Brecht Plays 8: The Antigone of Sophocles; The Days of the Commune; Turandot or the Whitewasher's Congress
About this ebook
Volume 8 of Brecht's collected plays contains his last completed plays, from the eight years between his return from America to Europe after the war and his death in 1956. Brecht's ANTIGONE (1948) is a bold adaptation of Holderlin's classic German translation of Sophocles' play. A reflection on resistance and dictatorship in the aftermath of Nazism, it was a radical new experiment in epic theatre. THE DAYS OF THE COMMUNE (1949) is a semi-documentary account of the Paris Commune, and Brecht's most serious and ambitious historical play. TURANDOT is Brecht's version of the classic Chinese story is a satire on the intelligentsia of the Weimar Republic, Nazi bureaucracy, and other targets.
About the author
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is acknowledged as one of the great dramatists whose plays, work with the Berliner Ensemble and critical writings have had a considerable influence on the theatre. His landmark plays include The Threepenny Opera, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, The Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
David Constantine was for thirty years a university teacher of German language and literature. He has published several volumes of poetry, including Nine Fathom Deep; also a novel, Davies, and three collections of short stories, including The Shieling. He is a translator and editor of Holderlin, Goethe, Kleist and Brecht. His translation of Goethe's Faust was published by Penguin. With his wife Helen he edits Modern Poetry in Translation.
Tom Kuhn is Professor of 20th century German Literature at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, UK, and General Editor of Bloomsbury Methuen Drama's Brecht publications.
