max reinhardt
Max Reinhardt can be described as one of the greatest directors in history. A great innovator and a master of spectacle, he staged gigantic productions, full of pageantry and color. Reinhardt became one of the first theatrical directors to achieve widespread recognition as a major creative artist, working in Berlin, Salzburg, New York City, and Hollywood. His work summed up all theater before him and opened new doorways for the theater that followed. Max Reinhardt was born Max Goldmann on September 9th, 1873 in Baden, near Vienna. He was the oldest of the seven children born to Wilhelm and Rose Goldmann, an Orthodox Jewish couple. With his only brother, Edmund, young Max played long hours with puppets and from their balcony watched the real puppets in the streets. "He was educated at the Untergymnasium, and was in a banking business till seventeen" (Carter 33). "Though his parents were remote from theatrical life, they were sympathetic to his fascination with the actors of the Vienna Burgtheater, and, at the urging of one of these, they allowed their son to exchange his boredom as a bank clerk for the excitement of drama school" (Britannica). Although he proved to be an inhibited actor,
"For the actor the Reinhardt touch was a hypnotic one. 'He tortures... he drives... foward, he resolves every doubt'" (Chinoy 52). Reinhardt put special interest in each actor. Every person was an individual and was looked at as such. He was not only their producer but their friend as well. His ability to reach his performers was incredible. "His suggestive influence on the actor is therefore so great because the actor feels that someone is listening to him who is not only the teacher... who can help him, but that someone is sitting there below who will always be as carried away as the naive public when the actor succeeds" (Sayler 98). He appreciates his actors and is thankful for them. "Every stage represents the individuality of its manager, especially when the dramatic text is not the sole factor of importance, but is only one of the means to a desired end. This is especially true of Reinhardt's stage, due not only to the strong influence which Reinhardt exerts on the actor but to the individual training the actor receives under Reinhardt" (Sayler 111). needing a beard and heavy makeup to release his talents, Reinhardt won local fame and friends in Salzburg where he studied. In 1890 he began his career under the name Max Reinhardt and in 1894 was invited to Berlin by Otto Brahm, director of the Deutsches Theater. His life took a dramatic turn when on the eve of one of Brahm's production an actor named Muller, cast to play an old skipper, committed suicide. Brahm was devastated, no understudy had rehearsed and the production company risked loss of money. Reinhardt stepped up and performed in Mullers place, saving Brahm's production and establishing his presence, especially in Brahm's eyes. Fr! Aside from his performances, one of his most distinguished characteristics was that of his relationship with the actors or actresses in his plays. "Although his reforms in stage settings, mechanisms and lighting and his revolutionary experiments in the general technique and theory of the theater, have absorbed the major part of the attention devoted to Reinhardt... there is little doubt that his talent for discovering and training actors for his ensemble is an even more important factor in his substantial and continuing success" (Sayler 98). His relationship and ability to
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Approximate Word count = 1555
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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