"Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon."

Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright born in 1898. His experience of WWI was watching friends go off to die, giving him a strong distaste for war. He even begin to write anti-war essays in school, nearly getting him expelled. Not wishing to join the army, he enrolled in medical school, in order to be exempt from service, however he studied more theatre than medicine. He ended up being drafted anyway, but was placed at a medical post.

He began playwrighting in 1918 and saw his writing as a chance to respond to other people's work and what he saw going on in the world around him. In 1922, he received an award for the most promising new playwright and was praised for his use of language and symbolism.

What's different about Brecht's work is that he saw theatre more as a sport. He didn't want an audience to come in and be passively entertained for a few hours and go home. He wanted the audience to come in and take sides, to pick who they thought deserved to win and lose, to cheer the players on and boo at bad calls. He wanted the audience to go home with an opinion on who in  his story played the game the best and who was a cheater, and to have opinions about what happened in the play.

 His first play done in his original style (called Epic Theatre) was A Man's A Man, which is about how the military does not care who you are or what your story is, they simply need another body to brainwash into being a cog in their machine. You are disposable and unimportant in the world of the military.

Brecht was very anti-Hitler and fled Germany as soon as Hitler came into power. At first he just moved around Europe, but when it became obvious that Europe was being swallowed up by Germany, he fled to the United States.  He ended up writing six anti-Nazi plays, one of which is Arturo Ui, the play I'm currently in. Unfortunately, he wasn't safe in the US either, as his work caused him to be labeled a communist during the red scare and had him blacklisted. He was called in for a trial, denied being part of the communist party, and left the US, heading back to Europe.

So, you're going to see a Brecht play, what should you expect? You should expect to not feel emotionally connected to the characters. Brecht did not want the audience to sympathize with or invest in the characters, but rather to look at them objectively and make moral decisions about their actions. You should expect a story line about injustice. Brecht wanted you to see what was happening in the world and the pain it caused to others. You should expect to never forget you're seeing a play. Costume changes and set changes will happen on stage. Costumes and props might be replaced with signs stating what they are. You don't need a nun's habit, you just need to write "Nun" on her shirt. You should expect music to interrupt serious moments. You should expect criticism of government. And most importantly, you should expect to be told that you have a choice. Just as the characters in the play made choices, you have choices to make, and the choices you make affect other people.  And this is an incredibly important thing to realize as you head into adulthood, it's not all about you, your choices have larger meaning than you want to believe.

So come see the Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and pay attention to what it's saying, because it's telling you that the rise of selfish, careless, and/or evil leaders only happens when the people make  selfish, careless, and/or evil choices. A corrupt leader is a sign of a corrupt people. The atrocities of WWII never had to happen. We allowed them to happen. Worse, we took part in making them happen. And if you think this show and these concepts only apply to Hitler, then think about what Brecht said when he found out that Hitler was dead: "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again."