Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui (Play)

Description

This is an annotated student edition of one of Brecht's most famous plays and a classic of modern literature/theatre. 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. "One of the greatest poets and dramatists of our century" - "Observer".

Promotion info

This student edition includes a full commentary, plot summary, notes, bibliography, chronology of the writer's life and work and questions for study. A set text for AQA GCE A level Drama. Brecht is one of the great twentieth century playwrights, directors and poets who has had an enormous influence on theatre. Strong sales to schools and colleges where this and other works by Brecht are set text.

Author description

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is acknowledged as one of the great dramatists whose plays, work with the Berliner Ensemble and writing have had a considerable influence on the theatre. His landmark plays include The Threepenny Opera and, while exiled from Germany and living in the USA, such masterpieces as Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.