Franz Pretz (1928-1999)

Franz Pretz (1928-1999)

(Senior teacher, retired; address: Prof.-Schnarrenberger-Straße 19, 74722 Buchen, Germany;= Tel. 06281-2236)

To the Amateur Theater in Glogowat= z

Teacher Franz Pretz (*1928, +1999), wh= o was special subject teacher for physics 1956-1972 and moreover principal 1956-1958 at the Glogowatzer elementary school, persistently supported the improvement of the old school buildings by the parents of his students, made our hometown school well-known due to the creation of a model physics laboratory introduced nationwide, (see our Glogowatz monograph, pp 500-502), took part in the cultural activity of the community by the building and leadership of an extremely successful group of amateur actors, in which he = took part as an author of dialect plays, stage manager and actor.

Franz Pretz wrote the account at hand (from the 18^th of May 1993) in his modest fashi= on only for documentation and not for publication. But now after Franz and also Theresia Pretz are deceased and a= lso none of the amateur actors are alive, this selfless group and its leadership deserve a place in our reflection on our native community Glogowa= tz. We, therefore, let our deserving t= eacher Franz Pretz have his say once more. His manuscript was transcribed and organized by Dr. Hans Gehl.

Summary Retrospect

In Glogowatz, German amateur theater had a tradition. My wife Therese and I came to Glog= owatz in 1956 as teachers, and in the first two years I also had to take on the leadership of the school. Alr= eady in these years, we took part in the stage productions of the teachers. The admission charges were used fo= r the repairs of the school building because for years the state put no mone= y at disposal for the repair of the school buildings. At that time, teacher Anton Porst,= born in Glogowatz in 1925, from whom I took over the leadership of the school, directed the amateur theater. After that, Anton Porst worked in Deutschsankpeter (Sî= npetrul German) until the outstanding educator was temporarily suspended from teaching for political reasons.

To thank the parents of our students and the village community during the repa= ir work and also to “bring in” (“e= inspielen” German play on words) the necessary money for additional work, we be= gan with the amateur theater; moreover, the teachers even had to perform the cultural work as well. We, th= at is the exceedingly industrious and conscientious teacher Sofia Hoffmann—w= ho lives in Saulgau, <= st1:country-region w:st=3D"on">Germany<= /st1:place> today—continued the work of teacher Porst. We took over a few amateur actors = from him, recruited others new, others again arrived on their own and remained w= ith our group.

In the year 1973, I left Glogowatz (daughter’s note: After attending a conference, Franz Pretz remained in the Federal Republic of Germany), but teacher Sofia Hoffmann and my wife (Mrs. Pretz resettled to Germany in 1974) continued the work. The theat= er group continued to exist until the mid 1970s. Sources for our stage plays were t= he German and Romanian literature, on top of that the customs and the events of the village community.

Our activity took place in the culture center, but it covered much more than the prescribed number of hours for cultural work of the teachers; particularly because of the shift work, we had to rehearse many an actor “in shifts” as well. But we= did that out of genuine enthusiasm and the wish to preserve and cultivate langu= age and national traditions. Human bonds which continued to exist up to the present arose from the stage play. When a member of the gr= oup fell into material or spiritual difficulty, it was natural that the group or individual members helped him.

Program Arrangement and Performances

The Glogowatzer amateur theater group appeared in 26 Banater villages: Altpau&s= hy;lisch (Păuliş), Altsanktanna (Komlosch= , Comlăus), Arad (in the culture palace and i= n the city theater), Baumgarten (Fakert, Livada), Blumenthal (Masloc), Deutschsanktpeter, Dr= eispitz (Segenthau, Şagu), Engelsbrunn (Fîntînele), Ferdinandsberg (Banater Bergland, Oţelu Roşu), Galscha (= Galşa), Glogowatz (Vladimirescu), Großsanktpeter (Sînpetru Mare), Guttenbrunn (Zăbrani), Wilagosch (Sch= iria, Şiria), Kreuzstätten (Cruceni), Neuarad, Neupanat (Horia), Neusanktanna (= Sîntana), Nitzkydorf (Nitchidorf), Pankota (Pîncota), Saderlach (Zădăreni), Sanktmartin (Sînmartin), Schönd= orf (Frumuşeni), Semlak (Semlac), Warjasch (Variaş), Wiesenhaid (Tisa Nouă).

Our group appeared 120 to 150 times during its existence; that no longer can be determined exactly. In one ye= ar at the start of the 1970s, we gave more than forty performances of the fa= mous “Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten” (Boa= rds which mean the world). A few members of the group still remember that, among them also the former mayor = of Glogowatz. That was at the ti= me when we still believed in a possibility of surviving as Germans or at least made ourselves believe such a possibility.

We performed works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Johann Nepomuk Nes= troy, Mihail Sebastian, and Ion Luca Caragiale and so forth, among them also a few plays written by me. We worked out the scripts for these events which took up the whole evening—in their final version—together with the amateur actors. The dialect was given great attent= ion; we fitted many folksongs and hit-songs into the program sequence of events. In most years in addi= tion, a cheerful Shrovetide play was given on the stage at carnival time. Our audience would have been very disappointed if we had not observed this rule.

It was an unspoken but consciously pursued goal to bring more of our people on= to the stage. In a year, there w= ere about one hundred persons, among them three-year-old children but also seventy-year-old women and men, whole families with child and grandchi= ld, all in the beautiful Glogowatzer traditional costume; all types of costume, Sunday and workday costumes were represented in our “Schwäbischen Jahresablauf in Glogowatz” (Swabian co= urse of a year in Glogowatz). Because of this event, we were attacked on the one hand and accused of nationalism = and chauvinism and other violations of guidelines in the cultural politics at t= hat time, on the other hand we later received a national prize for amateur actors for the conception and the artistic value of the event.

I remember that we were sworn at by the responsible cultural expert of the district because of the many couples dressed in traditional costume who mar= ched past on the stage: “The Germans already march again! We won’t put up with that.” The good man, ho= wever, could not prevent the audience—including the prominent political figures—from giving regular and long-lasting applause at the raising = of the curtain in the Arader state theater.&n= bsp; In this program, there was a scene in which the time-honored Glogowa= tzer marriage song was performed by our house orchestra. The lyrics could not be sung be&sh= y;cause it would not have conformed to the atheist upbringing striven for. This scene, however, was played wi= th so much dedication and genuine enthusiasm that the stagehands of the Arad= er Theater raised their hats and folded their hands during their pass by. And the ceremony of the “Drehen” (turning), an old benediction tradition, produced storms of applause in every performance. (See picture [from Helga Ritter on the Heimatbuch Glogowatz CD] and page 588, Glogowatz Heimatbuch.) Furthermore, that was not strange because in this program sequence of events, our people were not playing theater but depicted themselves, their = feelings, longings, hidden wishes and hopes but also their sorrow and their worries.<= /p>

In Glogowatz, we performed this program—each time with a full house—twice in dress rehearsal and after that in three performances so that about 1500 persons saw and admired this magnificent folklore event. And mark you, the cast was mostly shift-workers and belonged to the most diverse group of occupations. The readiness to act of the amateur performers, with whom we portrayed all the traditions from birth to death, = cannot be rated high enough. Here, o= ne can imagine how much time teacher (Sofia) Hoff= mann, teacher (Therese) Pretz, the band involved= and I myself invested in this program.

My God, how often I have—ten minutes before the start of every performance—first of all full of stage fright looked into the hall through a slit in the curtain, then pressed the hand of every member of the cast again and finally said the same again and again: “So! It is time! Take your places, breathe deeply, = we begin in three minutes...in two...in one...curtain up!”

Titles of Plays Performed

In the course of time, the theater group of the Glogowatzer culture center per= formed many stage plays, the most important of which I list: Der große Schachzug (The Big Chess Move), Eine stürmische Nacht = (A Stormy Nig= ht), Der verkaufte Großvater (= The Sold Grandfather), Der Weiberfeind (The Woman-Ha= ter), Mr macht sich halt Sorche (One Just Makes Himself Sorrows), Ferienspiel (Holiday Play= ), Unsr Franzl (Our Little Franz), Wenn am 13.ten auch noch Freitag ist (When Friday = Is Also on the 13^th), Parade der verlorenen Zeit (Parade of th= e Lost Time), Die richtichi Leit uffm richtiche Platz (The Right People at the Right Place), Der Lügner (The Liar).&= nbsp; And the series could be continued at your pleasure. Also a few especially well-received “colorful programs” deserve to be emphasized like: Das Glogowatzer Fernsehen (The Glogowat= zer Television), Fasching, Fasching... (Shrovetide, Shrovetide...), the already mentioned program Der Glogo= watzer schwäbische Jahresablauf, and Die Glogowatzer Wurschtsupp (The Glogowatzer Sausage Soup, see page 579, Glogowatz Heimatbuch).

Band and Glogowatzer Amateur Performers

        Usually, one of the good Glogowatzer bands supported us during our performances= . During excursions, they then playe= d at dances as well. They were pop= ular and regarded highly everywhere and that still applies here in Germany, too. In the intermissions, they ca= me forward as instrumental soloists and delighted our guests.

        To begin with it can be mentioned with the amateur actors that entire families took part in the theater group more than one and a half decades. There were vocational and high sch= ool students, female and male workers, craftsmen, intellectuals and housew= ives. Many of them worked in three shift= s in the Arader factories; therefore, partial rehearsals were fitted in. Mostly, there were full rehearsals= only on Sundays and holidays shortly before the performances.

        The “Künstlerinnin” and “Künstler” (female and male artists, i.e. performers; after Romanian “artist popular” “folk” or “amateur artist”; note by Hans Gehl) of our group were named: Dima, Dörner, Dumelle, Engelhardt, Gahala, Guth, Hack, Hartman= n, Höffler, Kern, Kessel, Klemens, König, Lock, Lowitz, Maier, Merle, Porst, Pretz, Reiss, Schilb, Seidl, Straub, Wieser an so forth. They all tried to perform as well = as they were able. Undoubtedly, = there were also outstanding talented people in our group who would also have fared honorably on every folk theater stage in Germany.

Motivation for the Amateur Play

        Why have we performed anyway? This question cannot be answered very simply, certainly not entirely. The pleasure one gets from the the= ater in itself probably was one reason as well. But not only because of this pleas= ure one gets from the play did we take the great burden on ourselves. First and foremost, we wanted̵= 2;for hours at least—to offer our compatriots pleasure and relaxation, want= ed to cheer them up for well-being, to stimulate family peace and peace with t= he neighborhood. Not only were c= heap effects, nasty and mean words done without, they were frowned upon. Scatological language and excessive crudeness had no place in our productions!= And we wanted in addition to speak and perform down from the stage in the hall in German, to cultivate and honor our threatened mother language a= nd the dialect particular to us. We had—even though jokingly—drawn up a special account statem= ent which actually was meant seriously: one hundred fifty performances times two hundred fifty spectators per performance times three hours..., that was more than one hundred thousand hours of pleasure and relaxation in which our compatriots were able to forget the everyday burdens. And we did everything without material advantages of any kind, only for the sake of moral reward.

        Who has as yet given his compatriots a greater reward than the Glogowatzer ama&= shy;teur actors? Big words—one c= ould think. But not big enough to appreciate that which a firmly placed group produced in the way of entry for its compatriots there. It sur= ely is unnecessary to mention that we were allowed to use nothing from the proceeds for the group; often, not even the transportation costs were fully offset.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> And all the same, we became richer= in the process, in the sense of the account statement drawn up.

Compromises with the State Politics

        One posed himself the question whether during our activity—seen from the political viewpoint—compromises have also been made. Admittedly, we had to do that. The proper honor must come to the truth. It would have been eas= ier if one had done nothing. One wou= ld have been able to save himself some trouble, which is true then and also now anyway. These compromises not= made are lazy and easy, but it is not thanks to them that one—until a short time ago—acknowledged the late emigrants coming from Romania to Germa= ny, that they have considerable knowledge of German, that they are able to sing many German folksongs, in every case more than in every other region of the German language area. And why= is that so? = Because we were able to add several songs, from the rich wealth of the body of Germ= an songs, to one song in honor of the party or in honor of the republic. Had we not done that, then we also= would not have been allowed to do the other.&nbs= p; Had we also not once performed a play from the “Kulturellen Wegweiser” (cultural guidebook; cultural periodical published in Bucharest, note by Hans Gehl), then also Nestroy and Lessing would have been forbidden= to us. Then we would also not ha= ve been allowed to bring our own play, in which we speak directly to the varie= ty of the problems of our people, onto the stage. It is simply like that, if one wan= ts to be honest.

An Appreciative Audience

        The success admitted that we were right. Indeed, one did not have to come to our performances in certain cases had an absence of the prominent political figures more likely been desired,= but one came to our performances and came with pleasure. Without exaggeration, it can be as= serted that in many villages we had a regular audience which expected and supported us, which felt spoken to by us since we meant a lot to them. In many villages before the leave-taking, there was even joint singing a long time, above all the old f= olk melodies. In the process, one grabbed each other by the hand, formed a large circle and sang for the fare= well “Kein schöner Land” (No Prettier Land) and “Wir wollen n= iemals auseinandergehen” (We never want to separat= e).

        It goes without saying that special interpersonal relations also existed betwe= en the members of the theater group. Name days and birthdays were celebrated together, just as one mutual= ly invited each other to the famous “Glogowatzer Wurschtsupp” which indeed was a special occasion for celebrating together. There was also joint celebrating at Shrovetide, on New Year’s Eve and during many other occasions wh= ich presented themselves. On= e also undertook joint excursions lasting several days to the mountains, thus to t= he East or West Carpathians or to the Banater Bergland (mountainous country south of Reşi#= 5;a; see Helga Ritter’s pictures.)

Special Events from the Life of the Amateur Theater Group

        The attitude of the responsible functionaries in the cultural division of the district people’s council, of the Arader city people’s council = and of the relevant party agencies was not constant. It depended on just which wind ble= w or sometimes also blew quite violently. Often, we had to be used as the signboard for the free development possibilities of the “national minority,” “nationali= ties living with” or of the “Romanian citizens with the German mother language.” Mostly, howe= ver, one took note of our lively activity with displeasure, anger and suspicion. But there were also times when one—outwardly—took no notice at all of our actions.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> We also admittedly knew in such pe= riods quite precisely that both in our own house and also during excursions = we were spied on. That, however,= we put up with reasonably calmly because in the late 1960s and at the start of= the 1970s (thus around the year 1970, note by Hans Gehl) we always had backing = to expect in teacher Franz Marz<= /b> from the district council of the working people of the German national= ity in Arad and also in Nikolaus Berwa= nger, the district council chairman in Temeswar if one wanted to attack us. And that was n= ot rarely the case.

=

        On the contrary, if one wanted to apply the brakes on us, one was not particul= ar in the choice of the brake blocks. Sometimes, quite thick clubs were indeed among those which one threw into our way. Looking back, i= t is almost incomprehensible to me how the members of our group disregarded that without talking about it a lot.

        Once, an excursion Engelsbrunn was planned, and we had looked around for a means = of transportation in good time. = The more poor than proper running order truck of the LPG (Landwirtschaftliche Productionsgenossenschaft, Agricultural Cooperative As= sociation of Producers) was supposed to take us to the neighbor village. Its driver already had helped us o= ut in a fix quite often, and for that we are obliged to thank him. We had borrowed the scenery and a = part of the wardrobe from the Arader state theater. (The inevitable “presents” for the bigger and smaller lender often had to be pa= id from one’s own pocket.) But because in this period one just did not like us and wanted to prevent our a= ppearance, shortly before the departure time already fixed weeks beforehand, the driver received another “non-postponable” task without informing us ab= out it. Thus, we waited and waite= d, but the truck promised to us did not come.

        In Engelsbrunn, all the ticket had been sold in the advance booking, and we we= re not able to accept unpunctuality at all.&n= bsp; Our men, who always abstained from the consumption of alcohol before the performance, already had a tendency to open the bottles brought along. I ran to the nearby po= st office and phoned to Engelsbrunn to call off the performance. The answer from Engelsbrunn went: “Altogether out of the question.&nbs= p; We will wait even if it lasts until midnight. We look forward to a few lovely ho= urs with you. Food and drink afte= r the performance are also taken care of!”

        By the time I came back, my men had washed down a good part of their anger—and not with water. Thereupon, I wanted to drop everything, but not so teacher Hoff= mann and my wife. They were capabl= e of it and stopped a truck on the street, promised the driver a tip and talked = him into the transportation. Beforehand, a shipment of livestock had been taken to the slaug= hter house by this “luxury vehicle”; it looked and also smelled accordingly. Scenery and prop= s were loaded quickly; we set off and arrived in Engelsbrunn considerably late.

        Before every scene, every member of the group had his particular tasks to carry out. Thus, I was not only dir= ector but also responsible for scenery construction, for stage arrangement and shifting scenery. Sofia Hoffmann looked after dress= ing and making-up the theater actresses and actors. In addition, she was the prompter = and a lot of still other things. In= a word: she was the good spirit of the group. My wife, in our performance a= t that time—it dealt with Lessing’s “Weiberfeind”—was among the actresses and was preoccupied with herself. At other times, she had to see that nobody “drowned” his stage fright before the performance. And since this time she did not do= that, it happened: Out of joy that we still had come after all, or even to play a practical joke on us, our colleagues from Engelsbrunn passed the bottl= es around.

        When then the curtain was pulled to the side, it became clear to Sofia Hoffmann = and me that this performance would go down in the history of our group. One of the actors strayed int= o the script of another, became nonplussed and then though out loud—well audible in the entire hall—“Na, das stimmt jetz net!” (Well, that’s not right now!) In the end, the performance still became a notable success anyway.

        To suppress our enterprise, one tried and also therewith to scare us from excu= rsions, one informed us that one has no heating fuel to warm the hall. We then left somewhat earlier= and took along our own fuel. Spec= tators also brought firewood from home, some was also contributed from the neighborhood of the culture center and so the temperature of the room = also became tolerable then. The interpersonal warmth was always present anyway.

Many Fitting Thanks

        In retrospect, I must thank my intrepid assistants, the teachers Hoffmann and Pretz, warmly that, in crucial situations, they summoned up the strength to persevere. Today, I believe that perhaps some= times without their support I would have given up. I also offer deep respect, complete affection and unlimited gratitude to all the young people, women and m= en who for so many years supported our good intention although very often that= was not at all easy.

        In the course of this, I must mention that a second theater group—that of the voluntary fire brigade—enjoyed great popularity in Glogowatz= in addition and contributed quite significantly to the lively theatrical = life in the community. Moreover, i= t was natural in the German classes of our school that every class trod in front = of the parents and relatives annually with a stage play or at least a bit. (See Hel= ga Ritter’s pictures.)

In Conclusion

        Finally, it would be noted that our theater activity began within the framework of t= he Glogowatzer school. Because we needed money to repair = the German school, to purchase roof tiles because the roofs were in need of repairs, our teachers lent their in any case small salary to the school leadership for many months so that lime, roof tiles and other building mate= rial could be bought. The theater = group of the German teachers then performed in front of the parents of the pupils, organized entertainment evenings for the parents and thus brought in money = with which finally the debts could be paid back. In this sense, theater acting can sometimes be a completely serious activity.

        As people who have supported the continued existence of our German schools according to their abilities, I quite particularly thank the Glogowatzer fe= male and male teachers, the parents and pupils for their understanding and their constant support of my efforts.

English Translation by George P. Bretträger (translator notations in red)