Free stage Berlin
The Free Stage was a theater association founded on April 5, 1889 in Berlin . The aim of the association was to organize closed theater performances for its members in order to circumvent the indirect censorship of the then Prussia and thus to be able to perform "modern" - that is, naturalistic - plays. A Prussian police regulation required the police to approve public theater performances, and the association was able to bypass the restriction.
As a supplement to the Free Stage, Bruno Wille founded the Free Volksbühne Berlin in 1890 for the “neglected, educated masses of workers”. To found the Freie Volksbühne, a workers' meeting with 2000 workers was convened in a brewery . Hundreds of members joined the new association that evening. For a membership fee of 50 pfennigs a month, everyone was entitled to a place. The Volksbühne was opened with Henrik Ibsen's play "Supporting Society".
Idea and foundation
Inspired by the Théâtre Libre , which was founded by André Antoine in Paris in 1887 and performed plays by young, unknown foreign authors such as Lev Nikolajewitsch Tolstoy and Ibsen, a few Berlin theater critics and writers came up with the idea of the Free Stage on March 5, 1889 to found. In order to avoid censorship and the police (the performance of Ibsen plays was forbidden in Berlin at the time), a literary association was to be founded, which was also to finance the company from membership fees. By adopting a legal trick developed by Max Bernstein , the association (which was accessible to everyone) performed pieces in an "unpublic" performance that were beyond the control of the censors because of this "unpublicity".
Founding members on April 5th were: Otto Brahm , Maximilian Harden , Theodor Wolff , Julius and Heinrich Hart , Paul Schlenther , Julius Elias , Julius Stettenheim , Paul Jonas and Samuel Fischer . The association consisted of ten full members, namely the founders, and the extraordinary members, who were supposed to be the audience. The extraordinary members had the right to a place in every performance in return for a membership fee, but they had no influence on the artistic direction. The full members only had the right to propose to the permanently elected board. True to the motto: Many cooks spoil the broth , so Otto Brahm had to decide on the pieces and staging alone.
Otto Brahm was initially busy looking for a theater that could be rented for the performances. In the fall should ghosts of Henrik Ibsen are listed. Paul Jonas worked out the statutes as legal counsel and the treasurer Samuel Fischer printed the proclamation on recruiting:
Recruitment Proclamation
Association> FREIE BÜHNE <
Berlin, date of postmark.
We are united by the purpose of establishing a stage, independent of the operation of the existing theaters and without entering into a competition with them, which is FREE from the consideration of theater censorship and money-making.
During the theater year, beginning in autumn 1889, around ten performances of modern dramas of outstanding interest are to take place in one of the first Berlin theaters, which are by their nature more difficult to access on the permanent stages.
Both in the selection of the dramatic works and in their theatrical representation, the goals of a lively art that avoids template and virtuosity should be striven for.
With this in mind, the> FREIE BÜHNE <association was founded, whose performances will only be accessible to members of the association. If you are inclined to support the company, we ask you to complete the attached declaration of membership and to contact us as soon as possible, at least by the 30th of d. M. to let go.
Association> FREIE BÜHNE <. Otto Brahm, chairman. Paul Jonas, legal counsel.
S. Fischer, Treasurer. Publishing bookseller
The first year
Already at one of the first club meetings in June there was a serious dispute in which Harden and Wolff left the club. Fritz Mauthner and Ludwig Fulda replaced the two who had left. At the end of June 1889 the association had 360 members.
On September 29, 1889 at 12 noon was in Lessingtheater ghosts of Henrik Ibsen listed as the first piece of the outdoor stage. On October 20th, the play Before Sunrise by Gerhart Hauptmann followed, eagerly anticipated, as a world premiere and caused a tangible theatrical scandal .
November 1889 the association had about 900 members. Only a few members came from aristocratic, court, government and officer circles. Many newcomers came from theater and author circles, four fifths of the members were Jewish citizens from Berlin. " All freedom and finer culture, at least here in Berlin, is primarily mediated by rich Jews, " Theodor Fontane wrote at the time.
In the first annual financial statement in 1890, 1,025 members brought in 25,500 marks and the cash balance was just under 3000 marks transferred to the second year of the game.
Further development
1890 of the Free Stage The fourth commandment of Ludwig Anzengruber listed, 1893, there was the premiere of Hauptmann's The Weavers . The closed events of the Free Stage were banned in 1895.
literature
- Katharina Günther: Literary group formation in Berlin naturalism . Bouvier-Verlag, Bonn 1972, ISBN 3-416-00843-X , ( Treatises on art, music and literature 120).
- Peter de Mendelssohn : S. Fischer and his publishing house . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1970.
- Gernot Schley : The Free Stage in Berlin. The forerunner of the Volksbühne movement. A contribution to the history of theater in Germany . Haude & Spener, Berlin 1967.
- Albert Soergel : poetry and poet of the time . Voigtländer, Leipzig 1911.
Web links
- Literature from and about Freie Bühne Berlin in the bibliographic database WorldCat