Ekhof, Konrad

Ekhof, Konrad (1720–78), German actor. Being short and ungraceful, with no pretensions to good looks, he was not at first highly regarded, but he had a fine speaking voice and studied and perfected his art, discarding the earlier declamatory tone of Carolina Neuber in favour of a more natural style hitherto unknown in Germany. He was at the height of his powers when in 1767 he joined Ackermann, who had just brought together an excellent company at Hamburg, destined to become Germany's first National Theatre. Unfortunately, after five years Ekhof could no longer endure the jealousy and arrogance of the young Schröder and left, spending several miserable years travelling before going to Weimar, where later he was to meet and act with Goethe, to whom he imparted some of the theatrical reminiscences found in Wilhelm Meister. After a disastrous fire at Weimar in 1775, Ekhof became director and chief actor of the company at Gotha, where one of his last official acts was to engage Iffland as a member of the company. He made his last appearance as the Ghost in Hamlet in an adaptation by Schröder, now famous and at the head of his profession. Among Ekhof's outstanding parts, in the mingled tragi-comic and pathetic roles of the new drama, were Old Barnwell in Lillo's The London Merchant, the title-role in Diderot's Le Père de famille, and Odoardo in Lessing's Emilia Galotti. He lived to see his fellow actors in Germany, mainly through his own exertions, raised from the misery of strolling players to the dignity of an assured and well-regarded profession.