Summary
In 1947 Bertolt Brecht returned to Berlin from America, following an unsuccessful career both in Hollywood and on Broadway. He settled in the Russian sector because of his Communist connections, which he had successfully hidden from the House Un-American Activities Committee just before leaving the US forever. At first he and his wife, the actress Helene Weigel, worked at the venerable Deutsches Theater, but in 1954 their company, the Berliner Ensemble, moved to the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm location. The stage had been completely destroyed by American bombs, but the fire curtain was in place to protect the beautiful auditorium, exactly as it was designed to do. A raked stage was put in, complete with a large turntable revolving on steel wheels salvaged from German Panzer tanks. It would become famous when Weigel, playing the lead in Brecht's Mother Courage, would plod endlessly on it with her canteen wagon, a visual symbol of the futility of Capitalism. Here, Hornby talks about Berliner Ensemble and Berlins lively theater scene.
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The Berliner Ensemble
BECAUSE I WAS BORN ON THE EVE OF WORLD WAR II, the city of Berlin has always seemed mythic: Hitler in the newsreels with his funny moustache and angry speeches (I thought the word Führer must have something to do with fury since he always looked and sounded so furious), goose-stepping legions shown in black and white photos parading down Unter den Linden, daring B-1 7 raids to teach them a lesson, and then the Russians capturing the city to bring the European war to a triumphant finish. (When my mother told me that the Red Army had taken Berlin, I envisioned soldiers in red uniforms dashing through the streets in search of Hitler.) Then there were the Berlin Blockade and Airlift, the Wall, Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner," and tanks confronting each other across the no-man's land during the Cuban missile crisis. Then much later, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," and Io and behold, he did.
When I visited Berlin for the first time, last summer at the age of s...See the full content of this document
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