Leo Birinski

Leo Birinski was a playwright, screenwriter and director. He worked in Austria-Hungary, Germany and in the United States. As a playwright in Europe, he gained his biggest popularity from 1910 to 1917 but was ultimately forgotten. From the 1920s to 1940s he worked mainly as a screenwriter, first in Germany, later in the United States, to which he emigrated in September 1927. In the United States, he also returned to writing stage plays. He wrote in German and English. Until recently, only a minimal amount of information about his life has been available. Complicating matters, there have been many legends and rumours concerning Birinski's person, including the false report of his "suicide" in 1920 that found its way from newspaper obituaries into encyclopedias.

Variations in his name

Born Leo Gottesmann, he was most commonly known as Leo Birinski, the name he began to use after approximately 1908. “Birinski” was his mother's surname, and “Gottesmann,” his birth name, was his father's surname.
Other recorded variations in spelling and form:
Leo G. Birinski,
Leo Birinsky,
Lev G. Birinski,
Lev Birinskij,
Lav Birinski,
Leó Birinszki,
Lev Birinszki, and
Leon Birinski.

Biography

The circumstances of Birinski's early life are unclear, as; different sources offer a variety of possibilities for his place and date of birth.
He was probably born on June 8, 1884, in Lysianka, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire. He occasionally presented this information in official documents, though it is impossible to confirm because the local birth records for Lysianka were not preserved.
His father, Hersch Gottesmann, was born in Borschiv in eastern Galicia and was a salesman. His mother, Carna, born Berinska or Birinska, was a tenant's daughter from Lysianka. Birinski spent his childhood in Ukraine and Czernowitz, the capital city of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bukovina.
At the beginning of the 20th century, he moved to Vienna. He worked in a bookshop, turned to translating, and started to write by himself. During his time in Vienna, he wrote three plays, the tragedies, Der Moloch and Raskolnikoff, and his most successful comedy or tragicomedy, Narrentanz, written in 1912. In March 1920, a rumor of suicide, caused by a case of mistaken identity with a man named Leon Gottesmann, was spread in the local newspapers. Although repeatedly discredited, the report was included in several contemporary encyclopedias. In April 1921, Birinski left Vienna and moved to Berlin.
In Germany, Birinski appears to have married Jewish pianist Felicia Aschkenas, who born around 1902 in Warsaw. At this time, he worked primarily for the film industry, wrote many screenplays, and together with Paul Leni, directed the motion picture Das Wachsfigurenkabinett. During his time in Germany, he contributed to the screenplays of thirteen films, including Tragedy of Love with Marlene Dietrich, Varieté by Ewald André Dupont, and several pictures by Gennaro Righelli. Birinski also wrote the stage play, Der heilige Teufel . Its original German text was lost, but a later English version still exists. Around September 1927, Birinski left for the USA; two years later, his wife followed him. They both identified themselves to the immigration officers by Nicaraguan passports. Birinski even listed the city of Bluefields in Nicaragua as his birthplace. He had no known ties to Nicaragua.
In the United States, he continued his work as a screenwriter and director and worked on ten documented films. His first American work was probably as the director of Das große Glück – the German version of A Ship Comes In from 1928. His other notable films of the period include Mata Hari with Greta Garbo, Mamoulian's movie, The Song of Songs, with Marlene Dietrich, and The Gay Desperado. He again took on the role of film director with Flirtation in 1934. The last known picture by Birinski was the spy comedy, The Lady Has Plans, in 1942. An adaptation of this film for the radio series, Lux Radio Theater, was also created and broadcast in April 1943 on the CBS radio network with Rita Hayworth and William Powell in the leads.
Birinski also wrote several stage plays in the United States. His play, Nowhere Bound, was presented on Broadway in January 1935 at the Imperial Theatre, and The Day Will Come in September 1944 at the National Theatre. In addition to these works, a manuscript of a stage play, The Holy Devil, by Birinski was found among the papers left by Herman Bernstein, a journalist and writer who died in August 1935. This play was likely never performed or published.
The events of the last seven years of Birinski's life are largely unknown. According to his death certificate, Leo Birinski died on October 23, 1951, at Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx, New York City. The certificate includes almost no information about the deceased. It appears that Birinski died in poverty and alone. He was buried at the Potter's Field at Hart Island in a mass-grave. In 2009, Birinski's relatives living in Israel and the United States were found.

Works

Theatre

Der Moloch, tragedy in three acts. Premiere: January 21, 1910, Neue Wiener Bühne Vienna.

* Other productions in German: Modernes Theater Berlin, Deutsches Theater Cologne, Volkstheater Munich, Altes Stadt-Theater Leipzig etc.
* Translated into:
** Czech: Vincenc Červinka, title Moloch, not produced, published in 1924.
** Slovenian: Etbin Kristan, title Moloh, production in Ljubljana, Trieste, Maribor.
** Croatian: August Harambašić, title Moloh, production in Zagreb.Raskolnikoff, tragedy in three acts after Dostoevsky. Play based on the novel Crime and Punishment. Premiere: April 9, 1913, Fürstliches Hoftheater Gera.
* Other productions in German: Residenz-Theater Berlin, Wiener Kammerspiele Vienna.
* Translated into:
** Croatian: Joza Ivakić, title Raskoljnikov, production in Osijek.
** Slovenian: Silvester Škerl, title Raskolnikov, production in Maribor.
** Czech: Kateřina Bohadlová, title Raskolnikov, produced by theatre Ty-já-tr in Prague in 2009.Narrentanz, tragicomedy in four acts. Premiere: September 28, 1912, Lessing-Theater Berlin.
* Global premiere at the same time on September 28, 1912: Neues Deutsches Theater Prague, Neue Wiener Bühne Vienna, Schauspielhaus Munich, Schauspielhaus Dresden, Schauspielhaus Cologne, Stadttheater Königsberg, Schauspielhaus Leipzig, Neues Theater Frankfurt, and Deutsches Theater Hannover.
* Other productions in German: about 40 productions in various towns through the whole German language area. On November 13, 1912, it was produced even at Irving Place German Theatre in New York City.
* Reversal translation from Czech into German : Jiří Vrba and Stephan Stroux, title Mummenschanz. Premiere: September 5, 1971, Volkstheater, Vienna.
* Translated into:
** Czech: Vincenc Červinka, title Mumraj, production in National Theatre Prague, National Theatre Brno, amateur theatre Maryša Prague, The Drama Club Prague, The Vinohrady Theatre Prague, The Drama Club Prague etc.
** Polish: Jarosław Czesław Pieniążek, title Taniec czynowników, production in Lviv – Teatr miejski, Kraków, Poznań, Warsaw, Łódź, Lublin, Płock, Vilnius.
** Slovenian: Anton Melik, title Vrtoglavci, production in Ljubljana, Nova Gorica.
** Hungarian: Ferenc Herczeg, title Bolondok tánca, production in Budapest. Miklós Győrffy, title Bolondok tánca; production in Szeged, Marosvásárhely, Budapest, Pécs. An unknown translator, title Maskarádé, production in Budapest.
** Danish: Carl Behrens, title Narredans, production in Copenhagen.
** Dutch: Herman Heijermans, title Narrendans, production in Amsterdam.
** French: Maurice Rémon, title La Danse des fous, production in Paris.
** Macedonian: Vladimir Milčin, title Бркотница, production in Skopje.
** Croatian: Tomislav Lipljin, title Maskerada, production in Varaždin.
** Serbian: Vida Ognjenović, title Луда игрa, production in Novi Sad.
** Slovak: Martin Porubjak, title Chaos, production in Bratislava.
** Russian: Oleg Malevych and Viktoria Kamenskaya, title: Хоровод масок, in: Baltiyskiye sezony no. 10/2004, Saint Petersburg. Produced as one-time diploma performance at State Theater Institute in Yaroslavl.
** There are mentioned translations into English and Japanese too, but they are not credited.Nur Ruhe!, farce in three acts by Johann Nestroy, adapted for modern stage by Leo Birinski. Premiere: January 5, 1914, Deutsches Volkstheater Vienna.Der heilige Teufel , play written before 1927. Not published and not produced till this time. Its German text was not found.The Holy Devil , play in three acts. English version of the older German play. Not published and not produced till this time. Typescript of its text was found in Herman Bernstein papers.Nowhere Bound, play in three acts. Premiere: January 22, 1935, Imperial Theatre New York City. Director: Archimedes H. van Buren.The Day Will Come, play in three acts. Premiere: September 7, 1944, National Theatre New York City. Director: Lee Elmore.

Film

Books

Bock, Hans-Michael : CineGraph – Lexikon zum deutschsprachigen Film, edition text + kritik, Munich, 50. Lieferung,.Enciclopedia dello spettacolo, Casa editrice Le Maschere, 2nd volume, Rome 1954.
Wininger, Salomon: Große Jüdische National-Biographie, 2nd volume, Cernăuti 1925 - 1936.
Gevinson, Alan :, University of California Press: Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London 1997..
Doyle, Billy H.: The Ultimate Directory of Film Technicians…, Scarecrow Press: Lanham and Folkestone 1999..
Hübl, Dušan: Lev Birinskij – životopisný mumraj, Praha 2004, 2008, 2010.