The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

About this event

Bertolt Brecht's 1941 satire uses a Chicago vegetable-racket turf war to show how a small-time crook can become a fascist dictator. The story follows Arturo Ui as he outmanoeuvres rival cauliflower dealers, corrupts a politician, and masters media manipulation — a darkly funny anatomy of power that Brecht intended as a direct commentary on Hitler's rise. Frankfurt's production, directed by Christian Weise, turns the play into a live-cinema spectacle. A video quartet films a black-and-white comic-strip cityscape built by artist Julia Oschatz, and the images are projected life-size onto a huge wooden wall. Actors slip between the screen and the stage floor, while Jens Dohle provides live percussion and keyboards from a one-man orchestra pit. The tone is a mix of grotesque clowning and genuine menace, with Brecht's blank verse delivered by extravagantly costumed caricatures — Annie Nowak's punk-muscle Giri, Andreas Vögler's slimy Givola, and Michael Schütz's hunchbacked Dogsborough. It's both an entertaining and visually rich night of theatre and a sharp reminder that fascism isn't a historical accident.