Trumpets and Drums | |
Place: | Berliner Ensemble |
Orig Lang: | German |
Genre: | Epic comedy |
Trumpets and Drums (German: Pauken und Trompeten) is an adaptation of an 18th-century English Restoration comedy by Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer. It was written by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht in collaboration with Benno Besson and Elisabeth Hauptmann.[1]
It was first performed in 1955 in a production directed by Besson, with music by Rudolf Wagner-Régeny (whose songs for the play have been called "Weill-like" by John Willett).[2] It was the first premiere of Brecht's final season at the Berliner Ensemble.[3] Willett identifies an instance of Brecht's lifelong indebtedness to Rudyard Kipling in the play's "Song of the Women of Gaa."[4]
The production strongly influenced the English director William Gaskill's reinterpretation of Farquhar's original play for the National Theatre.[5]
Brecht offers the following account of the first scene of the play:[6]