In the thicket of the cities

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Data
Title: In the thicket of the cities
Original language: German
Author: Bertolt Brecht
Publishing year: 1921-1924
Premiere: May 9, 1923
Place of premiere: Residenztheater in Munich
Place and time of the action: Beginning of the 20th century
people
  • Shlink , timber merchant
  • George Garga , bookseller
  • John Garga George Garga's father
  • Mae Garga , George Garga's mother
  • Marie Garga , his sister
  • Skinny , Chinese official
  • Collie couch , pimp
  • J. Finnay (the worm), pimp
  • Pat Manky , first officer
  • Salvation Army officer
  • The blunt nose
  • The saloonkeeper
  • C. Maynes

In the Thicket of Cities is a drama by Bertolt Brecht .

This early work by Brecht was created between 1921 and 1924. The premiere of the first version under the title Im Dickicht took place on May 9, 1923 in the Munich Residenztheater and became a scandal; the second version with the final title was staged in 1927 by Carl Ebert at the Hessian State Theater in Darmstadt .

action

In this piece, Brecht focuses on the fight between two men in the huge city of Chicago. During the years of its creation, Brecht was very interested in the phenomenon of the boxing match .

For no apparent reason, the timber merchant Shlink, who comes from what is now Malaysia , provokes George Garga, who is employed in the lending library, and thus gets into a heated argument with him. The shop where Garga works is damaged and Garga is fired. However, Garga takes revenge by destroying Shlink's timber business, which he leaves to him. Then he wants to go to Tahiti to be free; Since Shlink is now drawing Garga's family into the fight, Garga has to give up this plan.

Garga's girlfriend Jane and his sister Marie are now forced into prostitution by Shlink and his friends from the underworld. However, Garga is not deterred and takes Jane as his wife regardless of her lost honor. However, Shlink now claims to the authorities that Garga is a rogue, so that he has to go to jail, which also robs his family of solidarity.

Now Garga begins not only to defend himself through his own actions, but shortly before his release from three-year imprisonment, reports Shlink to the rape of his sister Marie, so that Shlink has to hide in a thicket, because he fears that he will be lynched as a stranger and the accused become. But now the fight turns into a strange mutual bondage relationship, because both take flight together. Shlink wants to hand over his rebuilt timber trade to Garga and confesses his love to him. However, when Garga is unwilling to make reconciliation, Shlink takes poison. Garga burns down the lumber shop and goes to New York.

Interpretative approach

Here Brecht does without a realistically comprehensible action; Obviously, his main concern was to show the involvement of two men in their struggle, which as such is at the center of the play.

literature

Text output

  • Bertolt Brecht: In the thicket of the cities. The fight between two men in the huge city of Chicago . Play by Bertolt Brecht. Berlin: Propylaeen-Verlag, 1927.

Secondary literature

  • In the thicket of the cities . First version and materials Bertolt Brecht. Edited and commented by Gisela E. Bahr. Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp-Verlag, 1968.
  • Ján Demčišák: Queer Reading by Brecht's early work , Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8288-2995-4 .

Web links