DIE ABENTEUER DES BRAVEN SOLDATEN SCHWEJK

About the show

Švejk—a Till Eulenspiegel-like figure in wartime: with anarchic wit, "the good soldier" undermines the war machine of World War I. Jaroslav Hašek’s unfinished two-volume novel was touted by the author himself as the "best humorous-satirical book in world literature." Despite suffering from rheumatism, Švejk heads off to war—a conflict that, in Hašek’s absurd episodes, reveals itself to be sheer chaos. Bertolt Brecht was captivated by the character of Schwejk; Hašek’s novel held his interest for years. Together with Erwin Piscator, he developed a famous stage adaptation of the text, which premiered in 1928. Brecht also planned to adapt the material for film, eventually writing his own play while in American exile in 1943—Schweyk in the Second World War—in which the character becomes a subservient cog in the machinery of German fascism. Hanns Eisler composed the music, including songs such as "The Nazi Soldier's Wife" and "The Song of the Little Wind." At the end of the play, Schwejk—"the little man" who had volunteered for service—encounters Hitler in Stalingrad. Brecht’s play forms the second part of a Schwejk trilogy that director Jan-Christoph Gockel begins in the First World War.