The Horizons of theatrology

The lecture will be an insight into the methodological laboratory. It explores the possibilities of combining disparate or neglected historiographical approaches into a coherent whole. Drexler strives to find a method that would enable valid, reliable and at the same time holistic research of specific sources - theater reviews, manifestos or programs - of a certain cultural and artistic milieu. He is based on the belief that the most epistemically beneficial results are the focus on historical detail, which frees from predetermined interpretive schemes, allows to derive historical problems from specific findings and can bring corrections of "great historical narratives" or question the applicability of some theoretical concepts in a particular sociocultural environment. Based on the research probe, Drexler will present selected problems of the theatrical landscape of the Third Republic through journalistic reflections by Josef Träger. Jindřich Vodák's successor in Czech Word (Svobodné slovo since May 1945) and director of the Melantrich publishing house, personified the "ideal type" of theater criticism: a graduate of Václav Tille's theater seminar was educated in the history and theory of theater; he knew the European staging context and in his papers he related to current social problems. In the years 1945-1948, Träger's critical activity culminated, and therefore offered a multi-layered insight into the thinking about Czech theater at the time.

Otto Drexler works in the Cabinet for the Study of Czech Theater of the Institute of Arts - Theater Institute in Prague, where he participates in the project of the Czech Theater Encyclopedia. He is mainly engaged in research into Czech theatre criticism in the first half of the 20th century, and organized the estate of theatrologist and journalist Josef Träger at the National Museum. He is a doctoral student at the Institute of Czech History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. In proposing his dissertation on non-communist theatre criticism at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s, he deals with the methodology of biographical writing and the possibilities of discursive analysis.