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Max Reinhardt was one of the first major directors in the current sense of the term, and undoubtedly the most famous in the world in 1935. His first great success was a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Berlin in 1905. This became his favorite play: he called it “an invitation to escape reality, a plea for the glorious release to be found in sheer fantasy" and directed it 29 more times, in 18 cities in Europe and the U.S., in addition to filming it for Warner Brothers. Nicknamed “The Great Magician” for his stagecraft, Reinhardt has been called “perhaps the most versatile director the theatre has seen”
Max Reinhardt was one of the first major directors in the current sense of the term, and undoubtedly the most famous in the world in 1935. His first great success was a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Berlin in 1905. This became his favorite play: he called it “an invitation to escape reality, a plea for the glorious release to be found in sheer fantasy" and directed it 29 more times, in 18 cities in Europe and the U.S., in addition to filming it for Warner Brothers. Nicknamed “The Great Magician” for his stagecraft, Reinhardt has been called “perhaps the most versatile director the theatre has seen” for the ease with which he moved between styles of plays and stagings that ranged from the intimate (Ibsen’s Ghosts with a stage design by Edvard Munch) to the epic (Everyman at the Salzburg Festival – which he founded – or Midsummer in the Hollywood Bowl). He had an immense influence on stage and theater design, created the contemporary notion of repertory theater and the idea of theaters housing multiple stages of different sizes and configurations for different styles of plays and productions, and helped create the 20th century standard of Shakespearean production and acting. His Berlin theaters were confiscated by the Nazis after they took power in 1933; he worked in his native Vienna for a year before moving to the U.S. While his film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is star-studded, it does not compare to the “dream cast” he initially wanted, which included Charlie Chaplin as Bottom, Greta Garbo as Titania, Joan Crawford as Hermia, Fred Astaire as Puck, and (perhaps most enticing to imagine) W.C. Fields playing Flute and, of course, Thisbe.
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