Hoppla, We're Alive! - (2) by Ernst Toller (Paperback)

About the Book

Ernst Toller's Hoppla, We're Alive! is one of the founding works of the epic theater and a powerful portrait of a fragile democracy at war with itself, inevitably corrupted from within by the rising forces of capitalism and fascism.

Book Synopsis

A landmark of the Weimar Republic, Ernst Toller's Hoppla, We're Alive! is one of the founding works of what would later be come to known as the epic theater and a powerful portrait of a fragile democracy at war with itself, inevitably corrupted from within by the rising forces of capitalism and fascism. Karl Thomas, a participant in the failed Soviet-style revolutions of 1918, has spent the past eight years in a mental hospital. Released into the Germany of 1927, Karl Thomas encounters each of his former comrades in a world where all of the lessons of the first world war and the revolution seem to have been forgotten. Building to a powerful and tragic climax, Toller's play has lost none of its power to shock, provoke, and awaken readers.

This translation, adapted from its performance at La Mama in the fall of 2019, is an attempt to reconcile the play's multiple extant drafts and divided meanings. In the winter of 1939, 12 years after he had staged this play in Weimar Berlin, Piscator was invited to open the Dramatic Workshop at the New School, long a home for artists and intellectuals in exile. Under Piscator's leadership, the Dramatic Workshop would come to be perhaps themes influential theater school in the United States, instrumental in the careers of Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Harold Clurman, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Marlon Brando, and Judith Malina. Earlier that spring, Piscator met for coffee with Toller to discuss a future project. Two days later, on May 22, 1939, Toller hanged himself, in what was then the Mayflower Hotel off Central Park West.

Berlinica Publishing offers English-language books from Berlin, German; fiction, non-fiction, travel guides, history about the Wall and the Third Reich, Jewish life, art, architecture and photography, as well as travel guides and cookbook. It also offers documentaries and feature films on DVD, as well as music CDs. Berlinica caters to history buffs, Americans of German heritage, travelers, and artists and young people who love the cutting-edge city in the heart of Europe. Berlinica cooperates with Berlin-based publishing houses.

Berlinica's current and upcoming titles include "Our West Berlin," by various authors, also five translated books by famed Weimar author Kurt Tucholsky as well as Harold Poor's landmark biography of Tucholsky, two translated plays by Ernst Toller, and two American travel stories by Alfred Kerr and Roda Roda, soon to be followed by Egon Erwin Kisch's "Paradise America".

In the non-fiction department, we have "Rocking the Wall," the Bruce-Springsteen-book and "Burning Beethoven," about German Americans in World War I, both by Erik Kirschbaum, also "Mark Twain in Berlin," by Andreas Austilat, "Berlin 1945: World War II: Photos of the Aftermath," by Michael Brettin, "The Berlin Wall Today," a full-color guide to the remnants of the Wall, by Michael Cramer, "Berlin in the Cold War," about post-World War II history, the comprehensive guide "Jews in Berlin," by Andreas Nachama, Julius Schoeps, Hermann Simon, and "A Place they Called Home," edited by Donna Swarthout about Jews returning to Germany.

We also offer "The Berlin Cookbook," a full-color collection of traditional German recipes by Rose Marie Donhauser, the picture book "Wings of Desire," by Lothar Heinke, "Martin Luther's Travel Guide," by Cornelia Dömer, "Leipzig! The City of Books und Music," by Sebastian Ringel, and "Berlin For Free," a guide for the frugal traveler by Monica Maertens.

Review Quotes

"... a fascinating delight, with its sprawling ensemble of characters, its coup de théâtre, and its triple ending toward a confrontation with the audience."

Tom Walker, The Living Theatre

"Toller's important drama made theatre history in 1927. It asks for active citizenship at a time of environmental degradation and social challenges, raising questions that speak to us today."

-Christiane Schönfeld, Ernst-Toller-Gesellschaft, Mary Immaculate College, Ireland

"One of Toller's best plays: An Expressionist reflects on himself in a world of 'New Objectivity'." (Michael Pilz, University of Innsbruck)

"Toller's "Aufriss der Zeit", as Piscator called the play, offers an examination of ideological thinking and demagoguery that is still relevant today."

-Kirsten Reimers, Kirsten Reimers Literaturwissenschaftlerin am Institut für Germanistik der Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

"This inherently political play depicts forces of revolution and disruption which are meant to lacerate the fabric of our own comfort."

-Zishan Ugurlu, Professor, The New School