van Heemskerck], De verduytste Cid, bly-eyndend treurspel. (Amsterdam: Nicolaes van Ravesteyn, 1641), A2r. But as soon as a manuscript copy circulated beyond the translator’s control, the Cid was adopted in the Schouwburg repertory in 1641.2626 ONSTAGE, s.v. De verduytste Cid. Van Heemskerck took back control with his authorised publication entitled De verduytsche Cid (‘The Cid in Dutch’).2727 In the introduction to the authorised edition, Van Heemskerck writes that someone laid hands on a copy of his translation and published it, so that he could not prevent the work from becoming public (‘hy het onder de man komen van sijnen Cid niet en konde weêrhouden’, De verduytste Cid, A2r). The main source for new Schouwburg repertory was the popular comedia nueva of the Spanish theatre tradition. Some of the plays by Lope de Vega Carpio had made a modest appearance in Amsterdam earlier through the adaptations of Theodore Rodenburgh for the city’s Chamber of Rhetoric Eglentier.2828 Tim Vergeer and Olga van Marion, ‘Spain’s Dramatic Conquest of the Dutch Republic: Rodenburgh as a Literary Mediator of Spanish Culture’, De zeventiende eeuw, 32 (2016), 40–60. Now, with the crowds gathering in the Schouwburg, the comedias enabled a major expansion of the popular repertory that started in the mid-1640s. By 1655 nearly fifty percent of the theatre shows presented Dutch versions of Spanish plays.2929 See Frans R. E. Blom and Olga van Marion, ‘Lope de Vega and the Conquest of Spanish Theater in the Netherlands’, Prolope: Anuario Lope de Vega, 23 (2017), 155–77. Also Kim Jautze, Leonor Álvarez Francés and Frans R. E. Blom, ‘Spaans theater in de Amsterdamse Schouwburg (1638–1672): Kwantitatieve en kwalitatieve analyse van de creatieve industrie van het vertalen’, De zeventiende eeuw, 32 (2016), 12–39. The presence and popularity of Spanish drama in the Schouwburg’s seasonal offer was so overwhelming that Joost van den Vondel was overshadowed in his home theatre by ‘Madrid’s Apollo’, as the Dutch acclaimed Lope de Vega.3030 Frans R. E. Blom, ‘Enemy Treasures: The Making and Marketing of Spanish Comedia in the Amsterdam Schouwburg’, in Yolanda Rodríguez Pérez (ed.), Literary Hispanophilia and Hispanophobia in Britain and the Low Countries (1550–1850) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020), 115–44. The ranking list of Amsterdam’s popular plays over the period 1638–66 makes clear that plays from Spain successfully mixed with plays from England and France and local productions, and dominated the Schouwburg’s agenda.3131 Popularity list based on ONSTAGE, www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/onstage/analysis/?q=7&syear=1638&eyear=1666&rank%5B%5D=1 (visited Nov. 2020). Five entries in Treu’s demonstratio actionum make a notable cluster of materials that until recently has led scholars to claim that the German Prinzipal was an advocate of comedias from Spain. Ruth Gstach, for example, in her study on Die Liebes Verzweiffelung, which also includes repertoire inventories of German strolling companies, hails Treu as the first local champion of Spanish drama.3232 Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 643: ‘Als erster deutscher Prinzipal setzte er sich für die spanische Dramatik ein, spielte aber auch niederländische Barockdramen.’ This may be true in essence, but his company would have had no connection to the Iberian theatre tradition without Amsterdam: all Spanish entries mentioned are repertory plays in the Schouwburg. Moreover, Treu does not label them as Spanish plays. That is clear from the entry ‘Alexander de medicis’ (no. 4). The play, set in Medici Florence, was an adaptation of Diego Jiménez de Enciso’s Los Médicis de Florencia. While the Schouwburg play underscored its Spanish provenance and status as a translation, Treu, in contrast, recommends it for its theatrical qualities (‘schönen praesentationen’).3333 ‘uit het Spaansch overgezet’, quoted from the first Schouwburg edition, Alexander de Medicis, of 't bedrooge betrouwen, treurspel, trans. J[oan] Dullaart (Amsterdam: by Tymon Houthaak for Gerrit van Goedesberg, 1653), fol. A3r. ONSTAGE, s.v. Alexander de Medicis. Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s famous play La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream) is also present in Treu’s list. The first Dutch language version of the play appeared in Brussels in 1647 as Het leven is maer droom. The translation was done by an anonymous local playwright, named Schouwenbergh in most stu-dies, while Calderón’s name was detached from the play.3434 [Anon.], Het leven is maer droom, bly-eyndigh treur-spel, vertoont in de wonderlycke op-voedinghe van Sigismundus, Prince van Polen (Brussel: Jan Mommaert, 1647). Sullivan, Calderón in the German lands, 39–40. When itinerant actors from Holland subsequently took the translation to Amsterdam, it was republished there under the new title of Sigismundus, Prinçe van Poolen (1654).3535 ONSTAGE, s.v. Sigismundus. First edition: Sigismundus, Prinçe van Poolen, bly-eyndig treurspel (Amsterdam: for Jacob Vinkkel, 1654). German performances listed in Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 585–7. Adopted in the Schouwburg repertory, the anonymous Sigismundus became one of the theatre’s favourites, advertised for its Spanishness as the ‘pearl of all Spanish comedies’.3636 Blom ‘Enemy Treasures’, 138. It is significant that Treu, listing the play as ‘Von Sigismundo oder dem Tyrannißen Printz von Bolen’ (‘Of Sigismund, or The Tyrannical Prince from Poland’, no. 6) refrains from stressing its Spanishness. Moreover, the entry omits the element of ‘Life is a dream’ from the original Spanish title and the Brussels translation, while only using the Dutch title variant of Sigismund, Prince of Poland instead, thus following exactly the title of the first Amsterdam edition in 1654. The next item, ‘Von dem verwirrten Hoff’ (no. 7, Court in Confusion), is another Spanish comedia. El palacio confuso (The Palace in Confusion) was translated in Amsterdam and introduced on the Schouwburg stage as Verwarde hof in 1647.3737 ONSTAGE, s.v. Verwarde hof. First edition: [Attributed to Lope de Vega Carpio] Verwerde Hof, trans. Leon de Fuyter (Amsterdam: voor Johannes Jacot, 1647). De Fuyter’s verse translation was based on a prose translation by Jacobus Baroces. The Dutch translators did not know that the Spanish play was written by Antonio Mira de Amescua (1574–1644) and erroneously attributed it to Lope. One of the flagships of the Spanish vogue in Amsterdam, all Dutch print editions of Verwarde hof stress the foreign source and praise the quality of Spanish comedia in general. Moreover, they feature the name of the then-acclaimed author Lope de Vega prominently on the title page. In contrast, Treu does not mention the Spanish author, recommending instead the play for its ‘finely crafted text translated from Dutch’ (‘wohl gesetzten reden auß den hollendischen übersetzett’), which may be taken as a sign of the rising international status of the Schouwburg’s (imported) drama productions. Just as Spain was a unique selling point for theatre directors in the Netherlands, Dutch provenance, it seems, is an asset for Treu’s German company, even in the case of Spanish plays drawn from Amsterdam’s repertory.3838 German performances listed in Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 624–5. Another Lope de Vega play available to Treu through Amsterdam was El perseguido (The Pursued One, no. 17). Under the Dutch title of Casandra en Karel Baldeus, it had been introduced on the Schouwburg stage in 1642, detached from the Spanish author’s name. In keeping with Treu’s practice, it was anonymously listed for Lüneburg with the Schouwburg title variant of Carel undt Cassandra. ONSTAGE, s.v. Casandra en Karel Baldeus. The Dutch adaptation by Theodore Rodenburgh was first published in Amsterdam in 1617; the first Schouwburg edition was an emended fourth printing: Theodore Rodenburgh, Casandra hertoginne van Bourgonje, en Karel Baldevs, treur en bly-eynde-spel, 4th edition (Amsteldam, printed by N. van Ravesteyn for D.C. Hout-haeck, 1642). On Rodenburgh, see Nigel Smith’s article in this issue. Treu’s list also features Lope de Vega’s La fuerza lastimosa (The Lamentable Obligation). The entry ‘Der beklegliche zwanck’ (‘Lamentable Obligation’, no. 11) is the German rendering of the Dutch title De beklaaglyke dwang. The comedia about oppression, revolt and peace was adopted from Spain and produced and printed for Amsterdam’s theatre especially to suit the Peace of Westphalia celebrations in 1648.3939 ONSTAGE, s.v. De beklaaglyke dwang. First edition: [Lope de Vega Carpio] De beklaagelycke dwangh, bly-eindend treurspel, trans. Isaak Vos (Amsterdam, by Gillis Joosten for A. K. van Germez, 1648). How the play subsequently took shape on German stages can be learned from a unique manuscript version of the play now preserved in the Cologne historical archives.4040 Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln, Bestand 7020 Handschriften (W*), 303. The manuscript entitled Der beklägliche Zwang is signed with the initials H. C. R. and dated 1661, which does not seem related to Treu. See Carl Niessen, Dramatische Darstellungen in Köln von 1526–1700, Veröffentlichungen des Kölnischen Geschichtsvereins, 3 (Köln: Verlag des Kölnischen Geschichtsvereins, 1917), 108; Junkers, Niederländische Schauspieler, 171–6, and German performances listed in Gstach, ‘Liebes Verzweiffelung’, 633–4. Used in the praxis of an as yet unidentified Wandertruppe, the manuscript is packed with indicators of entrances, exits and other directional cues for the actors, while props, too, have more explicit descriptions than the play as printed in Amsterdam. But it leaves no doubt about the Schouwburg as its source. While events in Lope’s Spanish version take place in the wide geographical span between Barcelona and Ireland, the Dutch and German versions both center around the London royal court, Oxford and Bristol.4141 For Lope de Vega’s La fuerza lastimosa, see Obras completas de Lope de Vega, ed. Jesús Gómez, Vol. 8 (Madrid: Turner/Fundación José Antonio de Castro, 1994), 307–418. 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