Señora Carrar's Rifles

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Señora Carrar's Rifles (Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar) is a one-act play by the twentieth-century German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. This play is more traditionally constructed than much of Brecht's epic theater. Brecht wrote the play in 1937 and it received its first theatrical production in the same year, opening in Paris on the 16th October. This production was directed by Slatan Dudow and Helene Weigel played Señora Carrar. The play is a modern version of the Irish dramatist Synge's play Riders to the Sea (1904).^[1]

The play's action is switched from Ireland to Spain during the height of the Civil War. Teresa Carrar, the mother, wants to protect her children but ends up fighting on the side of the oppressed. The play is written entirely in the Aristotelian mode and uses dramatic illusion, prose dialogue and a non-epic structure.

Senora Carrar's Rifles became the most frequently performed play in the GDR because it violated Brecht's anti-empathetic theories and conformed to the "approved" model of dramatic form.

[edit] Works cited

• Willett, John. 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third ed. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413 34360 X.
• Calabro, Tony. Bertolt Brecht and the Art of Dissemblance. 1990, Longwood Academic.

[edit] References

v • d • e The Plays of Bertolt Brecht Baal • Drums in the Night • The Beggar • A Wedding • Driving Out a Devil • Lux in Tenebris • The Catch • In The Jungle of Cities • Edward II • Man Equals Man • Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer • The Elephant Calf • Little Mahagonny • The Threepenny Opera • The Flight across the Ocean • The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent • Happy End • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny • Der Jasager / Der Neinsager • The Decision • Saint Joan of the Stockyards • The Exception and the Rule • The Mother • Kuhle Wampe • The Seven Deadly Sins • Round Heads and Pointed Heads • The Horatians and the Curiatians • Fear and Misery of the Third Reich • Señora Carrar's Rifles • Life of Galileo • How Much Is Your Iron? • Dansen • Mother Courage and Her Children • The Trial of Lucullus • Mr Puntila and his Man Matti • The Good Person of Szechwan • The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui • Hangmen Also Die! • The Visions of Simone Machard • The Duchess of Malfi • Schweyk in the Second World War • The Caucasian Chalk Circle • Antigone • The Days of the Commune • The Tutor • Die Verurteilung des Lukullus • Report from Herrnburg • Coriolanus • Joan of Arc • Turandot • Don Juan • Trumpets and Drums