Otto Brahm

Otto Brahm , 1856-1912, German theatrical director, manager and critic. Inspired by the work of Antoine in Paris, he founded a theater, the Freie Bühne, in Berlin in 1889. There he devoted his efforts to eliminating from the German stage old-fashioned techniques by employing the theories and methods of the naturalists. In 1894 he became director of the larger Deutsches Theater and the acknowledged leader of the modern German theater movement.

Brahm, Otto [ Otto Abrahamsohn] (1856–1912), German director and literary critic, whose interest in contemporary drama, and particularly in the work of Antoine at the Théâtre Libre in Paris, led him to found in Berlin in 1889 the Freie Bühne, where he successfully produced a number of new naturalistic dramas, opening with Ibsen's Ghosts. In 1894 he took over the Deutsches Theater where he continued to train his actors in a naturalistic style based on the teachings of Stanislavsky which was well suited to the plays of Ibsen, Hauptmann, and Schnitzler, though less so to the classics. Under him the Deutsches Theater enjoyed 10 years of success and popular esteem. In 1904 he resigned his post to Reinhardt and took over the Lessing Theater in Berlin, where he remained until his death. Although the naturalistic movement had by then lost its impact, Brahm had performed a great service to the German stage by clearing it of outmoded traditions and bringing it into the main current of European drama.