About the work
Bertolt Brecht's parable play „The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" was written in 1941 in Finnish exile and premiered in Stuttgart in 1958. In the guise of a Chicago gangster play, Brecht narrates the rise of Hitler and the National Socialists. The title stresses the central thesis: this rise was „resistible".
Plot
In Depression-era Chicago the down-at-heel gangster Arturo Ui seeks to seize control of the cauliflower trade. Through extortion, murder and feigned legality he subjugates the „Cauliflower Trust" and the greengrocers. Step by step he eliminates rivals and companions: the venerable city politician Dogsborough is compromised, a warehouse fire is staged and pinned on an innocent man, the confidant Ernesto Roma is murdered, the resistant Ignatius Dullfeet removed and his town of Cicero annexed. The figures correspond to historical models — Ui to the dictator, his henchmen to the Nazi leaders, the fire to the Reichstag fire, Cicero to the „Anschluss" of Austria. The play ends in Ui's triumph, but an epilogue warns the audience: „The womb is fertile still from which that crawled."
Cultural significance
„Arturo Ui" is one of the most famous anti-fascist parables of the twentieth century and a major work of epic theatre. In blank verse Brecht parodies Shakespeare and Goethe in order to expose the criminals while preventing any trivialisation. The play belongs to the core repertoire; legendary are the Berliner Ensemble production with Ekkehard Schall and the Broadway production with Al Pacino.