What Effect Can a Good Permanent Theatre Actually Achieve? (1785)

Abstract

In his so-called Schaubühnenrede [theatre speech], Schiller presents his theory of the theatre as a public medium: as one of the most important stately institutions, comparable to religion and the law but ultimately more effective than both. Theatre educates, it enables the audience to understand themselves and others, it is a place both for political criticism and for the formation of a national spirit. Ultimately, the theatre is the place where the human can feel its own humanity and from where an egalitarian society can begin. With regard to the development of Schiller’s philosophical thoughts, we find in his theatre speech a first presentation of the “mittlerer Zustand” [middle state], later elaborated in his so-called Aesthetic Letters.