The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Play by Paul Ernst
Performance by the Berlin Dramatic Society

Gabriel Finne's one-act play "The Owl", which was performed by the Dramatische Gesellschaft on March 27, draws rare, enigmatic moods of the soul with bold strokes. The plot is simple, almost everyday. A man has seduced his friend's wife and destroyed her happiness. The adulterer has also wreaked havoc in his own home. Because his kind, sweet wife is deeply troubled by her husband's infidelity. If such a story happened to ordinary everyday people, it would be of little interest. But here the seducer is a nature whose experiences are transformed into the most terrible confusions of the soul. The memories of sins committed are transformed into evil spirits in his delusional fantasy. The hallucinations of a man suffering from his guilt become dramatically figurative.

In the first part of his drama, Finne prepares us for the end in dramatic conversations full of the finest nuances of color. The delusion of the betrayed friend appears as the sinner's persecutor in the flesh. The mysterious owl calls in the lonely fjord regions have spoken to his conscience and transformed themselves into the avenging voice of the friend, who steps before him and will not rest until the criminal of friendship has himself put an end to his cursed existence.

The masterfully staged performance must have made a deep impression on the audience. Eduard von Winterstein portrayed the sinner torturing himself to death with all the power of his effective art and Elise Steinert excellently portrayed his wife in her subtle, often ingenious manner.

No less interesting was the short drama "Lumpenbagasch" by Paul Ernst, which followed on from "Eule". Rag milieu, rag mentality, rag fate cannot easily be brought to the stage more naturalistically than Ernst has done. Luise Kramer is an amiable, naïve village girl who follows her nature, which is precisely why she gives birth to an illegitimate child every now and then. The village mayor is a man concerned with the welfare of his community. Why shouldn't he couple the poor Kramer to the drunken rag Arendt, who can be happy if the community gives him twenty thalers for taking the mother of five to his home in the poorhouse, which consists of a worry chair. But to let the twenty thalers flow to the neighboring town where Arendt lives: the brave village mayor is not that stupid. The village tailor is to make the bridegroom a fine wedding suit for the aforementioned thalers, so that the money remains in the community. Under such circumstances, however, it seems better for the bride and groom to continue to provide for the procreation of mankind without the blessing of the village schoolmaster.

Paul Ernst proved to be an excellent characterizer. The village poor with many children, the alcoholic Arendt, who honestly fulfilled his military duties in 1870, the village schoolmaster and the tailor who takes care of the wedding decorations are all well drawn. Emma Sydow as the village pauper, Max Reinhardt as the schoolteacher, Seldeneck as the town pauper, drunkard and forced bridegroom all made notable contributions.

Drama by Johannes Schlaf
Performance by the Berlin Dramatic Society

It was a beautiful and important task that the Berliner Dramatische Gesellschaft set itself with the performance of Johannes Schlaf's new drama "Gertrud". The artistic style of this poet is expressed most perfectly in this work. It therefore displays all the merits and shortcomings of this style in the most pronounced way. I will talk about the drama and the performance in more detail in the next issue. For today, I will only mention the fact that the impression on the majority of the members of the company was strong and favorable.

Our modern literary critics never tire of claiming anew every day that naturalism has been overcome. And those who only a short time ago praised it as the only salvific gospel of the present are now singing its funeral dirge every hour. Gerhart Hauptmann is taking a different path, having created a work worthy of admiration for the purity with which the principle is translated into reality in "Florian Geyer" of the naturalistic movement. But the real prophet of the movement, the master of the successful student Gerhart, has remained true to the old flag as a playwright. He proved this with his latest creation "Gertrud". This dramatic poem is the mature fruit of naturalism - perhaps the most mature we have. All the merits and all the shortcomings of this style are expressed in it in the sharpest possible way. Drama should be a faithful reflection of life - that is what naturalism demands. The dramatic characters should not speak or do anything that real people in the time in which the drama is set would not do and speak. Gertrud" plays for an hour and a half. Not a word, not an action is perceived that would not be heard and seen in the "spacious room" in the seaside resort on Rügen, which is represented by the stage, if one could see through the walls into the real room. The deepest conflicts of the soul take place inside the characters as they speak and act. The actions and words spoken are only a faint indication of these conflicts. It is the same in real life. What do we learn about a person's character when we watch his goings-on for an hour and a half? Little or nothing at all. That is why playwrights have always sacrificed the immediate truth of nature. They have condensed into a short time what in reality is far apart. They let the characters say and do in a few hours what they actually speak and do over a long period of time. They want to give us the truth of a whole and therefore sacrifice the truth of the individual. It is true that in every word, in every action, the whole person is expressed. Once you have recognized the whole personality, you will find it in every single expression of life. But it is no less true that we do not recognize the whole man in every expression of life, that we cannot construct his whole being from every detail. The dramatists of the older school do not demand this of us. They present us with whole people and completed actions as if on a platter. Johannes Schlaf does it differently. He only presents the individual and leaves us to guess the whole. He makes greater demands on our powers of comprehension than other playwrights. We have to suspect everything deeper that underlies the drama. Just as we have to suspect it in reality if we do not observe people and events over long periods of time. We are expected to have a kind of vision. Just as life itself is only an indication of its sources, so is a drama by Johannes Schlaf. One could say that this is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of art. For it is supposed to depict in the outer image what in reality is only revealed to the spirit looking through the outer shell. I don't want to fight this point of view. Those who only want to see art that takes this standpoint may reject Johannes Schlaf. I cannot do that. For me, it is of the utmost interest to see how an artist who does not make himself a designer, but a faithful re-creator, reproduces a piece of reality. And this fidelity is of unspeakable perfection.

A tragedy rich in content cannot take place in an hour and a half. But a plot can take place that has an infinitely tragic background. And that is the case here. A woman with an unclear longing for something that she herself does not know, with needs that are unclear to her, is married to a complacent, well-behaved philistine who knows no longing, only contentment with his bourgeois life and who knows no needs that the most ordinary everyday life could not satisfy. The woman's nervous haste and restlessness is the necessary psychological-pathological result of her unsatisfied longing for life. No one around her understands her. The usual opinion that people have of their own kind is personified in the drama by Uncle Lorenz, a philistine who differs from Gertrud's husband only in the way that older and fatter people usually differ from him.

people usually differ from younger and leaner ones. In Albrecht Holm, an exceptional nature confronts Gertrude. A man who once absorbed European culture, but who later developed into a free, self-reliant person in simple, natural conditions in the far West. He cannot bear Europe because its complicated social conditions make people dependent and unfree in a thousand ways. He has found what Gertrude has only a vague longing for: complete freedom and detachment from oppressive circumstances. The sight of him has an infinitely distressing effect on her; she begs him to go away so that he does not constantly present her with a happiness that she must do without. He leaves, and she goes on living with her Philistine. This is not a drama, but a tragic conflict. A real dramatist would have sucked everything out of this conflict that could be sucked out of it. Johannes Schlaf is too chaste an artist for that. He presents the conflict delicately and with the kind of renunciation of noisy consequences that even nature does not love in the majority of cases.

The performing artists have been given a difficult task with this drama. They have solved them in a thankful way, as was possible under the given circumstances. Eduard von Winterstein, who so willingly and repeatedly placed his talents at the disposal of the Dramatische Gesellschaft, played the taciturn Holm with the restraint that one must demand from the actor of a man who conceals a soft interior in a harsh outer personality with little content. And Marie Frauendorfer tried to make the unclear nature of Gertrud, so difficult to grasp in words and gestures, comprehensible with all the means of her rich talent. She succeeded to a high degree.

A scene by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Performance by the Freie Bühne, Berlin

The wise Pythagoras believed that the planets in celestial space produce a wonderful harmony through their movements, which one does not hear because one is accustomed to it. Imagine the ear suddenly opened to this music! How different the world would seem to us! What would happen in our soul if the sound of the planets had an effect on it! Such thoughts come to mind when confronted with Hugo von Hofmannsthal's art. He allows harmonies to emerge from things that surprise us, as if the planets were suddenly sounding together. He seems to me to be gifted with an infinitely delicate soul, with finely organized senses; and what he tells us about the world mostly escapes us because habit prevents us from hearing it. Hofmannsthal pays no attention to the coarser aspects of the world; the finer things are therefore revealed to his mind. He allows the prominent features in the phenomena that occupy people in ordinary life to recede; but he brings out the secret beauty that otherwise recedes. There is an infinitely endearing arbitrariness in his view of the world. In the "scene" referred to here, there is little of the rough, sharp lines with which playwrights usually depict life. Madonna Dianora awaits her lover; the man kills her because of her infidelity. This plot is poor and pale. But beneath the surface, as it were, it harbors a wealth of beauty. Hofmannsthal cuts away the surface and reveals the finest branches of inner beauty. His way of looking at things is like listening to a speaker and not listening to the meaning of the speech, not listening to the content of the words, but only to the sound of the voice and the music that lies in his language. It is understandable that this kind of performance cannot be perfectly realized with the means of our stagecraft. Despite the effort Louise Dumont put into the role of the Madonna Dianora, the Freie Bühne performance was therefore not very satisfying.

Play in three acts by Björn Björnson
Performance at the Deutsches Theater, Berlin

Björn Björnson is, as can be seen from his play "Johanna", a complicated personality. Firstly, he is a clever man who lacks the power with which real poets create. That is why he has a good understanding of an interesting problem that is in the air, but he cannot develop this problem so dramatically that one likes to follow him. Secondly, he is a man who understands stage routine and who could therefore write a good "play" if he wanted to exercise this ability, but at the same time he wants to be a distinguished artist. That's why his play hovers in the middle between "theater product" and work of art. Thirdly, he is a man who wants to be a free spirit, but who is only capable of replacing old prejudices with new ones. That is why he paints the bearers of outdated opinions as black as possible. And finally, fourthly, he is the bearer of a famous name. That's why his play is performed on stages that would hardly have bothered with it if it had been written by a common miller.

I'm sorry about the problem. Johanna Sylow is a talented girl who will probably go far in the musical arts if she can develop freely according to her talents. Her father is dead. Although he was a simple master carpenter, he had a rare love of art and a musical sense. He passed both on to his daughter. But she also received another heirloom from him, namely a groom. At the hour of his death, she had to promise him that she would seek her happiness in marriage to the theologian Otar Bergheim, for the caring father was of the opinion that he could die in peace, knowing that his beloved child would be under the protection of this faithful soul. Johanna now lives in a house with her mother, the widow Sylow, with her two siblings Hans and Johann, with her bridegroom and an old uncle. A bright future as an artist seems to be her "inner destiny". But how is she to reach her goal? Her mother is naturally stupid and understands nothing of her daughter's talents. The brothers are naughty wranglers who are always bickering and fighting and making such an unholy racket that Johanna can't work. The bridegroom is a good theologian who is determined to keep the promise he made to Johanna's father on his deathbed. He wants to be a firm support for Johanna in life, but he also wants to feel a little of that without which a love affair is not really possible: a kiss or something similar here and there. But Johanna lives too much in her artistic dreams to have time for such things. Moreover, the good theologian cannot bear his bride's artistry. He is constantly tormented by the thought that she will roam the world as an artist, while he, as a priest, must be pining for her somewhere. These two natures do not belong together; yet they seem to be chained together by the will of the deceased. What is to become of Johanna? A fine task for a true poet would be to show the terrible struggles the girl goes through until she is strong enough on her own to break the vow she has made to her father, or until she perishes because she is unable to do so. Björnson does things differently. Hans Sylow, the good uncle, fully understands his talented niece and does everything he can to pave the way for her to become a free artist. At the right time, Peter Birch, the impresario, is also there to take care of business matters, and Sigurd Strom, the poet with the free outlook on life, who raves to the girl about what lies dormant in her and what she is called to do - finally, to ensure that everything goes smoothly, a good friend who provides temporary accommodation when the good uncle, the rapturous poet and the clever impresario have brought the budding artist to the point where she runs away from her bridegroom.

The audience is shamefully deceived. He is promised an interesting conflict of the soul: he has to make do with an uninteresting plot and with people who are too insignificant to captivate us with the psychological conflicts that the poet wants to portray with them.

In addition to all this, the performance in the Deutsches Theater did not meet the expectations with which one goes to this house. Only Emanuel Reicher played Uncle Hans with the humor in which the role is intended. Lotti Sarrow seems to have none of the things that actors have to bring to their profession. The girl the poet had in mind is interesting - the girl he drew is less interesting - the girl Lotti Sarrow portrays is the least interesting.

Play by William Shakespeare
Performance at the Lessing Theater, Berlin

On September 1st, the Lessing Theater brought us the first performance of Otto Neumann-Hofer's new management. "King Henry V" by Shakespeare was performed. The performance was a theatrical event of the first order. And I will come back to it in the next issue. Today I would just like to say that it was a merit of the new director to present Shakespeare's interesting work, which has not been performed in Berlin for a long time, and that the performance was an exemplary directorial achievement. A remarkable contribution to solving the question: how should Shakespeare be brought to the stage today?

In his book "William Shakespeare", Georg Brandes says that "Henry V" is not one of the poet's best, but one of his most endearing plays. One need only look at the way Shakespeare has drawn the main character of the drama, and one will agree with this judgment. After the second sentence that this king speaks, he already begins to become sympathetic to us; and we have the feeling that we will follow him in sorrow and joy. May he develop before us as a great man: we will rejoice that a charming personality is great; may he perish from his own incapacity: he will earn our pity, but not lose our love. He was not an ascetic as long as he was crown prince; but he immediately bids farewell to frivolous activity and makes strict regal duty his goddess when the crown adorns his head. The poet compels us to love this man. Because he loved him himself. And unmistakably he shows us that he wanted to say: a true king speaks like this: that he is a man like all others, that the firmament appears to him like all others, and that his senses are under the general human conditions.

"Putting aside his ceremonies, he appears in his nakedness only as a man, and though his inclinations take a higher impetus than those of other men, yet when they sink they sink with the same fittich." (Act IV, 1)

This is how this king appears when we look at his heart; if we look at his mind, he is no less important. The Archbishop of Canterbury says of him:

"Only hear him speak of godliness,
And, full of admiration, you will wish
Inwardly do wish the king were prelate;
Hear him negotiate matters of state,
You will believe that he studies only that;
Listen to his war talk, and horror
Battles you hear recited in music.
Bring him to a case of politics,
He will untie the same Gordian knot,
Confidential as his knee-band; when he speaks,
The air, the uncommitted libertine, is silent." (Act I, 1)

I believe that in this Henry, Shakespeare wanted to portray a king of whom he could say: such shall be the head of state under whom I am glad to be an English subject.

The events of the drama are pure history. Without dramatic tension and without an inner driving force that sweeps from scene to scene. Dialogue is used to tell how Heintich sets out to conquer the throne of France, how he achieves his goal after many adventures of war and how he brings the Frankish king's daughter home. All this is richly interspersed with scenes in which Shakespeare's gift for drawing people and portraying the character of entire classes of people is revealed in the most beautiful way. When characters, such as the Valaisan Fluellen, tell us about things that have nothing to do with the progress of the plot, we are happy to listen. For a moment we realize that we are only watching scenes strung together; but we abandon all preconceptions about the drama when we are so captivated against all the rules.

And in another sense Shakespeare shows himself to be an amiable poet in this play. The modesty with which he lets his "Chorus" speak about the relationship between life, action and poetry is a remarkable trait in the most influential poet who ever lived. The Chorus speaks to the audience:

"But forgive me, dear ones,
To the weak, shallow spirit that dared,
To bring upon this unworthy scaffolding
Such great reproach." (Prologue)
and
"Therefore, high and low,
See how unworthiness may mark him, The light demolition of Henry in the night.
Thus to the meeting our scene must fly,
Where we (O shame!) shall disfigure very much With four or five ragged, dirty blades,
Ill-arranged to ridiculous bellows,
The name of Agincourt. But sit and see,
Thinking the true, where its simulacrum stands." (Act IV, 1)

There is great wisdom in such sentences. Great art shows itself the right place in relation to life. Small art all too often wants to elevate itself at the expense of life and assign itself a position that it does not deserve.

"Henry V" is a drama from which we get to know Shakespeare, the man, in all his amiable greatness. In it, he has said what he, as an Englishman, wants a king to be, and he has also told us how he thought about the relationship of his art to life.

Of course, the drama cannot be performed today as it has been handed down as Shakespearean. On September 1, the Lessing Theater delivered a performance that meets all the requirements of modern theatrical art. Of course, art pedants also have a lot to criticize about this performance. And you don't even have to be an art pedant to agree that today we can tolerate more Shakespeare than Dingelstedt left out. I would like to say to the director of the theater: via Dingelstedt back to Shakespeare. And above all: why such monologues as those delivered by the inconsiderable fellow who serves Nym, Bardolph and Pistol?

No matter how bad the criticism is! Some praise it; others write that they can't tell Shakespeare's Henry from Wildenbruch's because they closed their eyes and put their hands over their ears in the Lessing Theater on September 1st. When I read one of the reviews by one of these ragers who covered his ears, I laughed; for I have every respect for the gentlemen who put on the performance on September 1st; but the good Shakespeare is not easy to botch up so badly that one needs to cover one's ears.

Drama in three acts by Georg von Ompteda
Performance at the Lessing Theater, Berlin

This play is one of those plays that can only be enjoyed if one has a point of view in the field of social life that corresponds to that of the parochial politician in public affairs. A certain degree of philistinism is required if the conflicts involved are not to be perceived as too insignificant for a play lasting over two hours. Viktor Schröter is one of those better philistines who "enjoy their youth" and, when they have enjoyed it enough, sail into the harbor of a marriage that would please even the strictest pastor. But as the little ship approaches safe land, a somewhat unpleasant rumor spreads around it. The debt-ridden Viktor needs a dirty fellow to pay his taxes, the matchmaker Suberseaux, who introduces him to the orphaned millionaire Hedwig, who is limping on one leg. The brave matchmaker receives a commission in return, which Schröter hands over from his captured wife's money. The marriage is a happy one. Schröter gradually falls in love with his Hedwig, as if he had not bought her and as if she had not brought millions into his house. She is the "ideal" of a woman. She has fallen in love at first sight, for that is how true love must express itself. She has no idea how Viktor has fallen in love with her and believes that she would be eternally unhappy if a man had taken her for her money. This distresses Viktor, who has become so well-behaved, and he always wants to confess his "secret". In order for there to be a dramatic conflict, this must not go easily. The long-gone matchmaker has to reappear. He comes back to the house because he needs money again. Some kind of sleazy story forces him to quickly flee to America. Viktor is supposed to give him the money if he wants to prevent the wretched fellow from disturbing the happy marriage and bringing to light how to become a happy husband. But Viktor, as I said, has become a good boy, and he shows the fortune-bringer the door. He wants to confess anyway. But such fortune-makers are not so easily fobbed off. He comes back and meets the woman alone. As she is, as already mentioned, an "ideal", she awakens a human stirring even in this filthy mediator's heart, and the brave man tells her that the noble Viktor had also once gambled and that he is now there to collect the gambling debts. Hedwig shows solidarity with Viktor and makes him pay the "debt". But the good guy confesses, and Mrs. Hedwig is quite sad for a while. But of course she forgives him and everything turns out well.

These are conflicts that not everyone can understand. You always have the feeling: why go to all this trouble? But if you are predisposed to take these things seriously, then you have to enjoy the finely constructed, albeit somewhat sluggish pace of the plot. If you are not inclined to do so, then you simply have to realize that you are not one of those for whom such plays are written.

For me, the performance at the Lessing Theater was more interesting than the play. As far as I know the circumstances, I have to say: I don't think that any other stage in Berlin currently offers such good performances. The director's art is quite extraordinary here. And as far as the individual performances are concerned, Ferdinand Bonn's Viktor Schröter, Hedwig Elise Sauer and Adolf Klein's matchmaker were worked out in such a way that it was a pleasure to follow them in every nuance. The performance suggests the very best for the time when the Lessing Theater will be able to offer a drama that can count on a deeper interest. Of course, directors can't just pull good plays out of the ground. But those who want to have their plays performed in a worthy manner now know that it is now possible at the Lessing Theater.

Play in three acts by Arthur Schnitzler
Performance at the Deutsches Theater, Berlin

So far I have always had to compare Schnitzler's dramatic achievements with women who, because of the gracefulness of their outward appearance and the tastefulness of their toilette, do not allow us to wonder whether their soul is also important or not. "The Legacy", however, challenges this question. Schnitzler's talent and his style do not seem to be sufficient for a problem as important as the one dealt with here. His brisk dramatic power of representation is obviously only in its element when it concerns the small circles drawn by life. "The Legacy", which Hugo Losatti leaves to his family after being mortally wounded by a fall from a horse, revolutionizes the souls of a number of people. Schnitzler is not enough of a psychologist to portray this revolution of the soul convincingly and profoundly. We don't see inside the characters, so we don't really want to understand what they say and do. The legacy is Hugo Losatti's lover and his child. He expresses his last wish that his family should take the two beings, whom he loved more than anything else, into their home. The father, a half-mad professor of economics, knows nothing about such a wish. But as he is a good fellow and an incredible weakling, it is not difficult for him to accept the "legacy" after all. The mother is immediately inclined to do so when the son tells her his secret. However, we gain no idea of her character traits. We are therefore indifferent as to how she behaves. We do get to know the sister Franziska better, and it therefore makes some impression that she wholeheartedly says "yes" to her brother's wish and that she even loves her beloved deeply. But it seems to me that here we have before us a character of the staid Birch-Pfeiffer in a modern dress. Such characters can also be found in the realm of the "Gartenlaube". - Of course, the theatrical counterpart of this girl must not be missing. His name is Dr. Ferdinand Schmidt, he came from a poor background, was Hugo's tutor and, after becoming a doctor, is on friendly terms with Losattis. The contrast would not be expressed strongly enough if the unprejudiced, tender-hearted Franziska and the prejudiced, cheerful Schmidt did not fall in love with each other. So they do. Schmidt finds it unappealing from the outset to see how the Losattis "sully" their reputation by taking the "mistress" and the son's offspring into their home.

The plot is clear soon after the curtain rises. People like the Losattis have consciences, so they fulfill a child's wish. The illegitimately conceived boy is immediately introduced to us as a sick child. So he will soon die. So there will soon be an opportunity to chase the unwelcome mother out of the house. So the play will end with her committing suicide. The Losattis are faint-hearted people, so they need someone to talk them out of keeping the "legacy". That's what Dr. Schmidt is there for. His behavior opens Franziska's eyes and she rejects the crude man. While all this is going on according to plan, Emma Winter, the widow of Mrs. Losatti's brother, walks through the door every now and then and talks "beyond good and evil", like a real female trance. She even wants to take the unhappy lover of the deceased into the house, but is finally dissuaded by her daughter - so that the suicide is possible.

These are weighty concessions that Schnitzler makes today to the external art of scenery. The same Schnitzler in whom we have never noticed a lack of depth, as long as he only abandoned himself to his amiable nature.

This time the Deutsches Theater has shown what it can do, after making it clear to us in "Cyrano" what it cannot do. With the exception of Louise Dumont, who was not really up to the thankless female role of the star, the other actors gave perfect performances. Reicher, Rittner, Sauer and Winterstein deserve special mention.

Tragedy in five acts by Max Halbe
Performance at the Lessing Theater, Berlin

I have always thought differently about Max Halbe than many others. What was almost universally admired about his "Youth" and his "Mother Earth", I consider to be an - albeit highly valuable - addition to his great poetic talent. But Halbe is, in my opinion, not merely the dramatist of the mood that flows towards us in "Jugend", of the feeling sprouting from the native soil that flows towards us in "Mutter Erde": Halbe is the poet to whom the deepest reasons of the human soul are accessible, which is at home in every time and place. A year ago, after the performance of "Mother Earth", I wrote: "I believe in Halbe's deep vision. I think that if he developed it, this deep vision, it would reach the remotest depths of the human soul." At the time, I thought I had an inkling of the nature of Halbe's artistic individuality. In my opinion, he belongs to the family of great poets who create individual figures, but in such a way that they point us at every moment to that which is eternal in human nature, which lives unchangingly through all times and spaces and which only finds a stronger expression within certain circumstances than in others. A great human conflict seizes the poet. He starts out from the innermost experience of the soul. Then he finds a place and time in which this inner experience can take on the best outer form.

This path of the true poet must also be half the path. Until now, he had only ever followed his very own path ruthlessly. In his "Conqueror" he has gone it. Max Halbe has only just found himself. When I got to know the drama, a great problem of the soul stood before my eyes. The woman's love problem. You can say what you like: a woman has an urge within her for a man of greatness, whom she can love because of his greatness. And if she thinks she has found this man, she is boundlessly selfish and would love to press this greatness with her arms against her rutting bosom and press it again and again and never let go, smothering the greatness in voluptuous kisses. And it must be a woman's real tragedy that when she is truly great, her arms are too weak to hold the greatness. The man escapes from the woman for the sake of the same quality for which she so ardently desires him. He wants to have the great, wide soul for himself because she is great and wide. But because she is big and wide, this soul, there is still room in her for ... other things. The Philistines will forgive me for writing it like this. The Philistines like to close their eyes to this eternal tragedy that intervenes between the great man and the great woman.

Max Halbe wrote this tragedy. Agnes, Lorenzo's wife, is the great woman who seeks the great man because she can only love him. And Lorenzo is the great man whom Agnes adores, but in whose soul there is still the seed for little Ninon, who also seeks the great man. And the great Agnes kills the little Ninon because the man's greatness becomes fatal to the woman for whose sake she loves him.

This is Halbe's problem. In order to portray people going through such conflicts, he needed the background of a time of which we have the idea that people in it had the courage to abandon themselves to their natural selfishness. The Renaissance is such a time. That is why Halbe wrote a Renaissance drama. If he had set his tragedy in the present day, we would have the feeling that people today would find the lies necessary to prevent the true feelings that lie dormant in the background from coming to the surface.

And Halbe has succeeded in breathing the souls of Renaissance men into the characters of his drama. They only need to step in front of us and speak a few words for us to know that we are dealing with people of unreserved egoism and with those who have the courage to display this egoism without cloaking it in an idealistic mantle.

In simple, artfully stylized lines, Halbe has drawn a plot in which the characters appear before our eyes as eternal experiences of the human soul. He has thus found his way to the original sources of dramatic poetry.

Half of the audience on October 29 was unable to follow the path that the poet had taken. This audience would have loved to have seen another moody idyll of his in the style of "Jugend". It no longer understands the poet who has found himself. And because the Berlin theater audience hardly has the worst manners an audience can have, it laughed at, mocked and ridiculed the "Conqueror". On October 29, there was a walkout at the Lessing Theater. But it wasn't Max Halbe's play that failed. No, the audience failed. Their understanding does not come close to the greatness of Halbe's ideas. The poet may console himself. When he was still undeveloped and threw "youth" at people, they understood him. Now that he has something more to say to them, they mock him. What did Goethe say when he was at the height of his art?

"There they praise my Faust,
And what still sunsten
In my writings roars,
In their favor;
The old Mick and Mack,
That makes them very happy;
It means the rag pack,
They wouldn't be any more!"

The reviews on Sunday morning were even worse than the audience on Saturday. In the city of intelligence, there wasn't a single critic who had any idea what Max Halbe wanted. From the impotent fascism of "Tante Voß" through the lukewarm bath of the Berliner Tageblatt to the crude invective of the Lokalanzeiger and the Kleine Journal, one could study all the nuances of critical incompetence. On October 30, one had to experience that there is not a single daily critic in Berlin who is up to the task of important poetry.

Halbe's poetry could not fail in the eyes of those who understand it; the public and critics were embarrassed. On Saturday, a crowd's lack of understanding and bad taste manifested itself in the worst manners, and on the following Sunday a ridiculous criticism put itself in the pillory.

A Viennese play in three acts by Hermann Bahr
Performance at the Lessing Theater, Berlin

Hermann Bahr once went out to seek the kingdom of the great new art. And now he brings home plays that have Blumenthal's spirit in them. Saul, Ki's son, has done things differently. Yes, the man who, not so long ago, spoke his mind and said: "Only on one point there is no dispute, on one point everyone agrees, the old and the groups of young people. On one point there is no doubt: that naturalism is already over again and that the toil, the agony of youth is seeking something new, strange, unknown, which no one has yet found. They waver as to whether it will be a new idealism, a synthesis of idealism and realism, whether it will be symbolic or sensitive. But they know that it cannot be naturalistic." (Bahr, Studies in the Critique of Modernism. 1894.)

In the field of dramatic art today, Hermann Bahr is clear about how it must be. Not naturalistic, not symbolistic; it simply has to be floral.

On November 12, Hermann Bahr therefore spoke to us in this new way. The "star" Lona Ladinser played the main role in the play of the postal clerk Leopold Wisinger. The play failed miserably. The actors are naturally annoyed when the plays they are in fail. That's why there is a terrible scolding at Lona Ladinser's house the day after the premiere. Lona's maid, Lona herself, a Miss Zipser - a discarded actress and Lona's companion - all berate the audience, the poet and the critics. They all rant in witty, pointed sentences, as if the feature writer Bahr had first carefully drilled each sentence of their rant into them. All this is neither naturalism nor symbolism, but Blumenthalism. At least a good one at first. But then it gets bad. For how the failed poet and Lona fall in love, how the poet gets nervous and rants and rails because his lover can't let go of the life she led before, how this life itself is developed in front of the audience and how the two part again because the postman prefers his "Grete" to the theater star, and finally how this star devotes himself with all his soul to the boards that mean the world: all this takes place in three acts that are bad Blumenthalism. Originally, the play was even supposed to have had four acts. The fourth was deleted because it was said to be even more evil than the previous two.

A few years ago, Hermann Bahr gave the following verdict on Einsamen Menschen: “And finally the Einsamen Menschem, in which he (Gerhart Hauptmann) accomplished his work, which awaited and needed him, and redeemed the long longing of his people by theatricalizing Holz's technique with brilliant bravura: stripped of everything somehow offensive to the crowd that might trouble their minds, cleaned out neatly and cleanly, adjusted to the dear habits of Teutonic parterres, Europe reduced to the Müggelsee, as if Maurice Maeterlinck were handed over to Mr. Kadelburg. Now Hermann Bahr writes a play in which he shows that no work expected and needed him, a play in which he shamefully disappoints the long yearning of his friends - assuming that they are not blind - in which he imitates Blumenthal's technique with pompous bravura, speculates on everything pleasing to the crowd, reduces Europe to the jokes behind the scenes, as if Mr. Kadelburg had been handed over to Mr. Hermann Bahr.

This "Star", this collection of experiences within the less good theater world dressed up in Bahrian feuilleton jokes, was written by the same man who once said of himself: "But I can console myself, because it is at least a pretty thought and flattering that between the Volga and the Loire, from the Thames to the Guadalquivir, nothing is felt today that I could not understand, share and shape, and that the European soul has no secrets from me."

In order to justify his dramatic banalities, Hermann Bahr has now invented his own theory. On October 22, he wrote in the weekly magazine "Die Zeit" about "Weiße Rößl" that he was "excellently entertained" at the performance. And then continued: "Of course, our young people say that they despise the theater. I don't think they're right; in all great times it has been the greatest thing, culture has always spoken its last words in the theater. But all right. But let them leave it alone. I may say: I want to be a quiet scholar, I am enough for myself, I don't need the others, I don't demand to be heard. But then I must not want to talk. If I want to speak, I must first be an orator ... Once our young people can do what Blumenthal and Kadelburg can do, the audience will forgive them for being "poets"."

"The poet is to the playwright as a scholar is to an orator. A scholar can have the greatest thoughts, but that does not necessarily make him an orator. An orator is one who has the power to control the listeners through words so that they agree with him. So is a dramatist who commands the means of the theater in such a way that the audience feels what he makes them feel."

Hermann Bahr lives in Vienna. There is a speaker there who is able to control people through words so that they agree with him. Those who do have therefore made the speaker mayor. His name is Lueger. He has those in his power against whose main characteristic the oldest gods themselves fight in vain. Scholars, go and learn to speak from him, just as Hermann Bahr learned to make dramas from Blumenthal and Kadelburg!

The performance in the Lessing Theater and the audience were well-behaved. The actors performed quite well; the audience applauded and called out the author several times. He then always bowed by moving his right hand gracefully towards his heart. I didn't notice any other disturbances that evening.

We Germans are currently suffering from a serious cultural malady. We are the bearers of a high education; but this cannot bring itself to become the leader of public life. Instead of giving character to all our idealistic endeavors, shallowness and dilettantism are the leading forces everywhere. We have attained a view of art that no other nation has, but in the public cultivation of our art, in the management of our art institutes, in criticism, little of this view is noticeable. Our entire intellectual life today is therefore on a much lower level than it could be according to the dispositions of our people, according to its innate depth. Wherever we look, we find sad proof of these propositions. We could just as well apply them to every other branch of our present cultural endeavors, as we want to do this time to the cultivation of the drama in our Viennese theaters.

We have two theaters in Vienna that could serve a purely cultural and artistic purpose if they were to grasp their task properly: the Hofburgtheater and the new Deutsches Volkstheater. The other theaters can hardly be thought of in this way. For they have a difficult standing with their audiences. After all, the latter does not seek true artistic enjoyment, and if this is not there, the standard for the good also ceases. That's when the endeavor begins to produce plays with which one can earn as much as possible. The art institute ceases to be such an institution and becomes a company intent on making as much money as possible.

Our Burgtheater never needed to be such a theater; it should never have become the Deutsches Volkstheater. For there are still enough people in Vienna who have a sense of higher aims in art to fill two theaters every evening; it is only necessary not to make it impossible for them to enter these theaters. The Burgtheater and the Volkstheater, however, have managed to exclude the very audience for whom they are intended.

By charging prohibitively high prices and, in particular, by introducing the "Stammsitz" subscription, the Burgtheater has created an audience that usually has money, but not always an understanding of art. The most frivolous need for entertainment has taken the place of a sense of art. Don't misunderstand us! For we do not misjudge the very significant achievements of the Burgtheater in recent times. The artistic leadership has been entrusted to a man whose dramatic skill demands the respect of every discerning person. Every new performance is proof of this. Nor are we blind to the merits that this man has earned through new productions of classical plays such as "Gyges and his Ring", "The Jewess of Toledo" and "Lear". These were theater events of the first rank. The promised "Antigone" will be another one. Nor are we blind to the gain that the Burgtheater has made by the addition of a first-rate force to its artistic staff in Miss Reinhold. But the Burgtheater in Vienna has a completely different task than reviving old plays in masterly staged productions. The life of our Burgtheater should be intimately connected with the development of contemporary dramatic literature. But it has had little luck in promoting the latter. In recent years it has produced new plays that are almost completely worthless. "Cornelius Voss", "Wild Thieves", "The Fugitive", "The Wild Hunt" do not belong in this art institute. We say it with a heavy heart, but we must say it: they are a disgrace to it. Don't tell us that the present has nothing better. That is simply not true. A nation like Germany has something better the moment its first stages set a higher standard. If the Burgtheater understands how to create an art-loving audience, then the German writers will deliver good plays to this theater. However, as long as the educated mob spreads in the main seats and rejects every serious artistic direction, the management of the Burgtheater will be faced with a power that prevents it from solving true artistic tasks. This is what is important. Why is it almost impossible to stage a new tragedy today? Not because there is no audience for it, but because the audience that would enjoy it has been displaced by another audience that lacks any sense for it. Apart from the most superficial need for entertainment, this audience has at most a need for theatrical virtuosity. And so it happens that quite worthless plays are given if there are only rewarding roles in them, that is, roles in which the actor can shine with some special trick. We have had to go through this in "Wilddieben" and "Flüchtling" ad nauseam. But what is even worse, we recently had to witness the literary advisory board of our Burgtheater director proclaiming from the pulpit the most reprehensible of all artistic doctrines: that the value of a drama is determined solely by stage technique. This is a proposition that virtually means the death of all dramatic art. The dramatist is subject to quite different laws of art than the consideration of the accidental facilities of the stage. The dramatist must never subordinate himself to the stage, the poet to the actor, but always the latter to the former. Whatever is dramatically valuable, stagecraft has to create the means and means to bring it to performance. It is a sad sign of the times that doctrines such as Baron Berger's, which make a mockery of all healthy aesthetics, could meet with so much approval and cause such a stir.

Much less than the Burgtheater, however, does the Deutsches Volkstheater fulfill its task. After what has been promised, one could rightly expect from it the cultivation of that dramatic field which can provide the broader masses of the public, those masses who have no higher than ordinary school education, with a higher intellectual enjoyment. This audience would have been found gradually if it had been sought. In the beginning, of course, one would have had to refrain from "extracting" as much as possible from the theater. An artistic director with a permanent salary should have been placed at the helm and a capable director at his side. Instead, the theater was leased out and the director is dependent on putting on "profitable" plays. What did they start with? With "Ein Fleck auf die Ehr", the house was certainly worthily opened. But it would simply have been a scandal if Anzengruber had not been given the first word. What immediately followed was bad enough. We see "Maria and Magdalene" by Lindau, then "The Famous Woman" by Schönthan and Kadelburg. Performing these plays at the Volkstheater was unheard of. From the outset, they had created an audience that did not belong in this theater. "Die berühmte Frau" has the most frivolous and hurtful tendency imaginable. It simply ridicules all of a woman's spiritual life, even if it arises from a deep inner need. According to this play, a woman's task is only to cook, knit and bear children. The most reprehensible thing about it, however, is that the frivolity here lies in skillful, effective theatrical machinations that captivate the audience. It is no different with "Maria and Magdalene", even if we cannot accuse this work of being as harmful as the "Famous Woman".

Much, if not everything, was spoiled with this beginning. What we still experienced of some significance was the performance of "William Tell". But it was precisely this performance that showed how the artistic personnel were not at all up to the demands that had to be made. We are not foolish enough to want to compare this performance with the magnificent Tell performance at the Burgtheater, which is an artistic event of the first rank, especially due to Krastel's interpretation of the Tell role; but the Volkstheater did not do enough. Neither the scenic design nor the artistic presentation rose to the level of mediocrity. All that the Volkstheater did worth mentioning was a performance of the “Pfarrer von Kirchfeld". The rest: "Die Rantzau", "Der Hypochonder", "Der Strohmann", "Die Hochzeit von Valeni" were plays calculated precisely for the audience created by the performance of "Die Berühmten Frau".

Our theaters should only once have the courage to count on a certain audience, and one would see that it comes.