AN ACTOR'S LAURELS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1937, Page 12

AN ACTOR'S LAURELS.

NEW BUSH FOR OLD WINE.

VIENNA STAGE COMEDY,

VIENNA. Everybody here is talking about "the case of Kaspar Brandhofer." Some weeks ago a Tvrolese "peasant," playing in the famous Josefstaedter Theatre (the former stage of Professor Reinhardt), captured the interest of the public. Kaspar Brandhofer, we were told, had never been on the stage before, and everybody was amazed by his undoubted talent. Brandhofer was a husky fellow, with a long blonde beard, and wore short Tvrolese leather trousers and the corresponding home-spun jacket of the mountaineers. He spoke in a Tvrolese dialect and smoked a long German pipe. Everything went all right until ho went to play in Arthur Schnitzler's well-known plav, "Fraulein Else." Sehnitzler then began to suspect that ''Kaspar Brandhofer" was none other than Herr Leo Reuss, once a famous actor at a leading Berlin stage, who had to leave Berlin three years ago because he could not prove his Aryan origin. Brandhofer-Reuss at first indignantlv denied the allegation, and it was onlv when the evidence became overwhelming that he confessed. The trick gained him great publicity, and all would have pone well had not the police decided to intervene. Brandhofer was charged with registering under a false name and was fined.