144. Adele Sandrock

Guest performance in Berlin

If I were to describe in a few words the feeling I have when Adele Sandrock is on stage, I would have to say: I revel in the pleasure of mature, sweet beauty. I leave the theater in the harmonious mood that I usually only have when I have succeeded in completing a difficult work to my complete satisfaction. A soothing calm takes over my soul. Not a calm similar to that which comes from idleness, but a calm similar to that which comes from a properly completed life.

This was not always the case when I saw Adele Sandrock. Ten years ago, when she was just beginning to be regarded by the public as a great actress, I left her performances with a hot head and feverish nerves. Everything in me twitched when I saw her Eva, her Alexandra - in Richard Voss' plays - or even her Anna in Gunnar Heiberg's "King Midas". A great nature spoke from her. Everything one had in the way of vitality excited her. But back then you had to find peace through yourself. It gave you nothing to restore the torn harmony of your soul. There was always something missing that belonged to full beauty. It must also calm the waves it has stirred. Sandrock was once a stormy wind, now she has become a power that knows how to evenly distribute storm and calm. That is why I say her art has the hallmark of mature beauty that comes from harmony.

I believe that Adele Sandrock owes this to the fact that she came to the Burgtheater at the right time. Her style was mature, and in the Burgtheater she found a calm. Beauty blossomed there, but the warmth of passion and temperament had died in this beauty. The whole Burgtheater was like Charlotte Wolter. Adele Sandrock brought with her everything that Charlotte Wolter lacked, and with the manner of a genius she appropriated what she could learn from Wolter.

Now, at her Berlin guest performance, I found in Adele Sandrock all the traits that once made me feel hot, but everything is muted by the noble artistry that was always at home in the Burgtheater.

This was already clear to me on the first evening when she played Francillon. It became even clearer to me during the performance of "Mary Stuart". This Mary was all life and also all art. The innocent-guilty woman appeared in large, noble-beautiful features, in whom one could believe at any moment that a noble soul can submit to great misfortune.

And the following evening, this Christine in Schnitzler's brisk, genuinely dramatic, fragrantly beautiful insignificance "Liebelei". The Viennese girl with all the magic of loveliness that is so charming in the city on the Danube. I always had to ask myself: where have I seen this girl? She seemed like a good acquaintance to me. And yet again everything was played in the style of the Burgtheater. Immediately afterwards, the high-spirited, cynical exuberance of Anni in Schnitzler's "Abschiedssouper". The two roles are like black and white, and Sandrock didn't miss a note in either of them.

However, old memories came back most vividly when she played Eva. That was one of the roles in which she shone ten years ago. How differently she plays it now. A noble dignity always forces the erupting passion back into beautiful form. Adele Sandrock says today what she said ten years ago, but she has recast everything in the same way that Goethe recast his Iphigenia in Italy. Her passion is still the same as before, her warmth is still the same as before: but above the passion, above the warmth, stands the personality of the artist, who no longer allows herself to be subdued by the forces of her soul and is driven by them. Today she rules over them with playful power.

When Adele Sandrock recently made a guest appearance in Berlin, she published a short article in the Berliner Tageblatt in which she advocated the employment of female directors. The idea is certainly very appealing, and if one is generally in favor of opening up to women the professions to which prejudice and error have so far prevented them, then one can only applaud the proposal of the great Viennese actress. Nevertheless, one should not suppress reservations in this respect. The reasons put forward by Adele Sandrock are the main reason for this. In many cases, directing is a matter of arrangements that women take care of in real life. They should therefore - in Adele Sandrock's opinion - have more understanding than men when it comes to working out these arrangements on stage. One thing is not taken into account: It is another to do a thing in real life, another to imitate it in the field of art. This seems to be a fundamental error in Adele Sandrock's conception of art. Could not the male imagination be better suited than the female imagination to imitate those things on stage that women do in life? Of course, it cannot be denied that there will always be some women in the ranks of actresses who have a distinct talent for directing. They should not be deprived of the opportunity to use this talent. 'There will also be plays that definitely need a female hand. They will be those in which feminine feelings and views are in the foreground. In short, Adele Sandrock's suggestion will not be easy to reject. Incidentally, Berlin will soon get to know the advantages of a female director - the enterprising Nuscha Butze will not fail to add to the burden of direction in her "theater, which she takes off Lautenburg's shoulders, also that of the "Oberregie", with which her predecessor was also burdened.