dramatist and social critic, best known outside Denmark for two plays, Melodien der blev væk (1935; English adaptation, The Melody That Got Lost, 1939) and Anna Sophie Hedvig (1939; Eng. trans., 1944), which defends the use of force by the oppressed against the oppressor.

Abell studied political science but afterward began a career as a stage designer in Paris. He then went on to become Denmark's most unconventional man of the theatre, not only as an original dramatist but also as a stage designer who made full use of the technical apparatus of the theatre to achieve new and striking scenic effects, as in Daga paa en Sky (1947; “Days on a Cloud”) and Skrige (1961; “The Scream”).