Freie Bühne, Verein

Freie Bühne, Verein, a society in Berlin sponsoring by subscription private performances of realistic plays banned by the censor, or unlikely to be staged by a commercial theatre. The visit of the Théâtre libre of Paris to Berlin was a contributory factor to the foundation of the society, revealing new techniques of acting and production.

The Freie Bühne was inaugurated in 1889 by O. Brahm, M. Harden, P. Schlenther (1854-1916), and Th. Wolff (1868-1916), and gave its first performance, Ibsen's Ghosts, on 29 September 1889. The second (20 October 1889) was devoted to G. Hauptmann's first play, Vor Sonnenaufgang; this performance is usually reckoned to be a landmark in German Naturalism; it excited as much condemnation as praise. Brahm was the director from 1889 to 1893. Later productions of the Freie Bühne were Die Familie Selicke by A. Holz and J. Schlaf, Anzengruber's Das vierte Gebot, Hauptmann's Das Friedensfest, and Die Weber, Tolstoy's Die Macht der Finsternis (The Power of Darkness), and plays by Bjørnson and Strindberg. The aims of the society were also advanced by the periodical Freie Bühne für modernes Leben, founded in 1890 by O. Brahm, who was joined as editor by W. Bölsche in 1891; in 1893 J. Hart became editor, and was succeeded in the same year by O. J. Bierbaum; in 1894 O. Bie (1864-1938) took over, and continued the journal (see neue Rundschau, Die). The Verein Freie Bühne was dissolved in 1893.