Martin Zickel

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Martin Zickel with his wife Marie Mallinger and son Hans, 1905
Martin Zickel, Friedrich Kayssler and Max Reinhardt , 1901

Martin Zickel (born December 7, 1876 in Breslau , † July 14, 1932 in Berlin ) was a German director and theater manager .

life and work

Martin Zickel came from a Jewish family. He studied German in Berlin with the literary scholar Erich Schmidt and obtained his doctorate in philosophy in 1900 with a thesis on scenic remarks in the age of Gottsched and Lessing .

As a student, Zickel founded the group “ Die Brille ” with Friedrich Kayssler , Josef Kainz and Max Reinhardt , which organized game evenings with satirical scenes, improvisations and one-act plays in 1898/99. From this the cabaret " Schall und Rauch " , which opened in early 1901, developed , in whose programs Zickel often appeared himself. In the summer of 1900, Zickel founded and ran the Secession stage together with the Viennese Paul Martin , previously an actor at the Deutsches Theater , in the rooms of the converted former Alexanderplatz Theater at Alexanderstrasse 40 . Martin acted as director, Zickel was the head director. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote in retrospect:

"Just as the progressive painters branched off from their stagnant colleagues by founding the Secession , Zickel wanted to inject fresh blood into the stagnant stage scene by opening the Sezessionbühne (at Alexanderplatz)."

The hyperactive kid also organized matinées at Sigmund Lautenburg's Residenztheater in Blumenstrasse and together with Martin at the Neues Theater on Schiffbauerdamm . Zickel and Martin wanted to reform the theater scene and were the first to bring Maurice Maeterlinck and Frank Wedekind , who rebelled against naturalism in the theater , onto the Berlin stage. In retrospect, Eduard von Winterstein emphasizes that Zickel was the only one “who had the boldness to make up for the mistakes and sins of neglect of the Berlin theater directors and to promote these two poets in Berlin.” The Secession stage opened with Henrik Ibsen's “ Comedy of Love ” and maintained a high level, but could not be maintained financially in the long term. Ernst von Wolzogens “ Überbrettl ” moved into the theater . This led to the first big break in Zickel's life. In 1902/03 he still worked for a few months as chief director at Überbrettl , but then dropped everything and withdrew from the innovative theater scene.

In 1904, to everyone's surprise, Zickel turned to commercial swank and operetta theater and became director of the newly opened Berlin comedy theater . In an obituary for Zickel it later says about this change:

“The pioneer for esoteric works became ... a wearer of viable public goods ..., a cool calculator without illusions. He looked back on his glorious beginnings almost as if on a sin of youth. If he was confronted about this change of attitude, he shrugged his shoulders and replied that it would be enough for his ambition if he could pay all employees the fee on the first of each month. "

Zickel was extremely successful at the Lustspielhaus with light entertainment. His departure from “the literary principles of his youth” was received with amazement by his stage colleagues and theater critics . His previous "pioneering work" was generally recognized. Only Siegfried Jacobsohn later denied Zickel any serious interest in further developing the theater:

“He's not worth anything. His seriousness was always a trap. If he strove or strove to adorn himself with Hamsun , Hofmannsthal and Maeterlinck, it was not because he valued them or even understood them, but because he wanted to be popular with literary criticism, because he wanted to be encouraged by them. That succeeded too imperfectly for the chimney to smoke from it ... "

Martin Zickel was married to the actress Marie Mallinger (1878-1959), who also played under his direction for a number of years. He was stocky, tended to be overweight, had a round face with "funny twinkling eyes" and a large, fleshy nose. Nevertheless, he exerted a strong pull on women, which would eventually lead to the greatest crisis of his life. In 1910, on the initiative of the stage cooperative, Berlin Police President Traugott von Jagow brought an indictment against Zickel because he had relationships with several of his actresses. Since he was morally unsuitable to run a theater with dignity, after a series of proceedings Zickel was revoked by judgment of the Prussian Higher Administrative Court, the license to run a theater company for life. Zickel's appeal was rejected. Out of necessity, he resigned as director of the comedy theater in November 1911 and temporarily retired into private life. Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers became his successor as director .

Only in 1914 did Zickel appear again in public in the Berlin theater scene. From 1914–1916 he was senior director at the Residenztheater , from 1915–17 at the Lustspielhaus , from 1919 at the Central Theater (which was then briefly called the Eden Theater ) and staged entertainment again. In 1920 he was given back permission to run a stage and was director of the Central Theater until 1922 . 1924–1926 he headed the theater on Kommandantenstrasse , which in 1925/26 became part of Zickel's own theater association "United Theaters" . The Thalia Theater and the Residenz Theater also belonged to the network . The theater association was financially only moderately successful. In the 1928/29 season, Zickel took over the management of the comedy theater and in 1929/30 of the Komische Oper . When these ventures also failed financially, Zickel finally became head of production of the Deutscher Lichtspiel-Syndikats , the film production company of the "Association of Independent Movie Theater Owners" . In 1930 he directed Don Pasquale at the Salzburg Festival .

Zickel also wrote for the theater, in particular libretti for operettas by Ralph Benatzky , Hugo Hirsch and Walter Kollo . From 1918/19 he also worked occasionally as a film director. He also played a leading role in the Deutsches Bühnenverein , the organization of theater directors, for many years. He died in the summer of 1932 - only 56 years old - of a kidney disease. His early death, as the emigrant Eduard von Winterstein describes in retrospect, “saved him from the sad consequences of the anti-Semitic revolution of 1933.” He was buried in the interdenominational cemetery in Heerstrasse in Charlottenburg (today's district of Berlin-Westend ). The grave has not been preserved.

Martin Zickel's son Hans Zickel (dates unknown) also became a director and worked under his father from 1928 to 1932, first at the Berlin Lustspielhaus , then at the Komische Oper Berlin.

Movies

  • 1918: The pride of the family, screenplay with Willi Wolff
  • 1919: The Red Sarafan, director
  • 1919: The yellow grimace, screenplay, director
  • 1920. The Confession of a Dead, also “The Fate of a Marriage”, directed
  • 1920: A Demimonde Marriage, directed
  • 1920: The Princess of the Nile, director
  • 1920: Napoleon and the little laundress, screenplay with Willi Wolff
  • 1931: Les quatre vagabonds , screenplay with Johannes Brandt
  • 1931: Gassenhauer, screenplay with Johannes Brandt

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f German Theater Lexicon. Volume VII. 38./39. Delivery. Berlin u. a. 2011, p. 3766.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Martin Zickel †. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung v. July 25, 1932 (noon edition).
  3. ↑ a b c New Theater Almanach / Deutsches Bühnen-Jahrbuch 12 (1901) - 33 (1922).
  4. ↑ a b c d M. J. [d. i. Monty Jacobs ]: Martin Zickel †. In: Vossischen Zeitung v. July 15, 1932 (morning edition), p. 3.
  5. ↑ a b Gottfried Reinhardt : The Lover. Memories of his son Gottfried Reinhardt on Max Reinhardt. Munich / Zurich 1975, pp. 235–239, quoted on p. 237.
  6. ↑ a b c d Eduard von Winterstein : My life and my time. Berlin (East) 1967, p. 233f.
  7. ^ A b c Max Epstein : The theater business . In: Die Schaubühne 8 (1912), No. 1 v. Jan. 4, 1912, pp. 8-12; New Theater-Almanach 24 (1913), p. 131.
  8. ^ A b Siegfried Jacobsohn : The Zickel case. In: Die Schaubühne 7 (1911), No. 46 v. November 16, 1911, pp. 467-469, cited p. 469; s. a. Ders .: As far as criticism can prove. Comment. Göttingen 2005, pp. 199-202.
  9. ^ Ludwig Eisenberg's Large Biographical Lexicon of the Stage. Leipzig 1903, p. 635.
  10. ↑ Alfred Döblin : A guy must have an opinion. Reports and reviews 1921–1924. Munich 1981, passim.
  11. ↑ Rudolph S. Joseph: From the great theater time. Aachen 1994, p. 62.
  12. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 497.
personal data
SURNAME Zickel, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German director and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Breslau , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1932
Place of death Berlin , Weimar Republic