De Familie Lehmann

De Familie Lehmann is a Dutch version of a German play in four acts by Hermann Reichenbach (1869-??)

The original text

Described as a Jewish family drama, though neither a title or information can be found for the German original. It Ketten written by the German playwright Hermann Reichenbach (1840? - ) and produced at the Deutschen Theater, Berlin, in 1909,

Translations and adaptations

Best known in its Dutch version, De Familie Lehmann. Louis de Vries made his name playing "Abraham Sender", doing it more than 1200 times, also touring the colonies.

The title Ketenen ("Chains") is also found with reference to a Dutch production in 1913.

Performance history in South Africa

1916: A production featuring Louis de Vries toured to the Dutch Indies in 1916 and was also performed to acclaim in the Theatre Royal, Durban, as well as in Pretoria, Cape Town and elsewhere in the country during stops on their way back to the Netherlands. (They had been re-routed via the Cape because of the closure of the Suez Canal during the war.)

Sources

Joseph Walk, Leo Baeck Institute. 1988. Kurzbiographien zur Geschichte der Juden: 1918–1945. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co [1]: p. 307.

Advert, Schager Courant, 24 June 1913: p. 1[2]

Hetty Berg. 2001. Jews on Stage and Stage Jews 1890-1940. In Chaya Brasz and Yosef Kaplan. 2001. Dutch Jews As Perceived by Themselves and by Others: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on the History of the Jews in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Brill.[3]

Spiele für den Unterricht on the website Pangloss[4], Ein Seitenweg zu Kulturgeschichte, Germanistik, Deutsch und Englisch. (Accessed 13 February, 2017)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [5]: pp. 9

Bosman, F.C.L., Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. 1980. p 482.

Ludwig Wilhelm Berthold Binge. 1969. Ontwikkeling van die Afrikaanse toneel (1832-1950). Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 79.

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