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The Weavers (German : Die Weber, Silesian German: De Waber) is a play in five acts written by the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann in 1892. The play, probably Hauptmann's most important drama, sympathetically portrays a group of Silesian weavers who staged an uprising in 1844 due to their concerns about the Industrial Revolution.
The play was translated into Yiddish by Pinchas Goldhar in the 1920s, after which it became a favorite of the Yiddish stage. In 1927 it was adapted into a German silent film The Weavers directed by Frederic Zelnik and starring Paul Wegener. A Broadway version of The Weavers was staged in 1915–1916. [1]
Most of the characters are proletarians struggling for their rights. Unlike most plays of any period, as pointed out many times in literary criticism and introductions, the play has no true central character, providing ample opportunities for ensemble acting.
Critic Barrett H. Clark's commented in 1914: "As one of Gerhart Hauptmann's experiments in dramatic form, The Weavers is highly significant. Instead of a hero, he has created a mob; this mob is, therefore, the protagonist—or chief character—and if individuals emerge from the rank and file they are not thrust into the foreground to stay long. It is the weavers as a class that is ever before us, and the unity of the play is in them and in them alone; they are only parts of a larger picture which will take shape as the story advances, and are not intended to be taken as important individuals." [2]
The Weavers served as the inspiration for Käthe Kollwitz's print series of the same name (1893-1897). Kollwitz claimed to have attended the premiere in Berlin. [3] Several of these prints were included in Upton Sinclair's history of protest literature, The Cry for Justice (1915). [3] It remains one of her most well-known cycles of work. [3] [4] It was republished as a portfolio in 1931. [5]
Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.
Käthe Kollwitz was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including The Weavers and The Peasant War, depict the effects of poverty, hunger and war on the working class. Despite the realism of her early works, her art is now more closely associated with Expressionism. Kollwitz was the first woman not only to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts but also to receive honorary professor status.
The Theater am Schiffbauerdamm is a theatre building at the Schiffbauerdamm riverside in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany, opened on 19 November 1892. Since 1954, it has been home to the Berliner Ensemble theatre company, founded in 1949 by Helene Weigel and Bertolt Brecht.
Pieszyce is a town in Dzierżoniów County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district (gmina) Gmina Pieszyce.
Max Halbe was a German dramatist and main exponent of Naturalism.
Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. Interest in naturalism especially flourished with the French playwrights of the time, but the most successful example is Strindberg's play Miss Julie, which was written with the intention to abide by both his own particular version of naturalism, and also the version described by the French novelist and literary theoretician, Emile Zola.
The Ascension of Little Hannele, also known simply as Hannele, is an 1893 play by the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann. In contrast to Hauptmann's naturalistic dramas, The Assumption of Hannele adopts a more symbolist dramaturgy and includes a dream sequence. The play is the first in recorded world literature with a child as its heroine. The play tells the story of a neglected and abused peasant child, who, on her deathbed, experiences a vision of divine powers welcoming her into the afterlife. It was first published in 1894. Hauptmann was awarded the Grillparzer Prize in 1896 for the play.
Drayman Henschel, also known as Carter Henschel, is an 1898 five-act naturalistic play by the German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann. Unlike his 1892 play The Weavers, Hauptmann focuses on the story's psychological rather than social dimensions. As with his 1902 play Rose Bernd, the play charts the demise of an ordinary man who falls victim to circumstances beyond his control. As with many of Hauptmann's dramas, it ends with the main character's suicide.
The Conflagration is a German play written by Gerhart Hauptmann (1862–1946). Like Henrik Ibsen, Hauptmann focuses attention on social issues. Unlike The Weavers (1892) and The Assumption of Hannele (1893), it does not seem to have ever been performed on Broadway; however, it was adapted as a German film in 1962, directed by John Olden and starring Rudolf Platte as Schuhmachermeister Fielitz and Inge Meysel as Frau Fielitz.
The Rats is a stage drama in five acts by German dramatist Gerhart Hauptmann, which premiered in 1911, one year before the author received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Unlike other Hauptmann plays, such as The Weavers (1892) and The Assumption of Hannele (1893), this one does not seem ever to have been performed on Broadway.
The Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne owns the largest collections of works by the German artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) and has maintained close links with the Kollwitz family. The museum is owned and operated by the Kreissparkasse Köln savings bank.
The Garden Theatre was a major theatre on Madison Avenue and 27th Street in New York City, New York. The theatre opened on September 27, 1890, and closed in 1925. Part of the second Madison Square Garden complex, the theatre presented Broadway plays for two decades and then, as high-end theatres moved uptown to the Times Square area, became a facility for German and Yiddish theatre, motion pictures, lectures, and meetings of trade and political groups.
Pinchas Goldhar was a Polish and then Australian writer and translator, who wrote mainly in the Yiddish language.
The Weavers is a 1927 German silent historical drama film directed by Frederic Zelnik and starring Paul Wegener, Valeska Stock and Hermann Picha. The film is based on the 1892 play of the same title by Gerhart Hauptmann based on a historical event. The film's art direction was by Andrej Andrejew.
Alberta Gallatin was an American stage and film actress active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During her near forty-year career she acted in support of the likes of Elizabeth Crocker Bowers, James O’Neil, Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson, Thomas W. Keene, Richard Mansfield, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Otis Skinner, Maurice Barrymore, Joseph Adler, E. H. Sothern and James K. Hackett. Gallatin was perhaps best remembered by theatergoers for her varied classical roles, as Mrs. Alving in Henrik Ibsen's domestic tragedy Ghosts and the central character in the Franz Grillparzer tragedy Sappho. Counted among her few film roles was the part of Mrs. MacCrea in the 1914 silent film The Christian, an early 8-reel production based on the novel by Hall Caine.
The Beaver Coat is a 1949 East German comedy film directed by Erich Engel and starring Fita Benkhoff, Werner Hinz and Käthe Haack. It is an adaptation of Gerhart Hauptmann's 1893 play The Beaver Coat, previously adapted into a 1928 silent film and a 1937 sound film produced during the Nazi era.
Bertha Mann was an American stage and film actress.
Silesian weavers' uprising of 1844 was a revolt against contractors who supplied the weavers of Silesia with raw material and gave them orders for finished textiles but drastically reduced their payments.
Josepha Fabianna Kodis, was a Polish philosopher, psychologist and women's rights activist, who advocated for women's emancipation and equal rights. She was a co-organizer of the People's University for Polish emigrants in the St. Louis, Missouri. In Minsk, she organized the Free Polish University and public library.
The 1912 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the German dramatist and novelist Gerhart Hauptmann (1862–1949) "primarily in recognition of his fruitful, varied and outstanding production in the realm of dramatic art." He is the fourth German author to become a recipient of the prize after Paul Heyse in 1910.