Reinhardt, Max

Reinhardt, Max [ Max Goldmann] (1873–1943), Austrian actor, director, and impresario, who dominated the stage in Berlin between 1905 and 1918, and remained an influential figure in the German-speaking theatre until he left for the United States in 1938. He regarded the script of a play as a score to be interpreted, and his integrated productions, with their careful harmonization of voice, movement, music, and setting, established for many years the preeminence of the director, more especially in the Symbolism and Impressionism which superseded the earlier naturalism of Brahm and was, after the First World War, itself superseded by the Expressionism of Jessner and Piscator.

As a young actor Reinhardt appeared in Vienna and Salzburg and in 1894 joined the company at the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin, where he profited from the tuition of Brahm. Some experience of directing plays by Strindberg, Wedekind, and Wilde at the Kleines Theatre in 1902, and above all the success of his production in 1903 of Gorky's The Lower Depths, in which he played Luka, led him to abandon acting and devote himself entirely to directing. At the Neues Theater am Schiffbauerdamm he produced Hofmannsthal's Elektra (1903) against a primitive Mycenaean façade, the action taking place at night by the light of flickering torches. He went on to direct Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm and Schiller's Kabale und Liebe, and in 1905 the first of his 12 versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

By this time Reinhardt had succeeded Brahm as Director of the Deutsches Theater and had bought the theatre outright, erecting next door to it the Kammerspiele for intimate productions. At the Deutsches Theater there was always a play by Shakespeare or a German classic—Schiller's Die Räuber in 1908 and Don Carlos in 1909; and Goethe's Clavigo in 1908 and both parts of Faust in 1908 and 1911 respectively. Meanwhile at the Kammerspiele he concentrated on modern plays, including Ibsen's Ghosts, the first production of Wedekind's Frühlings Erwachen (both 1906), and the chamber plays of Strindberg. From 1915 to 1920 he sponsored at the Berlin Volksbühne matinée performances of new plays by young authors, while elsewhere he was exploring the potential of vast acting areas. In 1910 he produced Sophocles' Oedipus the King in the Zirkus Schumann in Berlin; in 1911 he directed Vollmöller's The Miracle in London, converting Olympia into a vast flamboyant Gothic cathedral embracing both actors and audience; and in 1919 he opened the conversion of the Zirkus Schumann, the Groβes Schauspielhaus, with Aeschylus' Oresteia and Romain Rolland's Danton, in which, as in previous productions, his superb handling of crowd scenes was seen at its best. Since 1917 he had also been involved in the founding and running of the Salzburg Festival, where in 1920 he directed Hofmannsthal's morality play Jedermann in an open space in front of the Cathedral. In 1924 he returned to Vienna and took over the Theater in der Josefstadt, and there and at the Komödie am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin he directed nearly 30 plays, paying particular attention to the schooling and directing of the actor, who was now his main concern. His repertory in both theatres was predominantly modern, and included not only Shaw and Pirandello but Cocteau and Molnár. In 1938 he left Austria for the United States, married Helene Thimig, who with Gertrud Eysoldt had been one of his leading ladies for many years, and settled in Hollywood where he died.