Schlenther, Paul

(1854-1916)

   Critic, intendant. Schlenther's career resembled Otto Brahm's to a certain degree, beginning as a critic and concluding as a theater administrator. He also shared Brahm's enthusiasm for the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Gerhart Hauptmann. Schlenther and Brahm were colleagues on the Berlin Vossische Zeitung, where Theodor Fontane was the chief drama critic. Schlenther succeeded Fontane in 1886, and with Brahm and others, he helped found the Freie Bühne organization to subvert police censorship. Schlenther left Berlin in 1898 to become director of Vienna's Burgtheater, where he continued to present contemporary plays, many of them at in contradiction to the prevailing "royal and imperial" taste for drama.