Jessner, Leopold

(1878-1945)

   Director. Jessner was best known for his work during the Weimar Republic, when he was appointed intendant of the Prussian State Theater, the tradition-bound, Karl Friedrich Schinkel-designed Royal Theater on Gendarme Square near the Royal Palace. Having begun his career in the private theaters of Hamburg and his native Königsberg, Jessner ushered in a new era of state-subsidized, modernist theater practice in Berlin by staging classics with elevated tempo, fragmented acting, largely abstract settings, symbolic colors, streamlined diction, and an unwonted emphasis on the fractured and discordant. His credo was "thinking a thought through to its conclusion," employing drum rolls, rhythmic shouts, and the exploitation of light to break up the stage space. His stagings often outraged his numerous adversaries and delighted his supporters in the ruling Social Democratic Party. Jessner had long been a member of that organization, which had assumed control of the Prussian Cultural Ministry in the aftermath of the kaiser's abdication. Producers dependent upon the box office, meanwhile, relied on production and dramatic styles that had a wider audience appeal— an appeal that in most cases was traditional.

   There is some debate about who originated the "Jessner steps," though Jessner became identified with them in many productions; they served his directorial goals for symbolism as much as for practical stage platforming. In a 1920 production of William Shakespeare's Richard III, the steps served as metaphors for the vaulting ambition of Gloucester (played by Fritz Kortner). Jessner's own ambition was to transform the State Theater from a former imperial plaything to a "showplace of the people." His production of Friedrich Schiller's Wilhelm Tell (William Tell) set off a riot outside the theater, and in most other plays dear to the heart of traditionalists, Jessner demanded that actors no longer speak their lines in the familiar declamatory style. In his production of Macbeth, for example, actors alternatively shouted and whispered to each other. Costumes usually had no direct connection to the historical period and settings likewise evinced no specific architectural characteristics. Jessner most often sought compaction, reducing everything in a production to basic elements. His selection of contemporary plays at the State Theater also reflected his desire to break new ground. Frank Wedekind's Der Marquis von Keith (The Marquis of Keith), Duell am Lido (Duel on the Lido)by Hans-José Rehfisch (featuring the State Theater debut of Marlene Dietrich), and world premieres of Ernst Barlach, Carl Zuckmayer, and Georg Kaiser flaunted trends in functional lighting and abstract scene design no less than did Jessner's productions of classics. The acting at times revealed more Freudian self-preoccupation than character motivation.

   As the 1920s progressed, Jessner came under increasing fire from the National Socialists, who assailed him for "absolutely un-German" productions that betrayed his Jewishness and his "hyper-modern, bolshevistic, mollusk-like and neurasthenic aesthetics." Jessner held forth at the State Theater until 1930, despite attempts in the Prussian state legislature to remove him. He remained in Berlin and worked actively as a director in several theaters before he was forced to emigrate in 1933. He later staged Schiller's William Tell in Palestine and subsequently in Los Angeles.