Immermann, Karl Lebrecht

(1796-1840)

   Manager, playwright. Immermann studied law and was a Prussian court official when he began his theater career about 1829, working with amateurs. As the manager of the Düsseldorf Stadttheater in 1835-1837, he sought to imitate the idealized "Weimar style" by attempting to create a disciplined acting ensemble and present works of high literary value. At Düsseldorf he hired Christian Dietrich Grabbe as his dramaturg, but his directing efforts ended largely in disaster. Düsseldorf audiences rejected literary emphases in favor of popular entertainment; Immermann's admiration of Ludwig Tieck, however, prompted him to reexamine Shakespeare's plays and to look for ways to create in Germany the kind of stage for which Shakespeare had written. The result was a precedent-setting 1840 production of Twelfth Night. Though it featured amateur actors, the stage had been specially built by architect Rudolf Wiegmann (1804-1865), who had published research on 16th-century building materials. Immermann's plays were largely derivative; during his lifetime, most observers considered him a dilettante.