"The sum total of the mystical and the gruesome will partly confuse and partly repel the majority of the theater audience."

You are bidding on onehandwritten, signed letter of Actor, theater director and writer Max Grube (1854-1934).

Addressed to an unnamed poet who sent a work to Max Grube.

DatedB. (=Berlin), 19. April 1899. At that time he was senior director at the Schauspielhaus Berlin.

Sheet written on both sides (22 x 27.8 cm); without envelope.

Transcription:"Dear Sir! I read your work with growing sympathy, which heralds a new poet—I should have said a new playwright, because no one will dispute that you are a poet. Unfortunately, I have to doubt that the present work can even be understood by a broader audience. The sum total of the mystical and the gruesome will partly confuse and partly repel the majority of the theater audience – and I have to reckon with that at first. I would like to take the liberty of giving the poem to one of our many free theaters, where it can certainly cause a stir in front of a literary audience and will erect a pedestal for your name, from which you can easily make your way to the sit vania verbo will find ordinary stages. Maybe I'm talking a little ex mea domo. The playhouse is based on the classical drama, and therefore its audience is not trained enough to follow a work whose charm lies in the mystical obscurity. Nevertheless, I passed the book on to the directorship so that people would be aware of the comming man. In any case, I would like to ask you to send me your next creations and I would be really happy if I could be godfather to one of them. Sincerely yours, Max Grube."

The Latin phrase "sit venia verbo" means "pardon the word", "excuse the expression" or "say with all due respect".

"Ex mea domo" (lat.) = from / from my house.

Condition: Without envelope. letter folded several times; Paper browned and slightly stained, with a tear in the fold. Please also note the pictures!

Internal note: Autographs in EVS 2106

About Max Grube (source: wikipedia):

Max Grube (* 25. March 1854 in Dorpat; † 25 December 1934 in Meiningen) was a German actor, theater director and writer.

life:The father, Adolph Eduard Grube, came to Breslau in 1857 from the university in Dorpat (Russian department of Livonia) as a full professor of zoology. Max Grube attended the Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium there. At the age of nine he saw his first theatrical performance with Weber's opera Freischütz. And in his "Youth Memoirs of a Child of Fortune" he writes: I was maybe twelve years old when I made the firm decision to become an actor, and that moment is firmly engraved in my memory.

When Max Grube was 14 years old, he founded a literary association called "Concordia" at high school, together with Eberhard Gothein, Friedrich Schottky and Heinrich Rosin, which lasted for many years. Grube had already been introduced to Karl von Holtei when he was a high school student. At the beginning of his career, the friendly relationship with the old theater man was of particular importance. His first theatrical engagement in 1872 at the Meininger Theater shaped his lifelong artistic activity in the sense of a "beautiful" historical realism. In 1876 he moved to the Detmold Court Theater. In 1879 Grube married the actress Marie Leisch in Breslau. The marriage remained childless.

Achievements: The Detmold court theater also played in Osnabrück, Pyrmont and Münster and undertook tours to Bielefeld, Dortmund and Lübeck (1876/77). Here he played major character roles and occasionally directed. In Berlin in 1874 he met the writer Julius Stettenheim, the playwright and journalist Paul Lindau (later director of the Meininger Theater) and the painter and graphic artist Paul Meyerheim. And on the recommendation of his friend Holtei, Grube quickly made contact with Emanuel Geibel in Lübeck. Max Grube's next station was Bremen in 1878. Here the 24-year-old played Shakespeare's "Hamlet" with great success and came into close contact with Heinrich Bulhaupt, who was considered the "centre of intellectual life in Bremen".

Leipzig followed in 1882 and Dresden in 1884. He returned to Meiningen in 1886 and became the first character actor there. The Meiningen Court Theater under the direction of Duke Georg II. von Sachsen-Meiningen was the leading German theater at the time. The people of Meiningen went all over Europe with their celebrated theater performances, from London to Moscow and from Stockholm to Trieste. With the benevolent call "The Meiningen are coming", the guest performance locations attuned themselves to the internationally renowned theater ensemble. In 1888 Grube was engaged as an actor at the Royal Playhouse in Berlin and in 1890 he was appointed senior director. Under him Hermann Vallentin received his training as an actor in Berlin. In addition to classic dramas with a focus on Shakespeare's works, Grube staged the premiere of Gerhart Hauptmann's drama Hanneles Himmelfahrt in 1893. In his efforts to win the stage for Friedrich Hebbel's dramas, he even found the support of the German Emperor Wilhelm II.

From 1898 Grube was also director of the Goethe Festival in Düsseldorf. He returned to Meiningen in 1909 to take over the first directorship of the new theater there until 1913. Among others, he brought Hans Thimig to Meiningen. From 1913 to 1918 he directed the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. Max Grube spent the rest of his life in Meiningen. Most of his literary publications are intended for the theater or are devoted to theater history. Grube has received awards and medals from almost Allen German royal houses as well as from Denmark, Portugal, Romania and Russia. The Exzar Ferdinand von Bulgaria, who lived on Veste Coburg and was a great theater lover, held Grube in high regard and visited him several times in Meinigen from 1919 to discuss theatrical art with him.

After he on 21. February 1923 at the Lübeck Theater in the title role of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan der Weise completed an honorary guest performance, he was then made an honorary member of the Lübeck City Theater.