Schönthan, Franz von

(1849-1913)

   Playwright, actor. Schönthan was one of the most frequently performed playwrights in the Wilhelmine period; no season between 1885 and 1918 passed without several of his plays, written with collaborators or alone, in dozens of repertoires. After service as an officer in the Austrian navy, Schönthan had begun to work as an actor in provincial theaters in 1872. The Berlin Residenztheater hired him in 1878, and the following year Theodor Lebrun engaged him at the Wallner Theater. There he met Gustav von Moser, at that time the Wallner's leading playwright; under Moser he polished his skills as a playwright, and in 1880 their DerZugvogel (The Migratory Bird) premiered in Hamburg. Their Krieg im Frieden (War in Peace) premiered in 1880 and it too was widely popular, but their subsequent efforts proved less popular. In 1883 Schönthan became principal director at the Vienna City Theater. There he began collaborating with his brother Paul on a play that satirized the Wilhelmine theater itself, Der Raub der Sabinerinnen (The Rape of the Sabine Women). It premiered in 1885 and proceeded to take Wilhelmine theaters by storm; the play had thousands of performances throughout the German-speaking world, dominating repertoires for decades. Schönthan retired from acting and directing in 1886 and concentrated on play-writing until his death, working with several other collaborators suc-cessfully—but none of their efforts exceeded the success of The Rape of the Sabine Women.