The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui(1941)

Bertolt BrechtΚ. Παλαιολόγου

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, (Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui) was written by the great German dramatist Bertolt Brecht over the course of 3 furious weeks in 1941, while a refugee in Helsinki, Finland. A dizzyingly intelligent political satire on the (ir)resistibleness of political thuggery, Arturo Ui satirizes the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany by dressing it up as “the gangster film” we thought we knew. In Arturo Ui, the metamorphosis of thug-to-politician through corruption, intimidation and all manner of brutality is thinly masked by a Chicago gangland epic where the young Arturo Ui stages a violent takeover of the green grocer trade.