BRAHM, OTTO (Abrahamsohn):

By: Isidore Singer, Joseph Sohn

German dramatic critic and manager; born in Hamburg Feb. 5, 1856. He studied philosophy, German philology, and the history of art, at Berlin, Heidelberg, and Strasburg, and was a pupil of Wilhelm Scherer, the historian of literature. Among his writings are "Das Deutsche Ritterdrama des Achtzehnten Jahrhunderts" (1880), and biographies of Gottfried Keller (1883), H. von Kleist (1884, 3d ed., 1892), Ibsen (1887), and Schiller (1888-92). Interested in the modern so-called "naturalistic" school, he, in conjunction with several others, established Die Freic Bühne, a society designed to promote the production of the works of Ibsen and his associates.

In connection with this society, Brahm published a periodical also entitled "Die Freic Bühne," in which he defended the views of the modern naturalistic school. Upon the retirement of L'Arronge from the directorship of the Deutsches Theater it was leased to Brahm, who, with a very good cast, began to produce the works of Ibsen, Gerhard Hauptmann, Sudermann, Halbe, and Hirschfeld. Gerhard Hauptmann's "Die Weber" was performed more than one hundred times at this theater.

S. J. So.