| Title | : | The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1559705434 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781559705431 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 125 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1941 |
| Awards | : | Schlegel-Tieck Prize Ralph Manheim (1977) |
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Reviews
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The Resistible Rise of Fascism in 2017
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” --Brecht
1. Trump claims because he is famous he has premier access to any woman he wants; he can just grab her pussy or whatever he wants.
2. Several women from his past claim sexual harassment.
3. Trump denies all claims of above and commits to defund Planned Parenthood and other organizations devoted to women’s equality, at the same time claiming he “loves all women, and they love me.”
4. Trump elected President (with a majority of white women voting for him, confirming for him and some others his claim in #3)
5. In his Inaugural address he mentions his desire to unify the country.
6. The next day 2.9 million women from around the planet protest his election, proving his claim in #5.
7. Trump’s own tiny hands count more people at his Inauguration than any other one in history, and when there is widespread media pushback on this claim forces WH mouthpiece Sean Spicer to assert this as one of his increasingly prevalent “alternate facts.”
8. Massive ridicule in response to such claims from the media and various women’s groups.
9. Trump doubles down on his vow to defund Planned Parenthood and vows to define organizations dedicated to the prevention of violence against women. The new Republican Senate votes 51-48 to remove discrimination protection for women in healthcare and against ACA contraceptive coverage and maternity care provision. And this is just one part of what he did in the first week!
I first saw a production of this play in—I think—1979 in Williamsburg, MA, a summer stock production, and I knew nothing about it. I was not at all worried at the time about the rise of fascism in this country, which was exactly Brecht’s point, that in the tradition of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, everyone smugly believed Hitler couldn’t happen here. The production was consistent with Brecht’s approach: Don’t let the audience sit back and treat this as a comfortable entertaining night out at the theatre. This “play” is for him about political realities we have faced globally many times and allowed to happen: The rise of fascism. But in this play, a darkly hilarious black comedy, we see cheap, crude and inarticulate gangster Arturo Ui not living in some “exotic” location like Germany (!) or Italy or Russia, but living in Chicago, in the 1930’s, as a Hitlerian character intent on taking over the city and country. Ridiculous little buffoon, who does he think he is?! It’s laughable that he would ever want to be president! He’s a joke!
In the Williamsburg production, the set was form the outset multicolored, as one might expect a set to be, but throughout the play as gangster crimes of robbery and murder and extortion increased, painters were gradually whitewashing the set until every inch was white. The effect was visually electrifying. And to remind us that the comedy we were watching was specifically tied to the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich, placards accompanied each scene to show the parallels.
Now, Hitler wasn’t a gangster, exactly. No one initially took him seriously at all, until socio-economic conditions helped him argue that it was time to Make Germany Great Again. Ui, as the proto-fascist of this drama, works hard to get popular, against all odds; he takes elocution lessons, acting lessons, and his coach helps him ape Shakespearean language and tones so that he can sweet talk his way into strong-arming the city until he corners the cauliflower market. There are terrific echoes of Richard III and Macbeth in this play.
At the conclusion of the play the actor playing Ui ran down to the edge of the play, ripping off his moustache, addressing the audience directly, telling his (actual) name, told us he was an actor; hey, talk about “breaking the plane” of the understood separation between audience and stage! Precisely as Brecht would have wanted, we who saw that play went out and talked about the issues in the “play” as it pertained to the old US of A. We agreed that Brecht was decidedly not merely “play”-ing around with political realities.
Wanna read the version I read? Here it is:
https://waldentheatre.files.wordpress...
What would it be like to see such a production, now, today, in January 2017, with a new USA President with his powerful billionaire corporate cabinet backing him?
“If we could learn to look instead of gawking,
We'd see the horror in the heart of farce,
If only we could act instead of talking,
We wouldn't always end up on our arse.
This was the thing that nearly had us mastered;
Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!
Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again.”--Brecht -
Not and I have this long-running argument about translations. In nearly every case, I think it's better to read the original, even if my knowledge of the source language isn't particularly good: it means I'm hearing what the author actually said, as opposed to what the translator thought they said. Not disagrees, but I find her arguments unconvincing.
Or, to be more exact, I find her arguments unconvincing in most cases; there are a few rare exceptions. I think this is one of them. Brecht had the wonderful idea of retelling the story of Hitler's rise to power as a mock-Shakespearian tragedy, in the style of Richard III, about a Chicago gangster who takes over the city's vegetable trade. It works extremely well, and the play has huge energy and inventiveness; it's an absolutely first-rate black comedy.
Having just read both the German original and the brilliant translation I found
here, it seems to me that that the translation is better. It's possible that this is due to my indifferent German - though, just before, I read Der gute Mensch von Sezuan and greatly enjoyed it. I liked the German version of Arturo Ui too, but it seemed to me that Brecht, genius though he may be, was trying to do something that was basically impossible.
The humour of the play derives from the mixing of several different registers, of which the most important are Shakespeare's magnificent blank verse and the flat, vulgar speech of the Chicago underworld; even if these can be transposed to German (and Brecht gives it his best shot), they are essentially English in their nature. There are other linguistic jokes as well, including substantial borrowings from Faust, and these passages don't work so well in translation. But the core of the play is the contrast between the Bard and Al Capone, and it's hardly surprising that they achieve their full potential in English.
Enough generalities; take a look at some of the passages I liked most, and judge for yourself. To start, a speech by Ui, who's just initiated his hostile takeover of the cauliflower business:Well, what to do, you must be wondering.
A stream of invective from a woman who's just seen her husband killed before her eyes by Ui's thugs:
So listen to me careful. First things first.
The way you're acting just ain't good enough,
Hoping that all will turn out hunky-dory,
Grinding your lazy bums behind the counter
And fainting every time you see a thug.
You're disunited, splintered and without
Some Big White Chief to give you firm protection.
So first comes unity. Then sacrifice.You scum, you monster, oh, you crock of shit!
A pathetic piece of equivocation from Betty, who's foolish enough to think she can negotiate with Ui:
No, even shit would shudder seeing you
And if you touched it, cry out, Let me wash!
Whoever touches Ui is defiled!
You louse of all the lice! And everyone
Will let him get away with it! You there,
They're hacking us to bloody pieces! Help!
It's Ui, Ui, Ui and the rest!
Where are you? Help! Will no one stop this pest?Clark has told me
And, finally, the chilling conclusion to the play:
That Ui's youthful revels are now ended.
- The best of us have gone through Sturm und Drang -
He's sown his wild oats, so to speak and shown
His manner and his grammar much improved:
He hasn't murdered anyone for weeks.
Though if you do persist, attacking him,
You might revive his baser instincts yet.
And put yourself in jeopardy, Ignatius.
But if you keep your mouth shut, they'll be nice.The actor who plays ARTURO UI comes forward and takes off his moustache to speak the epilogue.
Check out this play if you've got nothing better to do over the weekend; it only takes a couple of hours to read. And, oh yes, it's just possible you may find some vague resonances with things that are happening in the world right now. If you're that way inclined.
If we could learn to look instead of gawking,
We'd see the horror in the heart of farce,
If only we could act instead of talking,
We wouldn't always end up on our arse.
This was the thing that nearly had us mastered;
Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men!
Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again.
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"Bada bing bada boom..."
Considering how long ago Bertolt Brecht wrote this play, it sure packs a punch, and is still very valid.
I wanted to read this as I'll be seeing a production by the Sydney Theatre Company shortly. I don't make a habit of reading the plays that I'm about to see, as the element of surprise is always nice. But I'd seen a production around twenty years ago, and it's one of those plays that gets under your skin, and has always stuck in my mind.
Arturo Ui is a gangster with a vision. A racketeer who wants to provide protection to the cauliflower growers of Chicago. To help the good people buy their vegies more cheaply. To be a one-stop shop. I found it wryly amusing and sometimes bizarre that Bertolt Brecht used this humble vegetable to tell his tale of thuggery. But also very clever.
”No-one’s talking about me anymore. This town’s got no memory. Ah, how fleeting fame is. Two months without a murder, and they forget you ever lived.”
-Ui
John & Joan Citizen have little choice but to agree to Arturo Ui’s schemes. The few who do stand up to him, find themselves mysteriously shot by their own hand, poisoned or their business burnt to the ground.
”Clearly I’m a socialist – which I prove by taking money from the rich.”
-Ui
I believe the translation of this play is a good one, as it deftly captures the playwright’s intentions. The dialogue is sharp and snappy. It’s a quick read and interesting in that it goes to show you just can’t change the greed of human nature. -
A dark comedy on US gangsters. It is a powerful play in as far as it acts as an allegory of how a corrupt world creates monsters of violence in general. But I don't think it is a very powerful metaphor for particular case of Hitler (who seems to be refered directly in epilogue).
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Brecht, Arturo Ui nezdinde aslında Hitler'in yükselişini anlatıyor. Hitler'in Almanya'da iktidar oluş çabaları ve yaşanan olaylar günümüz Türkiye'siyle o kadar örtüşüyor ki şaşırmamak elde değil.
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Storie di gangster, cavolfiori e totalitarismi
È il 1941, e Brecht trasforma in «commedia parabolica» l'avvento del nazismo, traslando e semplificando eventi storici di modo da rendere comprensibile al mondo capitalistico la presa del potere da parte di Hitler.
L'azione viene spostata negli Stati Uniti, la Germania diventa Chicago, l'Austria Cicero; i personaggi principali dell'opera sono il gangster in ascesa Arturo Ui/Adoolf Hitler, i suoi sgherri Ernesto Roma (Ernst Röhm), Emanuele Giri (Hermann Göring) e Giuseppe Givola (Joseph Goebbles). L'ascesa, chiaramente resistibile ma quasi indisturbata, di Arturo e della sua cricca parte dallo sfruttamento del malcontento e dei problemi dei capi del trust dei cavolfiori (gli Junker prussiani e gli industriali tedeschi) alla ricerca di prestiti statali, passa per la corruzione del politico Dogsborough (il cancelliere del Reich Heindenburg), in un crescendo di minacce, violenze, diffidenze interne che porteranno alla "conquista" di Chicago e della vicina Cicero, ma anche all'eliminazione fisica di avversari e amici pericolosi (Roma/Röhm, ovvero la notte dei lunghi coltelli).
Lo scopo di Brecht è dichiarato, spiegare al mondo capitalistico l'ascesa di Hitler trasportandola in circostanze a quel mondo familiari, la rappresentazione deve essere in stile grandioso...naturalmente va evitata la pura e semplice parodia, e anche in chiave di grottesco non deve mai venir meno l'atmosfera di orrore. L'Autore, andando contro un parere diffuso all'epoca, pensa che i grandi delinquenti politici vanno denunciati, esponendoli soprattutto al ridicolo. Giacché essi anzitutto non sono grandi delinquenti politici, bensì autori di grandi delitti politici, il che è assai diverso. Non si tema la verità banale, purché sia vera! Come il fallimento delle sue imprese non fa di Hitler uno stupido, così la mole di queste imprese non ne fa un grand'uomo. Per Brecht, soprattutto, bisogna liberare l'umanità dall'ammirazione per il delitto, per gli assassini (cita come esempi Napoleone I e Gengis Khan, ma anche un massacratore di nome Kneisel tanto ammirato nella città natale dell'Autore).
Una «commedia parabolica», dal fine didattico, dunque. Incompleta, oltretutto: venne pubblicata postuma, prima che Brecht potesse procedere alla revisione definitiva del testo (tra le possibili correzioni, ad esempio, la risoluzione del problema della "assenza del popolo" nel testo, o la pericolosa trasformazione di Roma/Röhm in un semi-martire). Lodevole. Inventiva. Sicuramente didattica (si veda l'autoaccusa di Dogsborough/Heindenburg, o la speranza dei negozianti di verdura di Chicago e Cicero, dei tedeschi e degli austriaci, che qualcuno - qualcun altro - fermi i gangster). Commedia, indubbiamente, perché mira a mettere in ridicolo i nazi-fascisti, gli assassini. Ma tutto fuorché divertente, quanto meno sulla carta: magari sul palcoscenico il risultato è diverso, più potente e allo stesso tempo divertente. La mera lettura è più che altro deprimente, perché il 1941 è passato, e si è ben consci delle conseguenze della resistibile ascesa di Arturo Ui.
Le valutazioni servono da mera indicazione: per quel che vale, l'intento sarebbe da punteggio pieno, il risultato - a mio modestissimo parere - da tre stelle e mezzo, quasi quattro.E così io, l'onesto Dogsborough,
ho acconsentito a tutto ciò che questa
banda di sanguinari ha perpetrato
dopo avere vissuto con onore
ottanta inverni! [...]
Tutto questo io sapevo, e tutto questo
ho tollerato, io, l'onesto Dogsborough,
per sete di ricchezza, e per paura
che dubitaste della mia onestà. -
3,5* | Ένα θεατρικό που, σύμφωνα με τον Μπρεχτ, γράφτηκε για να εξηγήσει στον καπιταλιστικό κόσμο την άνοδο του φασισμού και γι' αυτό τοποθετείται στο οικείο περιβάλλον ενός τραστ. Εμένα βέβαια ακριβώς αυτό ήταν και το κομμάτι που με δυσκόλεψε -αγνοώ τους τρόπους λειτουργίας του καπιταλιστικού συστήματος της εποχής.
Σε κάθε περίπτωση, πρόκειται για μία σαφή αλληγορία που γίνεται ακόμη σαφέστερη από τις επεξηγηματικές πινακίδες που εμφανίζονται στο τέλος κάθε σκηνής. Στην πραγματικότητα, είναι ένα βιβλίο που σε πρώτο επίπεδο μιλά για τη σταδιακή κατάληψη της εξουσίας από τον Χίτλερ, αλλά σε δεύτερο -και ουσιαστικότερο, θα 'λεγα- για το μέσο άνθρωπο που μπορούσε να αντισταθεί αλλά δεν το έκανε. -
No matter the translation, the epilogue is the point:
Therefore learn how to see and not to gape.
To act instead of talking all day long.
The world was almost won by such an ape!
But don't rejoice too soon at your escape -
The womb he crawled from still is going strong. -
صعود ممانعت پذیر آرتورو اوئی/ برتولت برشت/ ترجمه ی فرامرز بهزاد/ انتشارات خوارزمی/ تاریخ اتمام کتاب: 21 مرداد 1395
این کتابو خیلی سال پیش (حدود 6 یا 7) از کتابخونه دبیرستانمون برداشتم. جزو کتابایی بود که میخواستن بریزن بره و ما یه سریش رو با دوستا برداشتیم که حیف بودن از بین بره.کتاب خیلی قدیمیه، قیمت روی جلدش 450 ریال هست و من ندیدم این کتاب تجدید چاپ شده باشه...شایدم شده و من ندیدم. موضوع نمایشنامه توصیف فضای گانگستری دوره ای از تاریخ آمریکاست که گانگستر ها میومدن کاسب ها رو میزدن و تهدید می کردن و دزدی می کردن بعد میومدن پیشنهاد حمایت می دادن ... میگفتن ما شما رو حمایت می کنیم از این حمله ها در صورتی که خودشون اون حمله ها رو انجام داده بودن ! خودشون نیاز رو ایجاد می کردن و از فساد پلیس و سیستم قضایی استفاده می کردن که به قدرت برسن و اتفاقا رسیده بودن همونطور که توی یک سری فیلم ها هم نمایش داده شده مثل پدرخوانده و goodfellas... خانواده هایی از گانگستر ها بودن که پلیس هم جرات در افتادن باهاشون رو نداشته. توی این نمایش نامه روند به قدرت رسیدن یکی از همین سبک گانگسترها به نام آرتورو اوئی توضیح داده شده از موقعی که هیچی نبوده تا موقعی که قدرت زیادی کسب می کنه و می خواد گسترشش هم بده به شهر های مختلف. طرز فکر گانگستر و گفت و گوهایی که بین خودشون اتفاق میفته با جزئیات خوبی نوشته شده، همینطور گفت و گو هاشون با دیگران و نحوه چرب زبونی و تهدید و ... . طرز فکر ها و حرف هایی که توی این دیالوگ ها گفته میشه خیلی جالبن...آدم با جهان بینی یه گانگستر آشنا میشه، اینکه چجوری کارشو جلو می بره و با هر آدمی چجوری میره جلو که همیشه تهش خودش نفع ببره. درباره موضوعات مختلف هم هست این دیالوگ ها. زیرکی برشت در این است که هدفش از نوشتن این کتاب فقط توصیف فضای اون دوران نیست. بلکه این کتاب می گوید که گانگسترها هنوز هم بین ما وجود دارند، به شکلی دیگر، در لباسی دیگر. چه بسیار حکومت ها که به همین روش های گانگستری ایجاد شدن که یک نمونه از آن ها با جزئیات بسیار مشابه به روندِ نمایشنامه در انتهای کتاب اومده. اونقدر تاریخ نخوندم که بتونم بگم کدوم حکومت ها با همین روش ها تشکیل شدن ولی کاملا با برشت موافقم که میگه هنوز توی دنیا بستر اینکه گانگستری به قدرت برسه هست.
نمایشنامه ی فوق العاده ای هست و ترجمه ای فوق العاده رَوون و دلچسب داره که باعث میشه خوندن کتاب برای آدم مثل خوردنِ یه کیک خوشمزه باشه ! خیلی زود میشه تمومش کرد... کتاب فوق العاده ای هست. کاملا ترغیب شدم از برشت کارای دیگه هم بخونم. -
I read this close on the heals of a biography of Hitler and found that Brecht did a great job using this parable to show how the rise of Hitler came about.
The epilogue is chilling:
Therefore learn how to see and not to gape.
To act instead of talking all day long.
The world was almost won by such an ape!
The nations put him where his kind belong.
But don't rejoice too soon at your escape -
The womb he crawled from is still going strong. -
3.5, rounded down.
I've never much cottoned to the plays of Brecht, considering them for the most part the 'glue' one needs to put up with to hear some beautiful Weill songs. And the one production of this I've seen was long and boring, a one note screed against fascism. I actually read this only because I am such a HUGE fan of Bruce Norris, who did the adaptation here, as I wanted to see what he came up with - and it's clever, but still rather long winded and doesn't go much further than the central conceit.
Here, however, Norris slyly trades the titular character's homage to Hitler to make it more contemporary, including some choice fascistic quotes from the current scourge of the USA, our own Mango Mussolini. The two things I really enjoyed were the rhyming couplets for the introduction, and the dragging up out of the audience of a hapless victim to play the Defendant in act two. Still not my cuppa, but am glad I read it anyway. -
Lu il y a 20 ans déjà. Mais d'une terrifiante actualité... Vraiment peur que l'adjectif se transforme en irrésistible...
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Found it very hard to get into initially, I think it would be a lot easier in performance. It would function perfectly well on its own terms without any knowledge of what it is representing (Hitlet's rise), which I think is part of good theatrical allegory or metaphor.
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Zum ersten Mal gelesen als Schullektüre in der 10. Klasse. Theaterstück in Berlin gesehen.
Als junger Mensch (und noch dazu im Deutschunterricht) ist es schwer den richtigen Zugang zu diesem Text zu finden; Literatur in der Schule empfindet man oft als Tortur, selbst wenn man eigentlich gerne liest.
Dabei verdient es dieses Parabelstück in der Schule vernünftig besprochen zu werden, damit SchülerInnen auch wirklich den Kern vermittelt bekommen, warum es immer noch relevant ist, was das Phänomen "Faschismus" bedeutet und warum dieser Text auch in Zukunft aktuell bleiben wird.
Brecht vertritt die Meinung, dass man die Gräueltaten der Geschichte ins Lächerliche ziehen müsse, da Diktatoren (die eigentlich klein und schwach sind) mit ihren Kriegsverbrechen bei den Leuten Respekt hervorriefen. Diese Manie und Schizophrenie ist furchteinflößend und würde daher als Stärke interpretiert. Man dürfe dies nicht zulassen und aus Angst einfach Teile der Geschichte vergessen und ignorieren wollen (Stichwort Erinnerungskultur).
Faschismus existiert immer noch, aber wir als Gesellschaft scheuen uns mittlerweile weniger davor uns über furchteinflößende Diktatoren lustig zu machen als zu Brechts Zeiten. Dies ist auf jeden Fall eine positive Entwicklung.
Wie sonst soll man im Angesicht von Kriegsverbrechen und grauenhaften Nachrichten, die im digitalen Zeitalter unaufhörlich scheinen, nicht den Verstand verlieren?
Brechts Sprache ist wie aus Stein gemeißelt: jedes Wort an der richtigen Stelle, kein Wort zu viel, keine ungeschickten oder übertriebenen Verwendungen, die merkwürdige Assoziationen hervorrufen (wie das der Fall sein kann bei einem weniger geschickten Schriftsteller). Ein Meister.
Ich kann nicht behaupten, dass Arturo Ui eins meiner Lieblingsstücke ist, aber ich glaube, wenn man es sich richtig erarbeitet, kann es auch sehr interessant sein, es im Unterricht zu lesen.
Vielleicht wissen die LehrerInnen, die jetzt unterrichten, es anders anzugehen als mein Deutschlehrer im Jahr 2008 (immerhin hat sich die Welt inzwischen stark verändert), und schaffen es ihren SchülerInnen die Relevanz dieses älteren Textes zu vermitteln. -
I read this because I was obliged to, but I can tell I loved Brecht's parallelism. Having read various biographies of Hitler, this was supposed to be no different, but instead this was definitely my favourite. It must have been the wit, the characters, even the catchy setting or the language used. My personal favourite bit is when Ernesto Roma tells him (read it in Albanian so the following is my adaption) "Step on the world, but not on your same feet", inferring Ui's betrayal to him, as part of his own clique since the very beginning.
I liked how every character fitted perfectly into the real-life person's shoes and how it was so easy to make the whole book out. Not engaging, nor complicated, neither boring or clustered with details. This is what I will, from now on, suggest to everyone wanting to learn Hitler's rise in no time at all! Nice epilogue and very actual too! -
I've never read any Brecht before, and he takes a little getting used to, if this is anything to go by.
A funny; both ha-ha and odd, parody of Hitler's rise to power, and more importantly the circumstances that allowed it, using an Al Capone stand in taking over the cauliflower business in Chicago.
Chilling, mechanical, smart, emotionally distancing, controlled, didactic, selective, political...there is a lot going on, even before noting that the play has Shakespeare references galore and is written blank verse. Yet it is somehow simplistic too and perhaps to its credit.
The epilogue is, I believe, famous and understandably so. It is a chilling and sadly relevant reminder of how easy it is to produce both the circumstances and monsters to drag us all to hell again. -
If you are looking for a complete depiction of Hitler's rise to power, this play neither does that, nor does it claim to. But what it does do, and does really well, is outline the significant events leading up to Hitler's rise to power: seemingly insignificant events that have not received their due mention, making this play unique in that sense.
Brecht also reminds us that the second world war is not the last of its kind. In the current climate of nationalistic fervor, it is imperative that we remember our history and not repeat our earlier mistakes.
After all, the rise to power is, in fact, "resistible." -
not my kinda book
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(See
my review of the English translation) -
Якщо чесно, то п‘єса не дуже цікава для читання. Проте варта була того, щоби потім побачити сценічне рішення у виставі київського театру Франка — «Кар‘єра Артуро Уї, яку можна було спинити». Так, Брехт класик, але паралель між чиказькими ґанґстерами (ділками тресту «Цвітна капуста») і шляхом Гітлера до влади вкрай натягнута, а паралелі з сьогоденням тим більше складно відчитати.
«Про гангстера нащадки й не згадають.
Юрба зрадлива - їй нових героїв
Давай щоразу. А герой вчорашній
У безвість кане, і його ім'я
Запишуть лиш в архівах поліційних».
«Актор проходить коло по сцені.
Джівола. Але ж не будеш ти отак виступати перед торговцяни городиною! Це неприродно!
Уї. Що значить неприродно? А де ти бачив нині щось природне? Коли я йду, то хочу, щоб усі знали, що я таки йду».
Крізь переклад Володимира Митрофанова ще треба пробратися, а от робота художника Григорія Коваленка — прекрасна! -
Als jemand, der 50 Jahre nach dem Ende des zweiten Weltkriegs in Österreich aufgewachsen ist, hatte ich irgendwie - vielleicht verständlicher-, vielleicht verurteilungswürdigerweise - in meinen frühen Erwachsenenjahren eine ziemliche Abneigung gegen jegliche Form von Bellestristik entwicklet, die sich des zweiten Weltkriegs als Thema bedient. Mein damaliger bester Freund hat mir daraufhin unhaltbaren Lesesnobbismus vorgeworfen und gemeint meine Aversion sei ebenso absurd wie wenn ich sämtliche Bücher mit grünen Einbänden meiden würde. Das wiederum fand ich absurd: ich habe im zweiten Weltkrieg als Setting abgesehen von historischer und kulturbewusstseinsbezogener Wichtigkeit in erster Linie eine überverwendete, einerseits reißerische, andererseits ausgelutschte, und damit fast schon kitschige Literaturtrope gesehen. Dass es allerdings nicht nur ein formales Kriterium war, war mir schon klar (und vielleicht war das ja sogar das versteckte Argument meines Freundes). Heute sehe ich vieles anders und obwohl mir die immer noch gängige literarisch letztklassige Aufarbeitung der Kriegsgeschichten des Großvaters, ein lebensinhaltliches Plagiat in Ermangelung eigener Ideen und/oder eines eigenen Lebens unter dem fadenscheinigen Deckmantel von Geschichtsbildung, immer noch gestohlen bleiben kann, habe ich doch im großen und ganzen meinen Frieden mit Hitler und den seinigen als Romanfigur gefunden.
Ich beschreibe das alles hier nicht nur, weil ich ohne diese Entwicklung dieses Brecht-Stück vermutlich nie gelesen hätte; und auch nicht nur, um festzustellen, dass sich Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui gerade dadurch von den oben genannten Ergüssen unterscheidet, dass es Hitler nicht wie einen Hollywood-Star auf dem Promo-Poster für einem Blockbusterfilm glorreich und aufmerksamkeitsheischend in den Vordergrund rückt, sondern ihn gezielt verfremdet, um ihn (wenn auch vielleicht überzeichnet) menschlich und schmutzig und glorienlos zu machen, wobei das schon näher an die Sache kommt; ich wollte vor allem fogendes sagen: Hitler realistisch zu fiktionalisieren ist fast nicht möglich mit all dem Promi-Schein, dem Horror und der Gewichtigkeit, die ihm anhaftet; die soziale Verantwortung der Literatur im "in Erinnerung behalten" und "nicht vergessen" ist schwierig zu halten, wenn man bedenkt dass sowieso ständig neue Grausamkeiten geschehen und die Menschheit eine beachtliche Vorliebe für die Verdammung der Oberfläche (Hitler und Hakenkreuze) aber dann doch Tolerierung der tiefergehnden Symptomatik (nicht nur Antisemithismus, nicht einmal nur Rassismus oder Faschismus, sondern schlicht und einfach schamlose, rohe, organisierte, rhetorisch aufgewiegelt und gestützte Gewalt) an den Tag legt; als literarische Trope ist Hitler verkitscht und so oft verwendet und verrissen worden, dass er fast schon dem bösen Wolf in Rotkäppchen gleichkommt - warum also überhaupt weitervesuchen und suchen und stirln in diesen Hitlertexten?
Ich glaube Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui (obwohl ja sowieso zeitgenössisch geschrieben und somit ohnehin vom Vorwurf der endlosen Iteration befreit) zeigt in gewisser Weise was es bringen kann und wie und warum es versucht worden ist: Hitler wird in dem gesamten Stück kein einziges Mal benannt (zumindest in der Schriftversion, wo die am Ende der Szenen auftauchenden "Schriften", die historische Parallelen zum Auftsieg Hitlers aufzeigen, erst nach dem Haupttext als "Zeittafel" im Anhang angeführt werden), es wird einem die Tragik und Tragweite der Situation nicht wie so oft mit dem Vorschlaghammer eingehämmert, man kann die Satire also komplett ignorieren, und gerade dadurch ist man selber versucht die Implikationen bar zu legen. Wie üblich bei Brecht, sagt er alles geradeheraus, zeigt, deutet nichts an, ist sogar fast schon befremdlich simplistisch und gerade dadurch denkt man nach über die Hintergründe nach. Natürlich ist die Satire (auch wie üblich) mindestens so düster und bedrückend wie zynisch-amüsant, natürlich geht der Wirklichkeitsbezug auch nicht immer perfekt auf (Brecht macht sich zum Beispiel genauso einer indirekten Dämonisierung und also Glorifizierung der rohen Gewalt schudlig indem er den bei weitem nicht unschuldigen, totalitären österreichischen Kanzler Dollfuss durch den aufrichtigen und unbeugsam der Wahrheit verschriebenen Journalisten Dullfeet spielen lässt), aber Brecht ist eben Brecht und selbst in diesem nicht finalisierten und zur Aufführung überarbeiteten Stück zeigt er doch deutlich, wie klein und zufällig diese großen Figuren des Nationalsozialismus doch alle waren und wie groß und platt und vorhersehbar die Geschichte der organiserten Gewalt ist im Vergleich; wie lächerlich und gerade deshalb herzzerreißend, dass die wirtschaftlcihe Bredullie eines Karfioltrusts der Anfang vom Ende sein kann.
Der Epilog zum Stück, der so leicht zur moralisierenden Holzkeule hätte werden können, ging für mich voll auf, eben weil das ganze davor konsequent ohne Moralisierung oder Sentimantalisierung als Gangster-Story durchgezogen wurde, weil es sprachlich wirklich gut zusammengebaut ist, und letztlich leider auch, weil man nicht umhin kommen kann auch heute, über 70 Jahre später, noch die Relevanz zu sehen:
Ihr aber lernet, wie man sieht statt stiert
Und handelt, statt zu reden noch und noch.
So was hätt einmal fast die Welt regiert!
Die Völker wurden seiner Herr, jedoch
Daß keiner uns zu früh da triumphiert –
Der Schoß ist fruchtbar noch, aus dem das kroch! -
Brecht's comedic look at how Hitler came to rise. Hitler is in the form of Arturo Ui, a man who claims to be "for the people," especially those in the cauliflower trade. Ui does bad things and allows bad things to happen, but people doubt it could be him because he is interested in protecting "The common man."
It is a serious look into what can happen if people don't learn their history. -
" ÉPILOGUE
Vous, apprenez à voir, au lieu de regarder
Bêtement. Agissez au lieu de bavarder.
Voilà ce qui a failli dominer une fois le monde.
Les peuples ont fini par en avoir raison.
Mais nul ne doit chanter victoire hors de saison :
Le ventre est encore fécond, d'où a surgi la chose immonde." -
Well-written by a clearly experienced playwright, it still is a bit disappointing. For a satire or parable to succeed it needs to exaggerate, to ridicule otherwise it is just reality in disguise and what's the sense of that (unless written under pressure of censure)? In the case of this play the exaggeration is missing.
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Thus learn you how to see, and not just look,
And act instead of talking all day long;
The world was almost ruled by such a crook!
Though people overcame him, you’d be wrong
To pat your backs and think yourselves so clever –
The ooze that spawned him is as rich as ever! -
Bertolt Brecht’s satirical drama “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” recasts the historical events leading to the rise of Adolf Hitler in the guise of depression-era Chicago, and is what Brecht’s Master of Ceremonies lovingly calls the “great historical gangster play." Chicago represents Germany, and later in the play, Cicero takes the place of Austria, illustrating the expansion of the Third Reich into neighboring countries. Arturo Ui, representing Adolf Hitler, is looking to expand his power, and the Cauliflower Trust, a financial think tank symbolizing East German and Prussian landowners (formerly known as "the Junkers"), simultaneously wishes to expand their profits in such hard times.
To some extent and as is noted herein below this is a play that trivializes the immoral outrage perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazi Party on the German and Austrian people and the "civilized world" of the early 20th Century leading up to the Second World War. This is also a morality play that shows how easily a democracy dies in the dark and fascists and fear-mongering can and will take control over a country. This play shows the audience the various points where fascism and fascist dictators like Hitler could and should have been stopped. A number of themes and motifs appear in this odd, somewhat surreal play written by Bertolt Brecht as follows.
Betrayal
Betrayal is a constant theme throughout Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. From Clark’s betrayal of Sheet, and Bowl by association (all three represent various Junkers), to Ui’s murder of his closest friend, Ernesto Roma (who represents Ernst Rohm), betrayal plays a key role in the progression of the plot. Ui’s murder of Roma is what cements betrayal as a part of his reputation, which Roma’s ghost believes will prove to be his inevitable downfall. The betrayal committed by all of the characters throughout the play all stem from the same motive: upward social mobility. Clark, who initially betrays Sheet, is already at the height of society, yet he still wants to increase his own financial holdings. Although Clark may not be able to move upward in social class, he is still able to widen the wealth gap between him and the rest of Chicago. Clark represents the quintessential capitalist class, only concerned with maintaining his own liquid capital assets. His procurance of the false loan represents his betrayal of the people, as he literally takes public money (taxpayer dollars) and uses them to continue his lifestyle during the economic depression.
Conversely, Ui’s movement from gangster to politician is cemented by his murder of Roma, brought about by Betty Dullfoot’s (who epitomizes the wife of Englebert Dollfuss, the assassinated former Austrian Chancellor) own dislike of the violence Ui’s sergeant commits. Her failure to see past the facade Ui presents shed light upon Ui’s betrayal of Roma: Ui was given a choice, remain loyal to his friend, or sacrifice him to continue his plans. The explicit choice presented to Ui could be viewed as a moment where Arturo fails to resist himself, and in a sense, betrays his own core character. If Ui had chosen not to murder Roma, his relationship with the audience and their perspective on the
crimes committed on stage could have potentially been mended through the human gesture of sparing his friend. However, Roma is shot dead, and Ui’s betrayal encapsulates his own single minded drive to take over control of the vegetable trade in Chicago.
Faith
As a theme, Faith is an ironic accompaniment to betrayal. Faith is what Ui demands of his men and his supporters, and yet, the murder of his most faithful ally and companion, Ernesto Roma, is what ensures a lack of faith amongst his followers. In a sense, one must be faithful to something in order to be betrayed, and Roma is the quintessential example of this fact. Roma’s blind trust in Ui’s friendship and belief in Ui as a leader creates a vulnerability which is easily exploited. Faith requires a relationship based on trust, and Ui’s constant betrayal of those around him ensures that these relationships Arturo desires can never be fully constructed. The example of Roma finalizes this reality, and leaves the audience questioning how Ui could continue his rise in power without ever forging strong, faithful bonds with the masses underneath him? The appearance of Roma’s ghost reveals Ui’s own realization of the faith he has lost in himself, unable to cope with the gravity of his betrayal.
How, then, in light of Ui’s obliteration of any potential faith he could have grown amongst his followers, is he able to continue his ascent up the political ladder? The fear instilled in the grocers is enough for them to keep silent and publicly endorse Ui in a vote, but it is clearly not based on true faith in Arturo’s abilities. What Brecht is pointing to here is the social value of a vote: whether genuine or not, the facade of democracy enacted in the play paints an illusion of faith to those outside of the localized situation. The effectiveness of this illusory faith, by means of fraudulent political process, is what ensures Ui’s effectiveness beyond the diegetic portion of the play. The same could be said about various members of today's Republican Party.
Silence
Silence, a result of another theme, fear, is a major factor in Ui’s ability to carry out his extortion of the vegetable sellers, his numerous murders, and every other crime either Arturo or his men commit in his name. Ui manages to push fear into every corner of the grocer’s lives, from the warehouse fire, to his corruption of the court system and the sheer number of murders committed in Arturo’s name. These spaces of fear become so ubiquitous that the citizens of Chicago and Cicero feel completely incapable of resisting. Thus, they keep silent in the face of such obvious evil.
Although Bertolt Brecht doesn't want the audience to necessarily view these silent witnesses as antagonists, he does want viewers to see how silence is created, and to note the failed moments of resistance as moments of silence. In simpler terms, every scene where any character chooses to remain silent is a moment where the silence could have been broken, and resistance could have been launched. Dogsborough’s (who represents the former President of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg) silence in court exemplifies one of these moments, where had he, an honorable and well known citizen of Chicago, exposed Arturo as a criminal, the plot would have taken a very different course. Yet, the fear in Dogsborough of exposing his own crimes directly causes his silence, and Ui’s power continues to grow. Bertolt Brecht points the finger firmly at Paul von Hindenburg as the single most important and powerful individual in Germany who could and should have stopped Hitler and the Nazi Party's rise to power.
Brecht’s continually confronts the audience as complicit in the crimes occurring onstage precisely due to their silence. For example, in the eighth scene of the play, the unidentified "Wounded Woman" pleads directly to the audience for help, as she dies in front of their eyes from machine gun fire knowingly discharged by one of Ui’s men. Despite the audience’s literal inability to disrupt the show, Brecht wants the audience to identify with a bystander or a witness that chooses to remain silent during the course of the play. This creation of an active audience is a trademark of Brecht’s dramas, and in this case, the audience’s role as silent witnesses in the theatre is used effectively to draw attention to the theme of silence and complicity in the face of moral outrage itself.
Capital
Capital, or more precisely the desire for an increase in capital, plays the role of a corruptive agent in Brecht’s play. The Cauliflower Trust’s (the Junkers') main motive is an increase in their profits, which leads them to commit fraud on behalf of their personal bank accounts. The members of the Trust continually align themselves with Ui for financial gain, and ends with their direct complicity to Ignatius Dullfoot’s (who represents Englebert Dollfuss, the assassinated former Austrian Chancellor) murder. Symbolizing big business, the Trust inextricability from Ui’s criminal activity marks their motive of capital gains, as a toxic, corrupting and morally corrosive agent.
However, the desire for an increase in capital does not solely relate to an increase in financial capital. Ui’s extortion of Chicago’s and Cicero’s grocers is motivated by his desire for 10% of their hard earned money. However, Ui is arguably the least corrupted by money, but rather his insatiable desire for an increase in social capital. Of course, social and financial capital are intertwined, yet if Ui simply wanted to increase his financial holdings, he could simply have continued robbing banks.
Lastly, Brecht compares the value of these two forms (social and financial) of capital hold throughout the text, most notably in the character of Dogsborough. Dogsborough sees his social capital as less valuable when he weighs it against actual financial assets, and so decides to exchange the former for the latter. This decision can be seen mirrored in that of the grocer’s or other silent witnesses throughout the play. Silence ensures that one’s financial capital will not become too precarious, yet simultaneously ensures the tarnished reputation of one’s social capital in the eyes of the audience.
Fear
Fear functions as Ui’s foremost political tactic during the play, and is utilized in a number of ways. First, violence and terror perpetuated by Ui create an atmosphere of fear, in order to convince his enemies it is not worth fighting back. This can be seen in the conversation between the grocers of Chicago and Cicero before they are addressed by Ui in the final scene: neither one is willing to stand up and face certain death. The irony here is their unwillingness to work together in the final moment: if they were to all stand up, united, and resist Ui’s demands, they would likely succeed. The separate, individual fears of the grocers prevent this from happening.
Fear is also used to vilify people such as the general working class or the defendant Fish (who represents Marinus van der Lubbe, the Dutch Communist convicted of burning down the Reichstag). By implanting this fear amidst Chicago’s grocers, Ui is able to rally them behind his cause, and ensure that the warehouse fire trial convicts an individual unconnected to Ui, one representative of the fear he grew in the grocers’ minds. This tactic is also used by Clark, who attempts to blame the grocer’s burgeoning economic crisis on the truck drivers and various workers on strike for higher wages. It is interesting to note the different types of fear employed by Ui and Clark: the first wants the public to fear him, whereas Clark employs a more subtle, political fear designed to instill distrust of a specific socioeconomic group. Does that sound familiar?
This is not to say that Ui’s tactics do not change with his ascent in social standing. There is, of course, overlap in their tactics, but one that slowly develops throughout the play: a seeming emulation of Clark classicism in Ui’s own rhetoric. Ui displays a remarkable ability to learn and adapt to his newfound political power, chiefly by altering his fear-mongering strategy. As stated, Ui begins by wanting the public to fear him (and his gangster cohort); yet as he becomes more and more of a public figure, Arturo realizes the faith he wishes to garner from Chicago’s grocers cannot solely stem from their fear of him. Rather, it must stem from their fellow citizens, and in a manner which frames Ui as the only possible solution.
“The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” ends with the actor playing Ui addressing the audience, not as Ui but as a voice of reason: “…let’s not drop out guard to quickly then:/Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard/ The bitch that bore him is in heat again." The play both begins and ends with warnings to the reader or audience, a framework which opens up the potential for the play to function as a springboard for aesthetic resistance to socio-political issues.
At the time of the first stage production, in Stuttgart, Siegfried Melchinger, a West German critic, called it a "brilliant miscarriage", and complained that the play omitted the German people, echoing the complaint of the East German critic Lothar Kusche, who had read the play in manuscript. Brecht's answer was, in part:
"Ui is a parable play, written with the aim of destroying the dangerous respect commonly felt for great killers. The circle described has been deliberately restricted; it is confined to the plane of state, industrialists, Junkers and petty bourgeois. This is enough to achieve the desired objective. The play does not pretend to give a complete account of the historical situation in the 1930s."
In his 1992 study, "Hitler: The Führer and the People," J. P. Stern, a professor of German literature, rejects both Arturo Ui and Chaplin's The Great Dictator, writing: "[T]he true nature of [Hitler] is trivialized and obscured rather than illuminated by the antics of Charles Chaplin and the deeply unfunny comedy of Bertolt Brecht."
The play was listed in 1999 as No. 54 on Le Monde's 100 Most Influential Books of the 20th Century and boy howdy do the French know their literature. -
Epik tiyatroya çok güzel bir örnek okuma oldu. Oyunun adı için "Arturo Ui'nin önlenebilir yükselişi " demek daha doğru olacak.
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I must admit to having strongly mixed feelings about this particular play. In general, I have not been impressed by the plays of Brecht; their dialogue is generally stilted, the political biases and ideological axes to grind are pretty irritating, and there is a distinct feeling that the author seems obsessed with gangsters as a way of discrediting capitalist and middle class mentalities without doing so openly. This play adds to the general lack of openness about its purpose by deliberately contrasting the gangster action of the main play with little headlines that show the slow decline of Germany into Hitler's own gangster rule. Although the sly bits of this book that are aimed at making fun of Hitler's Germany as it approaches World War II are the best part of the play by far, given the general lack of interest that the dialogue or the music present to the reader, this play does nothing to hinder an impression that Brecht was fundamentally a dishonest sort of playwright who sought to use spectacle as well as a consistent approach on the criminal class as a way of delegitimizing existing social and economic elites in the West, all without dealing honestly with the shortcomings of his own preferred social system.
This book is a one-act play that is divided into a lot of scenes. The scenes cover precisely the material that the title would indicate, the rise of Arturo Ui, a very stereotypical Italian gangster whose penchant for violence and his ability to navigate a post-Prohibition world where it is possible to muscle in on political chicanery allow him to first bolster a vulnerable corrupt elite who engage in some fraudulent business practices of his own and then gradually carve out a place for himself within mainstream society while simultaneously engaging in acts of violence against those who threaten his position. Ui also shows himself adept at handling public relations, making sure to show some generosity to the widow of a witness of fraud and embezzling that manages to get whacked in order to preserve Ui's desire to ingratiate himself with elites. Meanwhile, as all of this goes on the playwright also adds little bits of drama that demonstrate the situation in Germany which appears to be more important to the author in demonstrating the resistible rise of Hitler than may be entirely safe for the playwright to let on.
The essential part of this play that deserves to be remembered is the way that the author conceives of this gangster melodrama as a resistible rise. Not only does the author believe that the rise of Hitler and Ui could have been resisted, but that it should have been, even though it wasn't resisted forcefully until it was too late for a lot of people to suffer and die. Of course, the author's equation of America's city politics and European fascism is a bit too facile, and the author once again appears to be pushing a socialist agenda without being honest about what it entails. Does the author seem to think that leftists lack crony capitalism or fraud and corruption or violence directed at others, because the historical record indicates that Brecht is only dealing with half of the story, trying to paint more right-wing regimes as being evil while not addressing at all the evils of the left. And while Brecht (and anyone else) is certainly free to be biased, readers and theatergoers should be sensitive to these biases and to reject Brecht's approach as representing anything approaching fairness and balance or historical truth, or even compelling and entertaining drama. -
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertold Brecht
Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui
Spoiler alert: I will not give you away the finale, the author does. He thinks the Ascension can be stopped. But since I did not enjoy what I heard of the play, I am likely to write about anything except Brecht.
There have been a small series of accidents, books that I did not enjoy.
With Zhivago and Prometheus Bound, there is he Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
Yes, the message is worthy and the title, from where I stand says it all.
There is even is no point in reading beyond it.
I am just kidding, but I may have reached the limit of my comprehension, number of authors I can grasp and the time limit.
An impulse to resist Nazis is noble and especially so if we consider that this play was written in 1941, if I remember correctly.
The author was brave and could face retribution, even in the form of death.
On the other hand, it seems somewhat hollow and pointless, for during so many years Hitler could not be stopped.
In other words, the play is plain wrong.
Message and all: Arturo Ui aka Hitler cannot be stopped, resisted – without millions of people dead and countless wounded and affected by his war.
Another thing I hate about Nazism is the fact that somehow it gets all the attention.
It is ok to be communist or extreme left in Europe and forbidden to be a Nazi.
While I understand the last part, I do not get the first.
The communists, Stalin and the bunch have been much bigger killers than Hitler.
Mao may have been the killer Supreme, making the Chinese starve to death for his crazy, evil “ideals”.
He made his subjects kill the sparrows, which had devoured the other crop eaters and it all ended in catastrophe. How stupid and ferocious these people could be.
Another thing that I did not like about Arturo Ui was the silly introduction of cauliflower.
Instead of mentioning Krupp, as an engine, a stimulus for the rise of the Third Reich, Brecht introduces …cauliflower merchants.
I can understand that he could not give the proper names and here there is a subtle irony, but I just find it risible and bringing it into a note that I do not like.
It is subjective and reflective a lack of understanding, probably a proper training and more research on the subject.
You may enjoy it. I did not.
