WEICHERT, RICHARD

(1880-1961)

Director, manager. Weichert became one of the most significant directors of theExpressioniststyle in the 1920s. He had studied acting withLouise Dumontand Gustav Lindemann in Düsseldorf before World War I, and during the war he began directing at the Mannheim National Theater. Among his most notable productions there wasWalterHasenclever'sDer Sohn(The Son) in 1918. Weichert embraced distortion in both lighting and set design, seeing both as a route to the central character's inner torment. He continued to promote Hasenclever's plays when he became manager of the Frankfurt am Main City Theater in 1918, a post he held until 1932. In Frankfurt he attempted to stage works byWilliam Shakespearein the Expressionist manner, but only hisMacbethstirred any interest. In Frankfurt he also produced the early works ofBertolt Brecht, attracting national attention to Frankfurt am Main and enhancing Brecht's chances for additional productions inBerlin. During the Third Reich, Weichert worked regularly at the Berlin Volksbühne, directing a variety of plays that ranged from Shakespeare,Johann Wolfgang Goethe, andHeinrich von KleisttoFranz von Schönthan, including even Nazi favorites like Heinrich Zerkaulen. He worked periodically inViennaas well. By the mid-1930s he had long forsaken the Expressionist paradigm, but after the war, he returned to Frankfurt am Main and to an Expressionism of sorts, premieringWolfgangBorchert'sDraussen vor der Tür(The Outsider) in 1948.