Kurt Huebner (actor)

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Kurt Hübner (* 30th October 1916 in Hamburg , † 21st August 2007 in Munich ) was a German actor, theater director and - intendant . Hübner's work during his eleven years as artistic director at the Bremen Theater from 1962 to 1973 made him one of the most influential theater makers in the Federal Republic of Germany.

biography

Education and director

After graduating from high school in 1938, Hübner received his acting training at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin . After the Second World War , he first worked at Radio Hamburg as a newscaster and reporter and came to the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg in 1947 as an assistant director and dramaturge. He made his debut as a director in 1947 at the Landestheater Hannover . Further positions were in Göttingen , Ingolstadt and Freiburg as an actor and director and between 1953 and 1955 as an audio dramaturge at the Süddeutscher Rundfunk in Stuttgart, which brought him back to the Landesbühne Hannover in 1955 as chief dramaturge and in-house director. In 1957 he moved to the State Theater in Stuttgart in the same function , from where he was offered the management of the Ulm Theater in 1959 .

Theater manager

Hübner was one of the most important theater directors in Germany. As a theater director, he created space for great theater talents. At the end of the 1950s, as the director of the Ulm Theater, he gave director Peter Zadek the chance to do his first important work, where the collaboration between the stage designer Wilfried Minks and Zadek began. The actress Hannelore Hoger began her career in Ulm under Huebner's direction, and Peter Palitzsch directed Bertolt Brecht's plays when the communist Brecht was frowned upon in West Germany.

Bremen

Kurt Hübner on the balcony of the theater on Goetheplatz

In 1962, Hübner went to the Bremen theater , remained there until 1973, and created the most important theater of innovators in the 1960s with his skill in attracting young talent. Zadek, Minks and Palitzsch followed him from Ulm, and with Huebner they created the famous " Bremen Style ". The eleven-year artistic directorship in Bremen is considered to be the most fruitful and important era in the history of theater in the Federal Republic of Germany, with influences beyond the borders of Germany. In the course of the 1960s, the directors Peter Stein , Alfred Kirchner , Klaus Michael Grüber , Hans Neuenfels , Johannes Schaaf and Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the actors Bruno Ganz , Jutta Lampe , Edith Clever , Rosel Zech and Traugott began their careers at this theater Buhre , Rolf Becker , and Vadim Glowna . Peter Stein and his actors created the basis for the later work and founding of the Berlin Schaubühne . Stage and costume designers, who shape the directorial theater to this day, began their careers in Bremen, next to Minks were Karl-Ernst Herrmann , Jürgen Rose and Erich Wonder .

West Berlin

In the long run, Hübner's controversial theater was too much of a burden for those politically responsible in Bremen. Tensions increased so much that Hübner said goodbye in the 1973/74 season. Even 7,000 solidarity signatures could no longer change his mind. Hübner was soon to regret this decision, because now no city was ready to offer him an ensemble theater. Instead, he was left with the theater of the Freie Volksbühne in West Berlin, where he was artistic director from 1973 to 1986. Its small budget was only enough for guest performances by foreign ensembles and their productions. His promotion of talent came to an end, but he managed to get some spectacular guest productions such as Klaus Michael Grübers Faust production with Bernhard Minetti or the Auschwitz review staged by Thomas Schulte-Michels based on Peter Weiss ' “ The Investigation ”. It was not until his successor, Hans Neuenfels, that the Senate allowed a higher budget, so that he could now work with a permanent ensemble.

epilogue

After 1986, Kurt Hübner no longer took over the management. From then on he worked as a freelance director and above all as a theater pedagogue. In 1989, Huebner returned to Bremen again and directed the allusive comedy of the Merchant of Venice there . He played in Klaus Michael Grüber's legendary production by Luigi Pirandello " Six people seek an author " and in 1990 he played the "General Director of Deutsche Röhren AG" in the film Pappa ante portas by Loriot . Under Luc Bondy he played in Ödön von Horvath's " Figaro lets divorce " in the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna.

Hübner died at the age of 90 on August 21, 2007 in Munich. The Bremen Kurt Huebner Prize and the Kurt Huebner Director Prize of the German Academy of Performing Arts are named after him, of which he was a juror from 1992 to 2006.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

In 2005, Hübner received the ITI Prize for World Theater Day 2005. The International Theater Institute (ITI) honored the director and actor's life's work. This prize has been awarded every year since 1984 on the occasion of World Theater Day on March 27th . It is awarded to personalities of the German-speaking theater scene whose work has an impact beyond national borders. Other award winners include George Tabori , Pina Bausch , Thomas Langhoff and Frank Castorf .

In 2008 the city of Bremen named a square in the Stephaniviertel after Kurt Huebner.

Quotes

“ In the past few decades, no one has achieved more for German-speaking theater than Kurt Hübner. "

- Peter Zadek , 2007

literature

proof

  1. ↑ "The Challenger" , Tagesspiegel , 23 August 2007
  2. ↑ "Prize for World Theater Day - March 27, 2005" ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , ITI press release March 16, 2005 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iti-germany.de
  3. ↑ “A nose for talent” , Kölnische Rundschau , 23 August 2007

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Huebner, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater director, actor and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH August 21, 2007
Place of death Munich