Pallenberg, Max

views updated

PALLENBERG, MAX

PALLENBERG, MAX (1877–1934), Austrian actor. Seen first in his hometown, Vienna, his talent was discovered relatively late by *Max Reinhardt. Pallenberg performed after 1914 at Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin. He excelled in roles which gave him the opportunity to develop his enormous "vis comica," nurtured by elements of improvisation in the commedia dell'arte tradition. He was also able to show the depths of tragedy behind comic characters like Molière's Miser, *Molnar's Liliom, *Offenbach's Menelaos, and the Soldier Schweik in the theatrical version of Hašek's novel. A career peak was his role of Mephisto in Goethe's Faust i at the Salzburg Festival 1933, directed by Reinhardt. He perished in a plane accident, survived by his actress wife Fritzi *Massary.

bibliography:

A. Polgar, Max Pallenberg (1921).

[Jens Malte Fischer (2nd ed.)]