Publisher's Synopsis
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
