Happy ending (comedy)

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Data
Original title: happy end
Genus: Comedy in three acts with music
Original language: German
Author: Elisabeth Hauptmann
Music: Kurt Weill
Premiere: September 2, 1929
Place of premiere: Theater am Schiffbauerdamm , Berlin
people

Happy End is a three-act song play by Elisabeth Hauptmann , Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht , which was created in the first half of 1929 as a follow-up project to the successful Threepenny Opera and premiered on September 2, 1929 in the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin . The piece was canceled after only seven performances and only experienced its first major renaissance on Broadway in 1977 , where it was held for 75 performances. Happy End deals with the story of the Salvation Army , a gang of gangsters and the destruction of the big cities. It's about the relationship between religion and business.

Authorship and reception history

After the success of the Threepenny Opera , Brecht and Weill conceived a song game whose lyrics actually come from Elisabeth Hauptmann and which was initially published under the pseudonym "Dorothy Lane". The authorship of the work was long considered controversial among music and theater scholars and was initially mainly attributed to Brecht's work . Elisabeth Hauptmann has been an author since 1977. Only the songs are from Brecht and Weill. In June 1929 Brecht wrote a letter to Elisabeth Hauptmann asking her to take over the project. The letter contained some notes about the plot and the people.

The world premiere of Happy End was accompanied by a multitude of problems. Not only were there persistent reports that the actress Helene Weigel had read from a communist pamphlet on stage , but one also had to contend with increasingly hostile reviews from the increasingly nationalistic German press. Despite all the difficulties, Happy End was performed again and again in Europe after the Second World War , for the first time in Munich in 1958. Other successful productions were, for example, in London in 1965 ( Royal Court Theater ), at the Yale Repertory Theater in 1972 (US) and in Frankfurt 1983.

On May 7, 1977 Happy End celebrated its premiere in a slightly modified form based on the American musical tradition on Broadway ( Martin Beck Theater ) and was performed 75 times by July 10 of the same year. The directors Robert Kalfin and Patricia Birch , as well as the actors of the time Christopher Lloyd , Grayson Hall and Meryl Streep were involved .

Despite the comparatively low number of performances, some songs penned by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht were also able to assert themselves in popular music through numerous cover versions, above all the " Surabaya Johnny ", the " Bilbao Song ", the " Sailor Tango " and the " Song of Mandalay ".

text

  • Dorothy Lane: Happy ending. Adapted for the theater by Elisabeth Hauptmann. Songs by Bertolt Brecht, stage manuscript, Berlin 1929
  • Elisabeth Hauptmann: Juliet without Romeo. Stories. Pieces. Essays. Memories. 252 pp., Aufbau-Verlag, 1st edition 1977, pp. 65-135

Film adaptations

  • Manfred Wekwerth: "Happy End." Screenplay based on the comedy by Dorothy Lane (Elisabeth Hauptmann), 1976
  • Happy End or How a Little Salvation Army Girl brought Chicago's greatest criminals back into the arms of society, made-for-TV film 1972, directed by Heinz Schirk ; Production: Südwestfunk (SWF)
  • "America's Musical Theater" 1985, authors: Michael Feingold, Elisabeth Hauptmann (1 episode 1985), Scott Joplin, production: WGBH Educational Foundation, distribution: WGBH Educational Foundation (1985) (USA) (TV)
  • Happy End, TV film 1990, João Lourenço and Vera San Payo de Lemos (translators), Radiotelevisão Portuguesa (RTP), Portugal

Secondary literature and reviews

  • John Fuegi: Brecht & Co. Biography, Authorized extended and corrected German version by Sebastian Wohlfeil , ISBN 3-434-50067-7
  • Paula Hanssen, Elisabeth Hauptmann: Brecht's Silent Collaborator . New York (Peter Lang) 1995, 173 pages, ISBN 3-906753-11-5
  • Hiltrud Häntzschel : Brecht's women . 314 pages, Rowohlt Tb. 1/2003, ISBN 978-3-499-23534-4
  • Sabine Kebir : I didn't ask for my share. Elisabeth Hauptmann's work with Bertolt Brecht. Berlin (Aufbau-Verlag) 1997, 292 pages, ISBN 3-7466-8058-1 (also documents Elisabeth Hauptmann's diaries from 1926)
  • Astrid Horst, Klaus Völker: Prima inter pares. Elisabeth Hauptmann - Bertolt Brecht's employee. 95 pages, Königshausen & Neumann 1997, ISBN 978-3-88479-685-6
  • Tobias Lachmann: And the whole thing ends happily / of course. Gangsters, girls and financial affairs in Elisabeth Hauptmann's comedy 'Happy End'. In: Rüdiger Sareika (ed.): Grace does not save effort. On the rediscovery Bertolt Brechts , Iserlohn 2005, pp. 135–170. ISBN 3-931845-92-3 [1]
  • Jan Knopf : Sex for text. Instructions for founding a company or How the American literary scholar John Fuegi once deciphered the sheets of the poet Bertolt Brecht . In: Concrete. Politics and Culture, Issue 10, October 1994, pp. 53–55.
  • John Willett: Bacon without Shakespeare? - The problem of cooperation. In: Brecht-Jahrbuch 12, 1985, ISBN 3-88377-349-2
  • Germany: happy ending. Time Magazine US, September 16, 1929

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ GBA vol. 28, letters 1, p. 320f.
  2. ↑ Bertolt Brecht, Dorothy Lane, Michael Feingold: Happy end: a melodrama with songs . Samuel French, New York 1982, ISBN 0-573-68190-2 .