Bertolt Brecht

Sobald der Sommer zu Ende geht und der Winter bevorsteht, ist es Zeit, sich für die dunkle Jahreszeit zu rüsten - Zeit für Halloween! Am 31. Oktober ziehen die Kids mit viel Spaß und Radau singend durch die Straßen, um die bösen Geister zu vertreiben. Mit der vorliegenden CD erhalten sie musikalisch Unterstützung von zahlreichen mystischen Figuren, die wir mit Halloween verbinden: Gespenster, Geister, Hexen, Vampire, Spinnen, Monster und andere Tiere der Nacht werden in den verschiedensten Musikrichtungen lebendig. Die Liedtexte erzählen die Ursprungsgeschichte von Halloween, von Jack of the Lantern, der gemeinsame Sache mit dem Teufel macht; vom kleinen Kürbis, der zu Halloween ganz groß rauskommt, von der "Gi-Ga-Geisterbahn", den zehn kleinen Hexenmeistern und dem "Klipper Klapper Knochenmann". Wer schon immer mit Spinnen im Keller oder beim Einschlafen mit Monstern unter'm Bett gehadert hat, kann hier mutig seine Ängste überwinden, denn die CD lehrt keineswegs das Fürchten, sondern beschert auf vielseitige Art (Party-)Spaß für Jung und Alt. Die modernen Rhythmen gehen sofort ins Ohr und alle Songs lassen sich schnell mitsingen. Michi Vogdt komponiert und textet "am Puls der Zeit

Täglich trägt der Mensch sein größtes Organ zu Markte: seine Haut. Mit einer Fläche von fast zwei Quadratmetern umspannt sie seinen Organismus. Alle 27 Tage erneuert sich ihre gesamte Oberfläche. Millionen von Sinneszellen nehmen Tast- und Druckempfindungen auf. Diese lösen ein ganzes Gewitter an elektrischen Reizen aus, die in Bruchteilen von Sekunden über die Nervenbahnen zum Gehirn gelangen. Dort werden die Signale sondiert: angenehme Berührung, erotisches Wohlbefinden, Schmerz als lebenswichtige Schutzreaktion. Eine Störung des seelischen Gleichgewichtes verändert auch die Haut. Sie ist buchstäblich der Spiegel der Seele.

Published by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language. Volume One of Brecht's Collected Plays contains Brecht's first performed stage works. Baal is inspired by Brecht's student life in Augsburg and follows the life of a young poet on the rocky road to inspiration; Drums in the Night was written in response to Brecht's experience as a medical orderly in the aftermath of the First World War; and In the Jungle of Cities, set in Chicago, covers the downfall of a family that has moved from the prairies to the jungle of the big city - award-winning in its day, it was described by a leading German daily as the play that 'has given our time a new tone, a new melody, a new vision'. This volume also includes The Life of Edward II of England, a ballad-like adaptation of Marlowe's original, and five one-act plays The Beggar or the Dead Dog, Driving Out The Devil, Lux in Tenebris, The Catch and A Respectable Wedding in which the bourgeois proceedings take a hilarious turn for the unseemly. The translators are Jean Benedetti, Eva Geiser and Ernest Borneman, Richard Grunberger, Michael Hamburger, Gerhard Nellhaus, Peter Tegel and John Willett. The translations are ideal for both study and performance. The volume is accompanied by a full introduction and notes by the series editor John Willett and includes Brecht's own notes and relevant texts as well as all the important textual variants.

The most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language Volume Three of Brecht's Collected Plays includes St Joan of the Stockyards - a play which recasts St Joan as Joan Dark springing hope into the hearts of factory workers at the mercy of meatpacker king Pierpont Mauler threatening cuts in the Depression; and the Lehrstucke or short 'didactic' pieces written during the years 1929 to 1933, are some of his most experimental work. Lindbergh's Flight, The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent, He Said Yes / He Said No, The Decision,The Exception and the Rule, and The Horatians and the Curiatians reject conventional theatre; they are spare and highly formalised, drawing on traditional Japanese and Chinese forms. They show Brecht in collaboration with the composers Hindemith, Weill and Eisler, influenced by the new techniques of montage in the visual arts and seeking new means of expression. Also included is The Mother, based on Gorky's novel about the progress of a factory strike in Tver and the journey of a peasant mother from illiteracy to card-carrying communism. The translators include H R Hays (The Horatians and the Curiatians), Ralph Manheim (St Joan of the Stockyards), Tom Osborn (The Exception and the Rule), Geoffrey Skelton (The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent), John Willett (Lindbergh's Flight;The Decision;The Mother) and Arthur Waley (He Said Yes / He Said No). The translations are ideal for both study and performance. The volume is accompanied by a full introduction and notes by the series editor John Willett and includes Brecht's own notes and relevant texts as well as all the important textual variants.

"One of the greatest poets and dramatists of our century" (Observer) Brecht's Lehrstucke or short 'didactic' pieces written during the years 1929 to 1933, are some of his most experimental work. Rejecting conventional theatre, they are spare and highly formalised, drawing on traditional Japanese and Chinese theatre. They show Brecht in collaboration with the composers Hindemith, Weill and Eisler, influenced by the new techniques of montage in the visual arts and seeking new means of expression. Brecht intended them for performance by schools, workers' groups and choral societies rather than by professionals, with the idea that the moral and political lessons contained in them are best conveyed by participating in an actual production. In addition to the Lehrstucke, the volume contains The Mother, a longer play, again with music by Eisler, based on the novel by Gorky. A story of dawning political consciousness, told with irony and narrative drive, its central character is one of Brecht's great female roles. The original production starred Brecht's wife Helene Weigel and Brecht was buried with the red flag that was a prop in the production.

This version of Brecht's great anti-war play by playwright David Hare was premiered by the National Theatre, London, in November 1995. It adopts a freer approach to the text than many editions, adapting the original rather than offering a close translation. In this chronicle of the Thirty Years War, Mother Courage follows the armies back and forth across Europe, selling provisions and liquor from her canteen wagon. One by one she loses her children to the war but will not part with her livelihood - the wagon. The Berlin production of 1949, with Helene Weigel as Mother Courage, marked the foundation of the Berliner Ensemble. Considered by many to be one of the greatest anti-war plays ever written and Brecht's masterpiece, it remains a powerful example of Brecht's Epic Theatre and pioneering theatrical style.

Published by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language. The fifth volume in the Brecht Collected Plays series brings together two of Brecht's best-known and most frequently performed and studied plays: Life of Galileo and Mother Courage and Her Children. Galileo, which examines the conflict between free inquiry and official ideology, contains one of Brecht's most human and complex central characters. Temporarily silenced by the Inquisition's threat of torture, and forced to abjure his theories publicly, Galileo continues to work in private, eventually smuggling his work out of the country. As an examination of the problems that face not only the scientist but also the whole spirit of free inquiry when brought into conflict with the requirements of government or official ideology, Life of Galileo has few equals. The translations are ideal for both study and performance. The volume is accompanied by a full introduction and notes by the series editor John Willett and includes Brecht's own notes and relevant texts as well as all the important textual variants.

Published by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language. This second volume of Brecht's Collected Plays brings together some of his most glittering Berlin successes including The Threepenny Opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, The Seven Deadly Sins, Man Equals Man and The Elephant Calf. The Threepenny Opera is the story of the mercurial beggar turned entrepeneur Peachum and his battles with the criminal Mac 'the Knife'; Mahagonny, an operatic satire on the search for an American capitalist utopia; The Seven Deadly Sins is a ballet with songs that predicts the downfall of the petty bourgeosie and was first performed as the Nazis planned their book burning exercise. Man equals Man is an exploration of the theory of equality and The Elephant Calf is a play within a play based on an Indian folk story. The translators include W H Auden and Chester Kallman, Ralph Manheim, Gerhard Nellhaus and John Willett. The translations are ideal for both study and performance. The volume is accompanied by a full introduction and notes by the series editor John Willett and includes Brecht's own notes and relevant texts as well as all the important textual variants.

Published by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language. The seventh volume of Brecht's Collected Plays contains the plays which Brecht wrote during his six-year stay in the United States from 1942 to 1948. The Visions of Simone Machard is a French resistance version of the Joan of Arc story. Schweyk in the Second World War transposes Hasek's 'good soldier' to the Prague of Hitler and Heydrich. The Caucasian Chalk Circle, based on the biblical story of the judgement of Solomon, was originally written for production on Broadway, with W. H. Auden responsible for the verse. A morality masterpiece, the play powerfully demonstrates Brecht's pioneering theatrical techniques and has since become one of his most popular works. The translations are ideal for both study and performance. The volume is accompanied by a full introduction and notes by the series editor John Willett and includes Brecht's own notes and relevant texts as well as all the important textual variants.

Published by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language. This sixth volume of Brecht's Collected Plays contains three plays he wrote while in exile during the early stages of the Second World War. In Brecht's famous parable The Good Person of Szechwan, the gods come to earth in search of a thoroughly good person. No one can be found until they meet Shen Te, a prostitute with a heart of gold. Rewarded by the gods, she gives up her profession and buys a tabacco shop but finds it is impossible to survive as a good person in a corrupt world without the support of her ruthless alter ego Shui Ta. The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a savage satire on the rise of Hitler, wittily transposed to gangland Chicago. Brecht's compelling parable continues to have relevance wherever totalitarianism appears today. Written in 1940 during Brecht's exile in Finland, Puntila is one of his greatest creations, to be ranked alongside Galileo and Mother Courage. A hard-drinking Finnish landowner, Puntila suffers from a divided personality: when drunk he is human and humane; when sober, surly and self-centred. The play contains some of the best comedy Brecht wrote for the theatre. The translations are ideal for both study and performance. The volume is accompanied by a full introduction and notes by the series editor John Willett and includes Brecht's own notes and relevant texts as well as all the important textual variants.

These six plays represent the best and most humorous of Brecht's shorter works. The Jewish Wife is from the Fear and Misery in the Third Reich cycle of one-act plays, which, along with In Search of Justice and The Informer, chromicles the hardships of life in Nazi Germany. The Exception and the Rule, one of Brecht's most popular short works, grimly depicts the consequences of the mutually dependent -- yet inevitable inequitable -- relationship between the priviledged and the poor; it is included here with The Measures Taken and The Elephant Calf. Though all of these ales of horror, ad Eric Bentley calls them, have tragic undertones, they are also infused with farcical absurdities and cosmic irony so characteristic of Brecht's work.

The three plays gathered in this volume are among Bertolt Brecht's most remarkable; the best-known is Jungle of Cities, here translated by the poet Anselm Hollo. Set in Chicago in a climate of rampant capitalism, it is the story of a savage battle waged between two men, whose relationship is at once homosexual and sadomasochistic and whose tightly choreographed hostility is a metaphor for their cultural surround.