LEHMANN, ELSE

(1866-1940)

Actress. Lehmann was best known for herNaturalisticacting, particularly in the premieres ofGerhart Hauptmann, but she began her career as a comic soubrette at Berlin's Wallner Theater. After her highly praised performance as Helene Krause in the 1889 Freie Bühne premiere of Hauptmann'sVor Sonnenaufgang(Before Sunrise), L'Arronge hired her to work at hisDeutsches Theaterin three Hauptmann premieres:Einsame Menschen(Lonely Lives),Kollege Krampton(Colleague Krampton), andDer Biberpelz(The Beaver Coat). In the latter, Lehmann played the leading role of the middle-aged yet crafty Mother Wolff, even though Lehmann herself was only 27 at the time.WhenOtto Brahmtook over the Deutsches in 1894, he retained her services for all the Hauptmann productions he planned to present, regarding Lehmann even then as Germany's finest actress in the Naturalstic style. She became the prime female attraction of his entire operation, both at the Deutsches and later at the Lessing Theater in Berlin, as her appearances usually prompted sellouts. For Brahm, she attracted audiences not only to Hauptmann performances but also to numerous revivals of Henrik Ibsen; she subsequently went on tour in those productions, also including in her repertoire the plays of Hermann Sudermann andArthur Schnitzlerin hundreds of performances throughout Europe. She remained so closely identified with Hauptmann, however, that whenMax ReinhardtrevivedDer Biberpelzin 1916, he cast Lehmann again as Mother Wolff, this time at the more appropriate age of 50. Brahm claimed that over two decades as Berlin's foremost Naturalistic actress, Lehmann had transformed the German theater; her ability to project a completely natural and unaffected character on the stage created a precedent hundreds of actresses were to follow. Her admiration for Brahm was mutual; indeed, it was so substantial that when he died in 1912 she went into retirement, emerging from it only infrequently and with reluctance.