The San Francisco call., 1906-05-13
To HONOR
A ROYAL PATRON OF
THE GERMAN STAGE
Will Help Celebrate the Eightieth
Birthday Of Reisning Duke of
| SAKE Meiningen.
Actors of FatherIand Look Upon Aged
Sovereign as Father of the
Profession.
He Ranks as One of the Greatest oi
Managers and Producers in
Williams Country.
Special Dispatch to The Call

Speeial Dispatch to The Call.
BERLIN, May HERMAN dramat-
lists, actors, opera singers, impresarios
and theatrical folk Of all kinds will join
in the approaching celebration of the
eightieth birthday of George II, reign
ing Duke of Sake Meiningen, the vener-
able patron of the German stage and re-
former of modern German dramatic
methods. While his ow-sovereigns on
the other twenty odd thrones of the Teu-
ton empire have been applying them
selves to purely affairs of state, Duke
George has devoted practically the whole
Of his reign to the theater, with the re-
suit that the profession in Germany
reveres him as its own particular distin-
guished head.
Unlike other crowned heads, who have
devoted time to the patronage Of dra-
matte art, Duke George has brought to
his hobby talent and capacity of really
brilliant order, and ranks by general con-
sent as one of the greatest stage-mana-
gers and "producers in Germany. The
Court theater at Meiningen, in conse-
quence, is in a class by itself, and once to
have been member of the Meiningen
ensemble, is a hallmark Of talent coveted
by every actor and-actress in the Father
land. Ludwig Barnay, Friedrich Haase,
Alois Frasch, Ferdinand Bonn, Agnes
Sorma and all the other leading names
in German theatricarlif have at one time
or another served in the casts of Duke
F! George Some of them won their first
renown there under his Royal Highness
active direction.
! The Duke was born in 1926. Since his
succession to the Sake -Meiningen throne
| in 1855, following the abdication of his
| father, he has devoted himself restless
! ly to the cultivation of fine arts and his
| little court has been the center Of the
highest cultured life of the country.
Musicians, Authors and actors have found
there the same congenial surroundings
that attracted Goethe and Schiller to
the capital OF the ncighboring Grand
/ Duchy of Sake Weimar in the reign of
| Grand Duke Frederick August in the
carly days of the last century. Duke
! George has not only been an ardent de-
votee of the works of the great drama
tists-Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Leasing,
! Shakespeare, and been responsible for
their production in magnificent style,
| but he has been personally painstaking
in mounting them and in seeing that
every detail was worthy of the whole.
Many are the anecdotes related by veter-
an actors of the care he has bestowed on
the thousand and one little things that
go to make up a complete and 1awless
production. He is noted as particular
ly critical observer of rehearsals and is
fond of drilling and redrilling stage mobs
and crowds who have to act in unison like
the numerous ensembles in Shakespeare
tragedies. He has designed personally
hundreds of costumes and stage settings
and has rehearsed syllable by syllable
every line in all the great standard dra
mas, both English and German. Such
record, it is claimed by his friends, is
[, perhaps without equal in the stage his
tory of any country.
The old Duke is .venerated apart from
his devotion to the stage, for his bravery
and lbrilliancy as q soldier. He is cele-
hrated too, as thorough German pat
riot, for he broke with his father, the
! reigning Grand Duke in 1866, when Prus-
sia went to war with Austria, his father
abdicating the Sake Meiningen throne
Il
then became feigning duke and was made
a lieutenant general in the German army.
In the war with France four years later,
he served with conspicuous gallantry, and
at the head of his two regiments Of Mein-
ingen troops, captured the first flags
taken from the French in that terrible
campaign, in battle fought at Froeseh-
weller AT Sedan and Chateaudun, Duke
George again distinguished himself. Ow-
| ing to his importantly to be allowed to
do something for the newborn Germany
The Duke was permitted to participate in
practically every great battle of the war
and was among the victorious staff of the
! old Kaiser and Bismarck when the tri-
umphant Germans marched into Paris
and ended the struggle.
/ Duke George has been married three
times, first to Princess Charlotte Of Prus-
sia; secondly to Princess Fedora of
/ Hohorlohc- -Langenburg and thirdly to the
actress, Helene Lange, who, after her
morganatic marriage to his Royal High
ness received the title of Baroness Held
| burg. His son by his first marriage, the
| Hereditary Prince Bernhard Of SAKE
/ Meiningen, is married to Princess Char
! lette Of Prussia, sister of the German
Kaiser