11. Reigen
box 18/1
LIFE, LETTERS,
veteran Reinhardt, once himself an
innovator, who is now following suc¬
cessfully the methods that won him
fame before the war.
Reinhardt’sproductionsatthe Grosses
Schauspielhaus are on an heroic scale.
The theatre was constructed for him by
Professor Poelzig, who made over the
old Cireus Schumann ito a kind of
modern Greek theatre. Three quarters
of the vast amphitheatre is given over
to the audience, and the last section of
the circle is transformed into an enor¬
mous stage in several tiers, while the
old ring of the circus is used as a pro¬
jectionof the stage among the audience
reaching farther forward than even
the old proscenium stage. Here battles
are fought, here processions form, and
across these tiers storm the mobs in
Julius Cesar.
By making use of the unusually large
space at his disposal and employing
supers in numbers unheard-of upto this
time, Reinhardt has secured extraor¬
dinary effects, which have been at their
best in some of the Shakespearean
productions, where processions, mob
scenes, and battles are hard to make
effective in an ordinary theatre. While
engaged in the Grosses Schauspielhaus,
Reinhardt has also been busy with pro¬
ductions of less magnitude but equa
interest in the Deutsches Theater, the
scene of his earlier triumphs and ex¬
periments.
The former Royal Theatres, now the
State Theatres, whose productions were
once the embodiment of everything
bourgeois, have turned over a new leaf.
Max von Schillings has assumed direc.
tion of the Opera, and Leopold Jessner
of the Theatre. The staging in both
has been entrusted to Emil Pirchan, a
Munich artist who, though young,
is already famous. Pirchan outdoes
Gordon Craig in his uncompromising
struggle for simplicity. He reduces his
stage pictures to the least possible
121
AND THE ARTS
number of elements. A wall with a door
in it, a flight of stairs, and some cur¬
tains, a couple of pillars — these suffice
to give his productions broad back
grounds of massive color, with which
the costumes of the actors are brought
into harmonious contrast. Craig’s most
ruthless simplifications seem elaborate
when compared with Pirchan’s stage
pictures. The contention, long ad¬
vanced by theatrical rebels, that poetic
and literary as well as the strictly
dramatic values, affect the audience
more powerfully when there is nothing
to catch the eye or divert the atten¬
tion, receives abundant justification in
this work.
The success of these revolutionary
ideas is helped along by the financia
situation in Germany, for Pirchan's
settings have merits other than artistic.
They can be built very cheaply; and
since the German producers must now
economize in every direction, Pirchan
is in high favor among them. For once
poetry and profit walk hand in hand.
Catholicity of taste, the preéminent
characteristic of German audiences
before the war, is as marked as ever.
The German classics, the younger Ger¬
man piaywrights, classics of France,
England, Russia, and Sweden, and a
fair number of the modern dramatiste
of many of these countries, receive
almost equal honors. There has been
no delay in reviving the Shakespearean
productions, which have been for many
years among the most significant Ger¬
man contributions to theatrical art.
The large and beautiful People's
Theatre, which in 1918 passed mto the
lands of Friedrich Kayssler, has pro¬
Juced Schiller’s Wallenstein's Tod, and
the State Playhouse has produced his
Maria Stuart and Wilhelm Tell, as well
as Goeches Torquato Tasso. The
tendency to rant, which was the bane
of the German classical stage before
1914, has almost disappeared under
box 18/1
LIFE, LETTERS,
veteran Reinhardt, once himself an
innovator, who is now following suc¬
cessfully the methods that won him
fame before the war.
Reinhardt’sproductionsatthe Grosses
Schauspielhaus are on an heroic scale.
The theatre was constructed for him by
Professor Poelzig, who made over the
old Cireus Schumann ito a kind of
modern Greek theatre. Three quarters
of the vast amphitheatre is given over
to the audience, and the last section of
the circle is transformed into an enor¬
mous stage in several tiers, while the
old ring of the circus is used as a pro¬
jectionof the stage among the audience
reaching farther forward than even
the old proscenium stage. Here battles
are fought, here processions form, and
across these tiers storm the mobs in
Julius Cesar.
By making use of the unusually large
space at his disposal and employing
supers in numbers unheard-of upto this
time, Reinhardt has secured extraor¬
dinary effects, which have been at their
best in some of the Shakespearean
productions, where processions, mob
scenes, and battles are hard to make
effective in an ordinary theatre. While
engaged in the Grosses Schauspielhaus,
Reinhardt has also been busy with pro¬
ductions of less magnitude but equa
interest in the Deutsches Theater, the
scene of his earlier triumphs and ex¬
periments.
The former Royal Theatres, now the
State Theatres, whose productions were
once the embodiment of everything
bourgeois, have turned over a new leaf.
Max von Schillings has assumed direc.
tion of the Opera, and Leopold Jessner
of the Theatre. The staging in both
has been entrusted to Emil Pirchan, a
Munich artist who, though young,
is already famous. Pirchan outdoes
Gordon Craig in his uncompromising
struggle for simplicity. He reduces his
stage pictures to the least possible
121
AND THE ARTS
number of elements. A wall with a door
in it, a flight of stairs, and some cur¬
tains, a couple of pillars — these suffice
to give his productions broad back
grounds of massive color, with which
the costumes of the actors are brought
into harmonious contrast. Craig’s most
ruthless simplifications seem elaborate
when compared with Pirchan’s stage
pictures. The contention, long ad¬
vanced by theatrical rebels, that poetic
and literary as well as the strictly
dramatic values, affect the audience
more powerfully when there is nothing
to catch the eye or divert the atten¬
tion, receives abundant justification in
this work.
The success of these revolutionary
ideas is helped along by the financia
situation in Germany, for Pirchan's
settings have merits other than artistic.
They can be built very cheaply; and
since the German producers must now
economize in every direction, Pirchan
is in high favor among them. For once
poetry and profit walk hand in hand.
Catholicity of taste, the preéminent
characteristic of German audiences
before the war, is as marked as ever.
The German classics, the younger Ger¬
man piaywrights, classics of France,
England, Russia, and Sweden, and a
fair number of the modern dramatiste
of many of these countries, receive
almost equal honors. There has been
no delay in reviving the Shakespearean
productions, which have been for many
years among the most significant Ger¬
man contributions to theatrical art.
The large and beautiful People's
Theatre, which in 1918 passed mto the
lands of Friedrich Kayssler, has pro¬
Juced Schiller’s Wallenstein's Tod, and
the State Playhouse has produced his
Maria Stuart and Wilhelm Tell, as well
as Goeches Torquato Tasso. The
tendency to rant, which was the bane
of the German classical stage before
1914, has almost disappeared under