DAWISON (Davidsohn), BOGUMIL

DAWISON (Davidsohn), BOGUMIL (1818–1872), German actor, who was regarded as one of the great actors of his day. Dawison was born in Warsaw, where he also began his career. In 1839 he began working at the theater in Lemberg (Lvov), Galicia. From 1847 he acted in Hamburg, Germany. In 1849 he was invited to the Burgtheater in Vienna, and in 1854 to the Hoftheater in Dresden. From 1864 he toured Europe and the U.S., where he arrived in 1866. His acting was dynamic and innovative, and his characterizations had great vitality. Dawison's triumphs were in the Shakespearean roles of Richard III, Shylock, Lear, and Othello; as Franz Moor in Schiller's The Bandits; as Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust; and as Harpagon in Molière's The Miser. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. Devrient, Geschichte der deutschen Schauspielkunst (1905); A. Winds, Der Schauspieler (1919); G.K. Gershuni, Olam ha-Te'atron (1962), 65–75. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: P. Kollek, Bugomil Dawison (1978). (Noam Zadoff (2nd ed.)