Continental stagecraft

by Kenneth Macgowan

It is hardly necessary to speak of the part that Reinhardt played in establishing the vogue of the designer in the theater, of his attempt to bring Craig to his stage, of his experiments with stage machinery and lighting equipment, or of the extraordinary personal energy which made so much work possible. The German theater testifies continually to his influence. Dozens of younger men must be working in his vein to-day. As far north as Gothenburg, the commercial city of Sweden, and as far south as Vienna his influence spreads.

In Gothenburg works a young director, Per Lindberg, who is as patently a disciple as he was once a student of Reinhardt. There in the Lorensberg Theater is the revolving stage, with settings by a young Swede, Knut Ström, which might have been seen at the Deutsches Theater ten years ago. A large repertory brings forth scenery often in the heavily simplified fashion of ten years ago, but sometimes fresh and ambitious. Romeo and Juliet appears against scenes like early Italian paintings, with one permanent background of hill and cypresses and a number of naïve arrangements of arched arcades from some Fra Angelico. The artist turns régisseur also in Everyman, and manages a performance fresh in its arrangement of setting, platforms, and steps, if a little reminiscent in costumes and poses and movements.

In Richard Weichert, of the State Schauspielhaus in Frankfort, you find a régisseur who suggests the influence of Reinhardt without losing distinction as one of the three really significant directors of Germany to-day. It is not so much an influence in an imitative sense, as a resemblance in effectiveness along rather similar lines.

Maria Stuart: the throne-room at Westminster. Tall screens of blue and gold are ranged behind a dais surmounted by a high, pointed throne of dull gold. At either side curtains of silvery blue. Queen Elizabeth wears a gown of gleaming gold. A Weichert production in Frankfort designed by Sievert.

Weichert, like so many of the outstanding directors of Germany, has a single artist with whom he works on terms of the closest coöperation—Ludwig Sievert. It is a little hard, therefore, to divide the credit in Maria Stuart for many of the dramatic effects of people against settings and in light. You might put down the scenic ideas wholly to Sievert, since Weichert has permitted the use of a particularly poor setting for the scene of Queen Mary’s tirade against Elizabeth; a setting which is a sloppy attempt at lyricism in keeping with Mary’s speech at the beginning of the scene, but quite out of touch with the dramatic end. If Weichert could dictate the fine prison scene reproduced in this book, he would hardly allow Sievert to include the greenery-yallery exterior to which I have taken exception. On the other hand, can it be only an accidental use that Weichert makes of the curtains in the throne room scene? The act begins with a curious arrangement of square blue columns in an angle of which the throne is set. When the audience is over, pages draw blue curtains from each side of the proscenium diagonally backward to the columns by the throne. This cuts down the room to terms of intimacy for the council scene. The point at which Weichert must enter definitely as régisseur comes when Elizabeth steps to one side of the room away from her group of councilors to read some document; then the down-stage edge of the curtain at the side by the councilors is drawn back far enough for a flood of amber light to strike across in front of the men, and catch the white figure of the queen. Here in this light she dominates the room; and Leicester, when he steps into it for a scene with Mortimer, does the same. It is a device of great use to the actor in building up the power and atmosphere of the moment.

The dramatic vigor of Weichert never goes so high in Maria Stuart as Reinhardt’s, but he is never so careless of detail or of subordinate scenes. Almost every inch of the play seems painstakingly perfected. Not only are the actors who give so sloppy a performance in Peer Gynt under another director, strung up constantly to their best effort; but every detail, from contrasts in costuming and the arrangement of costumed figures, to the motion of hands and bodies, seems calculated to heighten the play’s emotion. Take the first scene, for example, the prison in which Queen Mary is confined with her few retainers. The drawing shows the interesting arrangement of the scene with bars to indicate a prison but not to obstruct action. It pictures the final scene in a later act, when the queen receives her friends and says good-by before going to her death. The contrast of the queen in white and the others in black is excellent. In the first act, even the queen is in black; the only note of color, a deep red, is given to the heroic boy, Mortimer, who is to bring something like hope to Mary. The long scene between Mortimer and the queen is handled with great dignity, and at the same time intensity. It is studied out to the last details. The hands alone are worth all your attention.

Weichert’s direction passes on from atmosphere and movement to the expression that the players themselves give of their characters. It is here perhaps that the resemblance to Reinhardt is closest. You catch it in many places: the contrast between Mortimer’s tense young fervor, and the masterful, play-acting nonchalance of Leicester; this red and green horror of an Elizabeth, looking somehow as bald beneath her wig as history says she was, and bursting with pent energies and passions; towards the end of the play, Leicester, the deliberate fop, leaning against the wall like some wilted violet, Mortimer exhausted but still strong beside him; then the death of the boy, the quick stabbing, and the spears of the soldiers raying towards his body on the floor. It is all sharp, firm, poised—and very, very careful.

Maria Stuart: a room in the castle where Queen Mary is imprisoned. High black grills fill the proscenium arch on either side. Behind, a flat wall of silvery gray. The sketch shows the moment when Mary, gowned and veiled in white, bids farewell to her attendants. A Weichert production in Frankfort designed by Sievert.