Deutsches Theater

Deutsches Theater , German private theater organization founded in 1883. Under its first director, Adolph L'Arronge, the Deutsches merged with the Freie Bühne (Otto Brahm, director) and in 1884 built its own house in Berlin. Plays by Sophocles, Calderón, Molière, Shakespeare, and other classical writers were mounted. During Brahm's directorship modern works by Ibsen and Hauptmann were produced. Max Reinhardt , who succeeded Brahm, won renown as a theatrical innovator. The theater collapsed but was revived after World War I and survived World War II.

Bibliography: See biography of Otto Brahm by M. Newmark (1937); O. M. Sayler, ed., Max Reinhardt and his Theatre (tr. 1924, repr. 1968).

Deutsches Theater, private play-producing society founded in Berlin in 1883 to stage good plays in repertory, as a protest against the deadening effect of long runs and outmoded theatrical tradition. A group of actors led by Josef Kainz and Agnes Sorma presented classical historical plays in the style of the Meininger company. In 1894 the enterprise was given a new direction by its affiliation to the Freie Bühne. It enjoyed another period of fame under Max Reinhardt, who went to it in 1905 from the Neues Theater with a band of young actors trained in his own methods. After the First World War the theatre was in the doldrums, but it revived somewhat under Heinz Hilpert (1890–1967), who from 1934 to 1944 managed the theatre with complete integrity in the face of Nazi intransigence. It was closed in 1944, reopened the following year, and in 1946 became the National Theatre of East Berlin. It housed the Berliner Ensemble from its foundation until 1954. The theatre knew further periods of success under Besson, 1961–9, and from 1978 under the actor Alexander Lang, whose artificial-grotesque productions attracted international attention.