Walter Bison

Walter Bison (* 25. July 1913 in Dusseldorf , † 13. April 1985 in Heilbronn ) was a German theater intendant , - actor - and director , who in the history of the Heilbronner theater life played an important role. From 1954 to 1968 he was the director of the Small Theater Heilbronn eV , from 1968 to 1980 he was managing director of Heilbronner Theater GmbH , in 1970 he was awarded the Golden Mint of the City of Heilbronn. In 1980 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Life

1936, Stralsund Theater

1936, Görlitzer Theater

1937–1939, Gdansk City Theater

Walter Bison was born in Düsseldorf as the son of the chief engineer Friedrich Bison and his wife Elfriede, born. Bockelmann born. In 1918, Bison's father took over the development of the Flender works in Lübeck as director and operations manager. Walter Bison spent his childhood in Lübeck, where he graduated from high school at the Johanneum in Lübeck at Easter 1932. He then completed a three-year apprenticeship as a businessman in the Lübeck trading company Possehl GmbH; At the same time he took acting lessons from Wilhelm Kürten at the Lübeck Municipal Theater . In the spring of 1935 he passed both the commercial and the acting final exams. He passed the final actor examination before a state commission in Hamburg chaired by General Manager Heinrich Karl Strohm .

Bison had his first engagement as an actor at the Grenzlandtheater Flensburg (today Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landestheater ). This was followed by further annual contracts at the Theater am Olof-Palme-Platz in Stralsund and at the Theater am Demianiplatz in Görlitz . In 1937 he was engaged for two years at the Gdansk State Theater as the first youthful hero and lover. In April 1936 he married the actress Ingeborg Boysen, their son Olaf was born on October 5, 1938. Ingeborg drowned in Cranz in September 1941 . From 1940 Bison was a soldier in the Wehrmacht . His unit was involved in the French campaign, was transferred to the Eastern Front in February 1941 and stayed there until the surrender in spring 1945. In autumn 1945 he managed to escape from a Soviet prisoner-of-war.

In October 1945, after the theater reopened, Bison had an engagement as the first character hero at the Lübeck City Theater. In 1947 he went to the Junge Bühne in Hamburg. At that time, Will Quadflieg , Günther Lüders , Hardy Krüger and Albert Florath belonged to the ensemble of the Hamburg theater . In addition to Bison's work on stage, he was also often employed in the radio (NDR). Bison's first engagement as a game director he completed in 1948 at the State Theater in Kassel. In 1949 he became head director of the theater at Hildesheim City Theater. In 1952 he held the same position at the State Theater Württemberg-Hohenzollern in Tübingen. In the season 1954/55 he became head of the Small Theater Heilbronn eV to season 1956/57 Bison was appointed director. When the Heilbronner Theater took on the legal form of a GmbH in the 1968/69 season, Bison became managing director.

Bison staged over 160 pieces and played important roles in over 80 pieces such as King Lear by William Shakespeare , Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Philipp in Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller and General Harras in Des Teufels General by Carl Zuckmayer . When the Heilbronner Theater GmbH opened a second venue ( studio stage ) in the Harmonie in March 1970 , Walter Bison refused because of the too small ensemble and the unsuitable rooms. In March 1977 the operation of the studio stage in Harmonie was ended. 49 studio productions had been shown by then. In July 1980, Walter Bison ended his activity as artistic director and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Walter Bison described in The Struggle for Theater Worthwhile how the grant could grow from 50,000 to 1,500,000 marks:

“When I came to Heilbronn, this theater only existed with play contracts and above all with a grant of 50,000 marks, of which 41,000 marks had to be paid off in debts. I've consolidated the whole thing in a few years. I managed to get six subscriptions, that a permanent ensemble was hired and that the grant grew to 1,500,000 marks. "

reception

Bison's work was the subject of heated argument. The production of La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu (“ The Trojan War does not take place ”) by the French professional diplomat and writer Jean Giraudoux from 1935 was very criticized in October 1975 :

“Part of the audience whistled and booed when the general manager and director Walter Bison showed himself to the audience at the end, another part was outraged by the disregard for the 'great old man' of the Heilbronn theater. The theater crisis, carried out in public by letters to the editor and newspaper articles, seems to continue in the theater. Younger theatergoers in particular are no longer willing to applaud every production. The staging of the Giraudoux Ramas 'The war in Troy is not happening' was in fact unsatisfactory. The actors tried really hard to finally get the problem of war-peace under control, but the drama was only felt in the final phase. Otherwise the course of the action was more boring than exciting. Admittedly: the plot is largely based on dialogues, animating scenes are rare ... "

The chairman of the Heilbronner Kunstverein Ulrich Dehn and Jürgen Dieter Ueckert criticized that Walter Bison was overwhelmed:

“The current discussion about the Heilbronn theater is important. Everyone emphasizes this: Critics and defenders of the current state of affairs ... Critics of the current theater situation want a permanent cast of actors ... Every two weeks a newly rehearsed piece with an ensemble of 22 members. Two members of the ensemble are responsible for the direction of the four major productions (who also appear as actors): the artistic director Walter Bsion and the senior director Georg Hahn. Hardworking, hardworking! - But who can expect quality under these conditions ... "

The Gießen actor Günter Hänel, ex-member of the Heilbronner Ensemble and an actor who publishes expertly on theater issues, criticized Walter Bison in the RNZ on September 13 and 18, 1975, and Mayor Fuchs advocated Walter Bison:

“After knowing the theater situation in Heilbronn from the inside since 1945, I can definitely say that Walter Bison has made a contribution to the Heilbronn theater life. The Heilbronn theater would have slouched into a miserable smear if it hadn't been for the tight leadership of Walter Bison ... I have the impression that you are unable to measure and weigh up how difficult it is to get through the theatrical thoughts in Heilbronn. The board of directors of 'Heilbronner Theater GmbH' will discuss all correspondence as it was conducted in public. He will and you can be assured that he will continue to express his confidence in Mr. Walter Bison. I think it is tasteless and contrary to style to talk about the successor to Walter Bison in 1975. The Heilbronn theater skill will have to describe the time of Walter Bison's work as the ' Walter Bison era' . "

The Stuttgarter Zeitung pays tribute to him in an obituary . It is described that the theater “never got bigger or even bigger under his leadership”.

"He belonged to that species of theater people, which, although of course the theater had to , something else could have been. Walter Bison, born in Düsseldorf, was trained as a businessman as well as an actor. After engagements at smaller theaters, after war and imprisonment, after 1945 he came to Heilbronn via Kassel and Tübingen, among others, where he was artistic director from 1956 to 1980. He has staged one hundred and sixty pieces and played the leading roles in eighty. When he started in Heilbronn, the theater there was called the Small Theater . It never got bigger or even bigger under his leadership. But it has come through difficult times with dignity. Now he has died at the age of seventy-one. "

Walter Bison was mentioned in Der Spiegel when Bison played in the drama "La Machine à écrire" by Jean Cocteau :

“The Heilbronn theater director Walter Bison has been working in the theater for more than forty years. When he leaves the Heilbronn theater next year, he will have made a decisive contribution to the writing of 26 years of theater history in Heilbronn alone. The weekly magazine Der Spiegel mentioned Bison in its first year in issue number 35. At that time, Der Spiegel was still published 'every Saturday' and cost one Reichsmark. In the edition of August 30, 1947, on page 21 under the heading 'Theater' there is a review of a play that was performed in Hanover, under the heading 'Edgar Wallace but French - Jean Cocteau's typewriter' :
'The play was not written until 1941. But the social church that Cocteau aims at is based on German terms on the distant level of Ibsenic problems. - Paul Smolny, a new, very sensitive director, an excellently coordinated ensemble with the superior Gerhard Ritter, the talented young Lübeck Walter Bison, the capricious Jo Wegener and the charming Katharina Brauren create the French atmosphere. The audience stuck to the cracks more. '
This article also has a picture mounted that shows the young Walter Bison in a fierce hug with the charming Katharina Brauren. Caption: 'Caution! Anonymous letters' Seven years later Walter Bison was already in Heilbronn and the talented young man from Lübeck had to be content with the Heilbronn temporary solution for decades. "

Publications

• Walter Bison (Ed.): Small Theater Heilbronn: Jubilee season 1960/1961 [10 years Small Theater Heilbronn ...] Small commemorative publication for the tenth anniversary of the Small Theater Heilbronn. With a chronicle by Hans Franke and a list of the items listed from 1951 onwards . Heilbronn 1961.
• Walter Bison (Ed.): 25 years Heilbronner Theater: 1951–1976. Small commemorative publication for the 25th anniversary of the Small Theater Heilbronn. With a chronicle by Hans Franke up to 1961 (already published in the festschrift for the tenth anniversary) and a list of the items listed ("Werkstatistik") from 1951. Heilbronn 1976.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Date of birth and death according to the Heilbronn city archive , contemporary history collection, signature ZS-10031, entry on Walter Bison in the HEUSS database
2. ↑ Jürgen Frahm: Streiflichter on Heilbronn theater history after 1945. In: Herbert Haldy (Hrsg.): Stadttheater Heilbronn: opening on November 16, 1982. Heilbronn 1982, pp. 65–78, on p. 68.
3. ^ Jürgen Dieter Ueckert: Walter Bison, a theater man with stamina. On April 14, 1985, the Heilbronn theater director died at the age of 71 . In: Neckar Express . No. 17 , April 25, 1985, pp. 3 ( theaterartikel.blogspot.com ( Memento from November 29, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )).
4. ^ 26 years of Heilbronn theater history shaped: Walter Bison says goodbye. On Wednesday, Bison staged the Dürrenmatt play "The Meteor". The Heilbronn artistic director Walter Bison said goodbye to the Heilbronn audience on Wednesday, May 14, 1980 with the production of the play "The Meteor" by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, in which he also played the leading role, after 26 years of artistic director activity . In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung . No. 111 , May 13, 1980, pp. 3 .
5. ↑ Jürgen Dieter Ueckert: The fight for the theater was worth it. Lived in Heilbronn since 1954 with a temporary arrangement - hope for a new theater . In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung . No. 207 , September 7, 1979, pp. 3 .
6. ↑ kk: Whistles for bison . In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung . No. 229 , October 4, 1975, pp. 3 .
7. ↑ Jürgen Dieter Ueckert: Heilbronn cultural tail light. Cultural and political mendacity of the administration - Ensemble under stress - Critical theater view . In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung . No. 227 , October 2, 1975, p. 3 .
8. ↑ “Without bison miserable smear”. Mayor Fuchs defends Heilbronn theater in the “red union building” against attacks. In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung . No. 224 , September 29, 1975, pp. 3 .
9. ^ StZ: An intendant. On the death of Walter Bison . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . No. 95 , April 24, 1985, pp. 27 .
10. ↑ Jürgen Dieter Ueckert: Walter Bison, the talented . In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung . No. 207 , September 7, 1979, pp. 3 . Edgar Wallace, but French. In: Der Spiegel. 35/1947, accessed December 31, 2011.