The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui - (Modern Classics) by Bertolt Brecht (Paperback)

About the Book

A reissue of Brecht's classic play written in exile. In this savage and witty parable, the rise of Hitler is recast as a small-time Chicago gangster's takeover of the city's greengrocery trade. Included are Brecht's own notes and commentary by John Willett and Ralph Manheim.

Book Synopsis

Described by Brecht as 'a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all', Arturo Ui is a witty and savage satire of the rise of Hitler - recast by Brecht into a small-time Chicago gangster's takeover of the city's greengrocery trade. Using a wide range of parody and pastiche - from Al Capone to Shakespeare's Richard III and Goethe's Faust - Brecht's compelling parable continues to have relevance wherever totalitarianism appears today.

Written during the Second World War in 1941, the play was one of the Berliner Ensemble's most outstanding box-office successes in 1959, and has continued to attract a succession of major actors, including Leonard Rossiter, Christopher Plummer, Antony Sher and Al Pacino.

Presented in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, this is the standard critical edition of the play featuring extensive editorial notes and an introduction.

About the Author

A major dramatist of the twentieth century, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was the founder of one of the most influential theatre companies, the Berliner Ensemble, and the creator of some of the landmark plays of the twentieth century: The Threepenny Opera, Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.