Freie Bühne

Freie Bühne [Free Stage], private theatre club founded in Berlin in 1889 by ten writers and critics under Otto Brahm for the production of plays by the new writers of the school of Naturalism, on the lines of Antoine's Théâtre Libre in Paris. It had no home of its own, and played only matinées in different theatres. Its first production was Ibsen's Ghosts, and in 1890 it produced Holz's Die Familie Selicke, a sordid picture of lower middle-class life played in a realistic manner against an equally realistic background. The greatest achievement of the Freie Bühne was the discovery of Gerhard Hauptmann, whose first play Vor Sonnenaufgang was produced in 1889. Several more of his plays, up to Die Weber (1893), also had their first performances there. Other authors staged included Bjørnson, Tolstoy, Zola, Strindberg, and Anzengrüber. Along with the promotion of contemporary drama, the Freie Bühne also developed a new, realistic style of ensemble playing. When in 1894 Brahm was appointed director of the Deutsches Theater, the Freie Bühne was attached to it as an experimental theatre. It continued to present new plays up to the turn of the century, but had by then fulfilled its mission as a platform for naturalistic drama.