Max
Reinhardt: The Man and His Work
The
celebrated theater director Max Reinhardt, recognized in America primarily for
his elaborate productions of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream,
Werfel's The Eternal Road, and Vollmoeller's Miracle, was born in
1873 at Baden near Vienna, Austria and died in New York City in 1943.
Reinhardt's illustrious career takes on added significance because it coincides
with a major shift in the evolution of the modern theater: the ascendancy of
the director as the key figure in theatrical production. Reinhardt's reputation
in international theater history is secured by the leading role he played in
this transformation, as well as by his innovative use of new theater technology
and his endless experimentation with theater spaces and locales, which together
redefined traditional relationships between actor and audience.
Reinhardt
was born into modest circumstances and began his career as an struggling actor
in Vienna and Salzburg. In 1894 he was invited to Berlin by
Otto Brahm, director of the Deutsches Theater, where the young actor gained
critical acclaim for his convincing portrayals of old men. Eager to escape the
gloom and doom of naturalism, Reinhardt in 1901 co-founded an avant-garde
cabaret called "Schall und Rauch" (after an allusion by Goethe),
which perceptively satirized the fads and fashions of current literary and
theatrical practice and came to function as an experimental laboratory for the
future director. Soon renamed the Kleines Theater, this house featured
contemporary productions such as Gorky's Lower Depths, Wilde's Salome,
and Hofmannsthal's Electra. Reinhardt's reputation as a director was
firmly established by 1905, with his epoch-making production of Shakespeare's Midsummer
Night's Dream, a play which became his perennial favorite. In
the same year Reinhardt was chosen to succeed his former mentor as head of the
Deutsches Theater, which Reinhardt soon built into Germany's most celebrated stage. He
also opened an adjacent theater, the Kammerspiele, for more intimate chamber
productions. Utilizing the multi-faceted talents of his theater ensemble, he
started an acting school which for decades trained many of Germany's
leading actors and actresses in the practice of modern stagecraft. In addition
to his resident theaters, all private ventures, Reinhardt also maintained a
touring company that spread his fame from St. Petersburg
to London.
Within little more than a decade, this Viennese-Jewish immigrant had come to
occupy a position of preeminence in Imperial Berlin's cultural renaissance. During the
war years the Reinhardt stages maintained a feverish pace of theatrical
activity, including an ambitious Shakespeare cycle and several guest tours in
neutral countries. The opening of Poelzig's Grosses Schauspielhaus in 1919
allowed Reinhardt's instinct for the monumental free reign, particularly in
Shakespearean and classic Greek productions.
The
social upheaval that resulted from a lost war deprived Reinhardt of his pre-war
stature and much of his former audience, and he soon left Berlin
for Salzburg where, together with Richard
Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, he established the Salzburg Festival in 1920. From his recently
acquired chateau Leopoldskron, on which he lavished inordinate time and
resources, Reinhardt reestablished ties with the Austrian baroque and folk
theater traditions by presenting the medieval morality play Everyman on
the steps of the Salzburg Cathedral, Calderon/Hofmannsthal's Das Salzburger
Grosse Welttheater inside the splendid baroque Kollegienkirche, and (later)
Goethe's Faust in the old summer riding academy that had been
transformed into a medieval village. Reinhardt's American debut came in 1924
with The Miracle, a pantomime whose great success led three years later
to a triumphant guest tour featuring a medley of new and old theater classics.
"The Professor" also refurbished his reputation at home with
memorable performances of Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters in his
lavishly restored Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna
and the newly built Komoedie playhouse in Berlin. Forced
by the Nazi government to relinquish all his German theaters in 1933, Reinhardt
traveled to England, then America the following year to stage A Midsummer
Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl and direct a film version (with
unlimited budget) for Warner Brothers. Schloss Leopoldskron and his remaining
property in Austria
was seized during the Anschluss in 1938. After emigrating to the United States,
Max Reinhardt and his actress-wife Helene Thimig divided their time between
east and west coasts. American theatrical activities included a workshop for
stage, screen and radio in Hollywood, a California Festival on the Salzburg
model, several film projects (never carried out), and the beginnings of a
promising repertory theater in New York, which fostered collaboration with
up-and-coming playwrights like Thornton Wilder and Irwin Shaw. Shortly after
his seventieth birthday - he was working on the Meilhac/Halevy/Offenbach
operetta Helen Goes to Troy at the time - Max Reinhardt died of a stroke
in New York's
Gladstone Hotel. His passing was commemorated by a memorial
concert at Carnegie Hall and a death mask.
His cremated
remains are interred in nearby Hastings-on-Hudson.
Max
Reinhardt's prestige in theater history largely rests on his transformation of
the role of modern theater director from general manager to aesthetic
experimenter and coordinator. His genius and importance as a director is
further illustrated by collaborations with some of the leading actors,
playwrights, designers, and composers of his time. During a distinguished and productive
career, Max Reinhardt amply demonstrated his commitment to artistic
experimentation and the revelry of imagination and creation.
Created September 26, 2000; Revised September
17, 2001