Co-production with Cankarjev dom and Maribor 2012 – European Capital of Culture
Opening night:
20th January 2012
Translator Marijan Kramberger
Director Eduard Miler
Adapted by and Dramaturg Žanina Mirčevska
Composer Boštjan Gombač
Set designer Marko Japelj
Costume designer Leo Kulaš
Andrej Intihar
Light designer Andrej Hajdinjak
Choreographer Gregor Luštek
Language consultant Arko
Ana Lazovski
Cast:
Jernej Šugman - Arturo Ui, gangster
Bojan Emeršič - Ernesto Roma, gangster
Janez Škof - Emanuele Giri, gangster
Vanja Plut - Dockdaisy, gangster
Gregor Baković - Flake, businessmen, directors of the cauliflower trust
Zvezdana Mlakar - Mrs. Butcher, businessmen, director of the cauliflower trust
Katja Levstik - Mrs. Caruther, businessmen, director of the cauliflower trust
Valter Dragan - Clark, businessmen, director of the cauliflower trust
Aleš Valič k.g. - Dogsborough, mayor
Vojko Zidar - Ignacijus Dullfeet, president of the investigation committee, attorney, owner of a newspaper
Maša Derganc - Betty Dullfeet, owner of a wholesale house
Polona Vetrih - The Judge
Boris Mihalj - An Actor
Iva Babić - Mrs. Goodwill, members of the city council
Maja Končar - Mrs. Gaffles, members of the city council
Marko Okorn - Sheet, shipyard owner
Boštjan Gombač k.g. - Fish, defendant
Gašper Jarni k.g. - Bowl, Sheet’s chief accountant
Boštjan Gombač k.g., Janez Dovč k.g., Matija Krečič k.g., Goran Krmac k.g., Vid Drašler k.g. - Orchestra
Slobodan Anđelić k.g., Mitja Dišič k.g., Gal Šmid k.g., Ervin Brulc k.g., Leo Kostič k.g. -
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a savage and witty parable of the rise of Adolf Hitler – recast by Bertolt Brecht into a small-time Chicago gangster’s takeover of the city’s greengrocery trade. The caricatured world of businessmen and mobsters has direct counterparts in real-life Nazi Germany. Brecht wrote the play in exile in 1941 just before his arrival in the USA, investing it with an outspoken didactic message: to provide the American audiences with a clear analysis of the reasons for and consequences of the events in the 1930s Germany and highlight the fact that Hitler’s rise to power was simple, abrupt and utterly resistible. The ascendance of this monstrous person, who has rendered the whole world speechless, was enabled by capitalism, psychological mechanisms of a nation faced with its imperilled existence and small corruptive methods of power accumulation that refuse acknowledgement of the ultimate responsibility.
The play presents a wide range of parody and pastiche – from Richard III to Al Capone, from Mark Antony to Faust – without diminishing the horror of the
real life Nazi prototypes. What in Brecht’s day was an allegory, a simplified and entirely grotesque image of an adventure undertaken by the mob and the
government in their rise to prominence, has today gained a very contemporary edge.