The Bandmann Circuit: Theatrical Networks in the First Age of Globalization

Abstract

This article examines a theatrical network, the Bandmann Circuit, managed by Maurice E. Bandmann in the first two decades of the twentieth century as a form of globalized theatre. It asks why this kind of transnational theatrical activity has received so little scholarly attention and proposes utilizing actor-network-theory as a means to make the complex connectivity of such enterprises visible. The first section of the article discusses the concept of early globalization, roughly the period from 1860 to 1914, as a period having many parallels with our own time. The second part discusses actor-network-theory as a theatre-historiographical method, which is then applied to selected nodes of the Bandmann Circuit, in particular repertoire, audiences and the use of local partners as examples of a much more multiaxial undertaking.