Hartung, Gustav

(1887-1946)

   Director. Hartung began his directing career in Bremen, but he made his most significant contributions at the Frankfurt am Main City Theater. There he staged a number of Expressionist productions as that theater's head director and dramaturg between 1914 and 1920. In Frankfurt, Hartung began working with Carl Sternheim, and the two developed a mutually beneficial working relationship. Hartung continued to do numerous premieres of Sternheim's work until 1933; he especially understood the "hard edge" of Sternheim's dialogue. Hartung also premiered Fritz von Unruh's plays, most notably Platz (Place) and Ein Geschlecht (One Generation). He arrived in Cologne in 1924 with the support of its mayor, Konrad Adenauer, but remained there only one year. Audiences were not receptive to his Expressionist experiments with Georg Kaiser, Eugene O'Neill, and other Unruh plays.